The Other Library

ALL THE WHILE that the Carnegie Free Public Library brought culture and information and just plain entertainment to the residents of my home town, The Other Library there also provided the inhabitants with information and entertainment. This latter institution was far more powerful, all‐knowing, and, if the truth be told, more popular with its patrons, for all its sometimes shoddiness, than ‘Mister Carnegie's Lib'ary’. It never shut down, not even on holidays or Sundays, and its operations were as busy before 9 a.m. and after 9 p.m. as the Public Library was during that twelve‐hour stretch of community service. It had no librarian to keep it in order and cost no money at all to maintain, nor did folk have to mind their p's and q's to reap its benefits. The Other Library was Smalltown Gossip.