At the Library: View Into the Stacks

I spent my Friday at an all-day work event at the libraries. During breaks in the day, I had the opportunity to wander around and take pictures. I love photographing interior spaces, and the library has some very interesting rooms with great shapes and light. I'm including several photos I took there.

The photo above is the stacks, of course. It's an area with low ceilings and aisle after aisle of shelved books. There are timers at the end of each aisle for the overhead electric lights. Remember how it feels when the lights go out on you while you are standing there!

I know some people think the stacks are kind of creepy (Penn State did have a famous - and unsolved - murder in the stacks many years ago), but they seem very cozy to me. What a great feeling: to be surrounded by so many books! Here's a link to an exterior view of the stacks from a prior blip.

I am also a big fan of the room that the students refer to as the Harry Potter room. (Wingardium Leviosa!) It's actually the Paterno Humanities Reading Room on the second floor of Penn State's Pattee Library. I'm including both a color photo of the room, showing all of the pretty green lamps, and a monochrome version showing a beautiful slant of light through the far window. (Which reminds me of that Emily Dickinson poem, of course!)

Aren't libraries cool!?!

The song is Elvis Costello and the Attractions, with Every Day I Write the Book.