Mistress of the House of Books

On the east side of the John Adams Building, facing Third Street, was an entrance. It used to feature three pairs of bronze doors. Sculpted upon these doors were the names and standing forms of heroes and gods. The same six figures for the pairs on either side, with a different half-dozen for the middle pair. Twelve unique figures in all. Hope, perhaps, in an astrological nod?

Though they’d been replaced with modern glass doors with similar images -- to bring the building up to code -- these bronze ones survived by being mounted upon the walls inside. The woman walking through the entryway liked bronze. It brought her back to the old days of her homeland. One of the doors featured her consort, Thoth.

She approached the service desk. More inevitable than slow, her stride was like the world gliding beneath her. It was a progression of will instead of movement. Not far from bronze, her skin had a caramel tone. Her form had no sheen of sweat, oil, or makeup -- yet it commanded the light. She wore black suede pumps with gold ankle straps. Her skirt suit was azure, accented with a gold necklet displaying a seven-pointed palm leaf. Straight bangs spread into a night that flowed over her shoulders. More than mere silk, it gleamed as with starlight even mid-day. Firm of poise and tall, it was hard to tell if she was athletic, commanding, or both.

“Welcome to the Library of Congress!” the receptionist said. “How may I…?” She looked up into obsidian eyes and descended into awareness. Describing the moment later, she would find it hard to express, but she simply knew while she looked. She was aware of the dimensions of the building, of the room, of her person in a way that made clumsiness impossible. Even the recor-

“Altagracia, your Selecting Official, will see me,” the woman in azure began. It would have been an interruption, but the receptionist stopped a fraction of a section beforehand -- as though reaching the end of a territory of voice. Regal without a crown, the new arrival spoke with a rich Egyptian-Arabic accent. Half-lilting rolls brought out her “R” and her throaty resonance gave the consonants pyramidal dimension. More than anything, though, her tone stood out: information leapt to her, rather than subject her to the indignity of seeking.

Blinking and rustling, the receptionist said, “Excuse me, yes, of course. Apologies, but who shall I say…?”

“Selma,” she said, and enjoined herself to hide her displeasure at such an alias. She needed a name these people would believe.

“Do you have an appointment?” was what the receptionist should have said. At the least, she should have checked. Yet she’d already connected with the Interview Panel through her headset. “A Selma for the position of…?” she proceeded with the answer: “Information Architecture Specialist.” Then she shocked herself: “No, but you’re to meet her at reception. She shouldn’t be kept waiting.”

Then “Selma” had the waiting area provide her with a seat. It was not long before the three members of the Interview Panel presented themselves. The receptionist looked down and blushed hard upon their arrival, and Altagracia was prepared to lance her through with her gaze. Instead, she made a beeline to the woman of power.

“Thank you for coming, Selma. I am Altagracia. Delighted to meet you.” They clasped hands and the azure woman shook her, though not in any way she had words for.

Altagracia was a woman of Dominican descent, anglophone but with hints of Spanish like musical notes on loan. She had chestnut skin and chocolate cherry hair that ended an inch below the ears and teased out the symmetry of her round face, prominent cheeks, and button nose. Flanking her were two white men working upon portable screens.

“How tablets have changed,” Selma remarked with an ivory smile.

Unbeknownst to these people, their very response to her was a gift she prized. Now she was again the Mistress of the House of Books. Obscurity had been a kind of atonement. “Why don’t I rejoin you once we’ve had a bit of a tour?” she said to the men. Her accent gave her “D” a “Z” sound. “You’ll appreciate the opportunity to collect yourselves, and we’ll have achieved the preliminaries.” She nodded to Altagracia with that last.

“I was thinking just that,” one of them said. The other merely offered a bony smile.

The women were soon on their way, the tablets connecting the men to their next responsibilities.

For much of the walk, Selma pointed out the structures, rooms, artwork, arrangements, and personnel. As they entered the South Reading Room, Altagracia remarked, “I have to wonder who’s touring and who’s guiding.”

“Knowledge grants its power through use, not possession,” the Egyptian pointed out. “You could have quizzed applicants on LCSH, the library’s indices, or information literacy principles through an online form.”

“Agreed,” the Dominican replied. “You certainly have the philosophy we need. But I get the impression that your experiences have been, shall we say, transformative?”

Selma regarded the other woman, and never missed a stride as she set a book in its proper place on her other side. “We shall say that. It’s a shame that the flow of information has become both tactical and whimsical. Even the gods need guidance, it seems.”

Altagracia, recovering self-possession with every step, raised her eyebrows. “Would that be so bad?”

“Honestly,” the woman in azure answered with thin, curled lips, “there were those who needed putting in their place.”

Altagracia already had assertive shoulders, and her smile was more in her hands than her face. Approval through action. Selma was pleased. The Selecting Official moved things along: “Shall we discuss the industrialization of information?”

“Do you mean the Industrial Revolution or the Information Age?”

“Some would argue they’re not so different,” Altagracia replied. She waved over one of the librarians in Collections Development, offering mutual greetings but touching base over an unrelated matter. Selma tolerated the interruption with class, though she disapproved of the strategy it represented. They had important work to do, and power was transformative. It shouldn’t be wasted on games.

Selma spoke as they resumed their tour: “Too true. Both sides of it could be explored for days without scratching the surface, and there is such a terrible amount to gain.”

Altagracia’s expression was unreadable to most. Many would have preferred a frown to that.

Selma, however, was in a house of learning. Her element. She continued: “Even were we to walk the entire property -- including the other buildings -- we would have to confine our terms. Do we talk about the ethics of information dissemination? The Enlightenment and the rise of public education? Perhaps the methodology? I could trace us through Dewey, and the odd idea that the cosmos groups into tens. Naturally, I expect we’ll get into indexing, subject analysis, classification, and the like.”

