In the Library, Part Two

My second of three dispatches as unofficial Writer-in-Residence at Portland's Central Library is now live on the Oregonian website.

I headed across the second-floor rotunda to the Business and Science Library and entered the stacks. A patron was crouched before a bottom shelf pulling books, inspecting them, tucking some underarm, replacing others. What happens amid these aisles is something sensorial, something personal because essentially physical. Neither I nor anyone I know will ever search Google for every title, author, scientific discovery, or school of thought contained in the Central Library, but here, because they've been arranged all together at arm's length, we will certainly happen upon some. The library is meticulously organized but breeds chance discoveries. It's public and yet serene. You're never alone in the library, but your privacy is safer than almost anywhere. ...

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