Miss Malone (with Miss Adams)

I can remember few birthdays more clearly than the hot August day in 1952 when I got my own library card.  The card was issued, kindly but sternly, by Miss Elizabeth Malone, the Amazon of Jonesboro.  She looked nothing like Wonder Woman or Jeff Bezos, but in my six-year-old world she had more power than either.  A trim woman of indeterminate age--I think she must have been set on a sort permanent 41--she instilled in me a fear of keeping library books out past their due date that remains with me still.  Not really so much a fear as a feeling of utter shame that I might possibly commit such an atrocity.  The moral failing of such an act was much greater than the two cents a day fine that I think was imposed then.  Any statement of Miss Malone seemed to have behind it the full authority of the entire collection of books in the Jonesboro Public library. In those days, the building was red brick.  It has been since painted:

Miss Malone and  her assistant, Miss Adams--librarians in those days didn't seem to need husbands; they were a sort of secular nun--also functioned as Google.  They maintained the search engine, which was a card catalogue in what seemed to me at the time a huge set of oak drawers, and they made recommendations about what I might like next based on my browsing history.  And, they were correct more often, it seems in hind sight, than any modern algorithm.  I don't know whether they were as helpful to all the users of the library.  I always felt like a special patron there, and I like to think that they made everyone feel the same way.  In those days the little box one hast to click to say that one is 18 or over was the stairs.  The adult books were upstairs.  I was allowed to access the adult material earlier than my legal age.  Imagine, an eleven-year-old kid reading Alexander Dumas unexpurgated.  But I was not the only privileged kid allowed to go upstairs.   Cindy Dewitt was the only other kid I ewer met upstairs, but I assume there must have been more.

Miss Malone was not just Amazon and Google of my early days, she was also my LnkedIn.  One of my first jobs was as the janitor for the library.  And then, I got to drive the Bookmobile.  Of course Jefff Bezos' Amazon was far in the future, so that was a connection I did not make about Misses Malone and Adams.  (I think Miss Adams' Christian name was Vanessa, but I only knew one person brash enough to call her anything but Miss Adams, and my memory is slippery.)  As we wandered the gravel roads to the small farms of rural Craighead County,  I got to hear the stories of the adventures of the two Misses,  The Bookmobile librarian was usually Miss Adams, but occasionally Miss Malone would make the trip to deliver soft porn to the few dozen farm wives we served on those gravel roads.  I don't remember any of the details of their stories, I just remember that they were awesome.

I also had the privilege of helping to move the library to its new digs, a sort of vaulted version of the Barcelona Pavilion, with buff brick replacing marble.

Miss Malone's involvement in the design of that building showed how wide her interests and knowledge were.  She worked diligently with the trustees and with the architect, Aubrey Scott, to build what I still consider a masterpiece.  It introduced me to many of the masters of modern design.  Unfortunately, the building has been remodeled out of its original wonder, with boring boxes replacing the dynamic variety of spaces in Scott's building,   But I think the Misses would be happy that the Bookmobile now has a fitting carport.