“Of course. My colleagues, the Subject Matter Experts, will be a part of that discussion.” Altagracia stepped up to the door leading out of the North Reading Room; they’d circled the western side of the building by this point. It registered that she’d forgotten to remonstrate the receptionist for the inappropriately demanding tone with which the Interview Panel had been summoned. By now, though, she felt that that would have been unfair; this Selma would be the one to answer for the whole affair. The Selecting Official had to admit -- inwardly -- that this was at least a change of pace.

She held the door open and turned her palm out to invite her compelling guest to pass. “We’ll likely break down the Subject Headings,” she continued, meaning LCSH. They were used internationally, even in translation, and obviously held pride of place at the Library of Congress. Altagracia never skipped a beat: “... as well as the legalities of the industry and, naturally, our departments, affiliates, and liaisons.”

“Naturally,” Selma replied. They climbed a staircase as their discussion compelled her to recall the era of her descent. Even worship changed, as the introduction of gods like Serapis shifted Egyptian faith into Greek leanings. But no, that was earlier. “What would you say created the Internet?”

Altagracia glanced at this unusual woman in surprise. How had this Egyptian found her way to the Library of Congress? Selma hadn’t asked who, but what. And it sounded like the sort of question that she could use with the Interview Panel -- she made a mental note -- not one that an applicant was in a position to ask. “I’ll be interested in your answer to that rather open question when we’ve convened,” she answered.

Selma’s poise was split through by that, like the River Nile bringing hardship and growth. She adjusted her necklet to compose herself. “I was still discussing the connection between industrialization and the Information Age,” she clarified. Altagracia nodded acknowledgment. “Obviously, how we couch information in all its forms stems heavily from history. I take a great interest in it.”

“I absolutely agree,” the Selecting Official responded. She was uncomfortable with herself; why was she entertaining this... guest? “In the interest of time, though, I expect we’ll be concentrating upon the Internet in the light of issues like findability and the unique behaviours of digital end users.”

The Internet had been the azure woman’s personal abyss. Scribes and an illiterate public, bridged by stories, songs, and the Book of the Dead scrawled upon tombs and pyramids? That bottleneck had made a kind of sense. The scroll, the Pharaoh, and time were her information tools. But had it really been the tools that changed?

She could take power now. Here was her altar of the scroll.

“As is only right,” Selma said to this woman, so much like her priests of old. “We all of us have important work to do, and time simply isn’t what it used to be.”

“You seem to have a passion for the cryptic,” Altagracia remarked with a smile, attempting to signal that it wasn’t a criticism. Uneventfully traversing the Folger Shakespeare library and covering the next set of stairs, they were now reaching the third floor.

“Isn’t that our calling? To decrypt people, or help them with…” and there were so many endings to that.

“To help them with...” Altagracia said, musing in depth for the first time in the discussion. “You might say that’s what pulled me out of the Bronx.”

“I, too, have travelled far,” Selma remarked. As the Selecting Official noticed that no part of this woman ever seemed to need adjustment, the applicant noticed that Altagracia tidied her suit jacket a third time.

“I can only imagine!” With that, the interviewer brightened. “It was tempting to travel farther. To experiment or conduct interviews. Read even more. Explore. You know, to... teach myself about teaching,” Altagracia said. It was a relief, though she couldn’t have said from what. Perhaps it was simply connecting with a kindred spirit.

“Or to study the students, maybe,” Selma replied. She was genuinely commiserating. “One of the challenges that brought me up to the line. Or took me home. Took me from home? It is hard to say. At any rate, the challenge of accepting the student as the one in power. Pharaoh as tabula rasa.” Shocked at herself, she realized she was bordering on heresy.

“You know, that -- more than anything else -- has me excited for our proper interview,” Altagracia said. She had no idea how hard her words slapped Selma across a metaphorical cheek. Her aura, her knowledge, her influence hadn’t shifted this mortal from her systems? A chasm fissured before her, its emptiness the size of judgments, impressions, and intentions. It was bridged by a resume and relationship development.

They were in hallways now. They’d even ceased to mark the floors. One of the women was lost.

“It’s refreshing,” Altagracia said suddenly. She’d been enjoying the building and her companion. Comfortable silence. “I don’t often experience uncomplicated camaraderie with someone who just... gets it. Are you on LinkedIn? I have some projects in mind that I’d be delighted to discuss over coffee, interview aside.”

Meaning: even if you aren’t chosen for the position.

Altagracia was so ignorant that she thought herself in the position of knowledge here; the expert and leader. Worse still, she might not have been wrong. Selma knew then that she’d crossed a threshold of some kind. An adventure for a calling, potentially -- though she didn’t know herself what precisely she meant by that thought. It was wisdom as instinct.

She’d used the wrong silence, and had to recover. “Yes, of course, I’ll be happy to give you my Internet relations later.” The other woman’s brow furrowed. “E-mail, social media, websites and online reports…” Selma rolled her hand as she listed her clarifications. “And coffee would be my pleasure,” she said.

She was pained.

This place was a worldwide landmark and repository of documents, books, art, and information. Its systems were so robust that it had developed universally applicable methods for the sorting of things by subject. The aboutness of it all. So robust that navigating the Internet was shaped by these relationships. She related more to the Internet than even Altagracia, despite how abyssal it could be.

Answers to virtually every question. What had it produced? A catalogue of information so vast that public health emergencies could look like conspiracies. Flatness in the earth. Disease prevention had microchips. “Tremendous” just didn’t mean what it used to. Was this the wrong temple for her, like firing a tank to get rid of weeds in her garden? Could the quantity of information destroy its quality, or was the answer in industry that was greater still?

How long had she been sitting here?

“The Interview Panel will see you now,” said the secretary.