The Enoch Pratt Free Library Tour

Last week's tour of the central branch of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Free Library was amazing. Talk about treasure in every room.... I took the "All-Day Tour" (and it really did take all day) which encompassed all the main sections of the library including a look at some of the behind-the-scenes areas.









The tour started in the Humanities Department, where I could have spent all day just looking at reference books like What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, The Supernatural Literature of the World and the American Film Institute three-volume reference set, to say nothing of issues of TV Guide going back to 1957. There's even a film media specialist on the staff.

(Can you hear me going ga-ga in the back of the room?)










On to Special Collections where we saw rare books, archival manuscripts, Maryland imprints, vintage World War II posters and aisles and aisles of stuff we didn't have nearly enough time to investigate. In the back (pictured here) I jotted down a few titles such as what appeared to be an original copy of Gastronomic Bibliography, a four-volume set of books on catering management, and an early edition (possibly a first) of Among the Cotton Thieves (1857).

On to the African American Department, the Maryland Department, Business, Science and Technology, Periodicals, Children's, Fine Arts, Social Science and History....

Okay, I have to stop. I'm getting dizzy just thinking about it all.

I came away from the Pratt Library with two things: (Actually three if you count the library card I was issued.)

These guys are good. Everyone at Pratt is a specialist in their area, which really is necessary for a major metropolitan library system's main branch. Everyone at my library (and in our system) is pretty much a generalist. That's not to say that each of us doesn't have an area of expertise, but we're not hired based on that expertise. We all have to do everything from reference to children's to Storytime to homework help to computer maintenance.

I enjoy that. I like learning new things and being a generalist guarantees that you'll learn something new everyday. Yet after listening to the Pratt librarians, I now realize just how much there is to know, especially for a generalist.

Second, these guys are approachable and eager to help. "We want your phone calls," they each said over and over. "Please call us." These people really love what they do and are eager to share their knowledge with patrons who want and need it. I never got the feeling that any of these people were arrogantly spouting what they know, but rather are genuinely eager to help. That's a great resource to have.

Other fun stuff found at Pratt:

250,000 fiction titles
60,000 books just about Maryland
2500 maps of Maryland
Sears catalogs (regular and Christmas editions) going back to 1929
Fun titles such as If We Can Keep a Severed Head Alive..., We Never Went to the Moon, The Encyclopedia of Western Gunfighters, and a 1916 book called Facts about Georgia in the shape of Georgia.