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That Time People Were Terrified of Libraries · Ridiculous History

0:00
Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
0:27
Speaker 1: back to the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always
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Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. Uh that's our super producer,
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Speaker 1: early one and only, Mr Max Williams. My name is
0:40
Speaker 1: Ben And who who is that? Lovely man, I see
0:44
Speaker 1: you on the other side of zoom call? Who is that? Who? Me?
0:47
Speaker 1: Litto me? That's me Noel Brown. Um, that's the first
0:51
Speaker 1: time I think I've said my last name on on
0:52
Speaker 1: the show. Maybe it's not. My last name is in
0:54
Speaker 1: fact Brown. I have a very distinct memory of being
0:58
Speaker 1: in school and I actually would walk after school. Um.
1:02
Speaker 1: It was in a little town called Augusta, Georgia, and
1:05
Speaker 1: located in the downtown area, and we would walk after
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Speaker 1: school to the library and hang out there until our
1:11
Speaker 1: parents were able to pick us up from the library.
1:14
Speaker 1: And it was a big, beautiful marble building. And that
1:17
Speaker 1: was when I first got into things like, uh, Michael
1:19
Speaker 1: Crichton and Stephen King and Dean Coots, you know, all
1:23
Speaker 1: the good trashy horror sci fi type stuff. And then
1:27
Speaker 1: a little later things like Kurt Vonnegutt and all that. Man.
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Speaker 1: I'm sure you have lovely library memories too, don't you.
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Speaker 1: I do, yes, I do know. I was a kid
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Speaker 1: who would do his best to live at libraries. Growing
1:42
Speaker 1: up as an only child, I didn't have nor desire
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Speaker 1: any friends, so I would I would hang out and
1:52
Speaker 1: the very very kind librarians that I hung out with
1:56
Speaker 1: would just sort of make up chores and then give me,
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Speaker 1: give mean free books that they were going to get
2:02
Speaker 1: rid of. Yeah, it was. It was really cool. Apprenticeship librarians.
2:06
Speaker 1: If you are hearing this, first thank you for giving
2:09
Speaker 1: you kids such wonderful summers. And secondly, I'm sorry that
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Speaker 1: I did not, in fact to grow up to be
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Speaker 1: a librarian. It's tough. You gotta get up masters in
2:17
Speaker 1: library science. Like, if you see a librarian, be nice
2:20
Speaker 1: to them because they're doing it's it's a passion project. Max.
2:24
Speaker 1: What what about you, man? What's your what's your library vibe? Like?
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Speaker 1: Growing up? So, library vibe was a thing I I
2:31
Speaker 1: I guess I had in my life. Um, you know,
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Speaker 1: we would go to the local library, especially back when
2:36
Speaker 1: we live in Michigan more so, but you know, as
2:38
Speaker 1: a kid, you know, as it was a free resource
2:41
Speaker 1: for us to use. So you don't go there, get
2:43
Speaker 1: down those really antiquated computers even for the time they
2:46
Speaker 1: are antiquated, and you know, type into that really awful
2:50
Speaker 1: search system to try to find something that never worked
2:52
Speaker 1: and then go find it myself. Yeah. Yeah, with the
2:55
Speaker 1: card catalog, that micro fish. We'll see you know, the
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Speaker 1: three of us and hopefully you fellow ridiculous historian. We
3:03
Speaker 1: were really lucky to have those those childhood experiences in libraries.
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Speaker 1: But there was a time not too long ago when
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Speaker 1: our parents would have been seen as very irresponsible for
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Speaker 1: letting us get anywhere near a library. Because today's episode
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Speaker 1: is about something called the Great Book Scare, which seriously
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Speaker 1: kept people out of libraries for almost fifty years. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and it's not too far off from some of the
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Speaker 1: fears that we're dealing with right now in our post
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Speaker 1: COVID world. Because this was not a you know, banned
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Speaker 1: book situation. This was not a Farenheit forty one dystopian
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Speaker 1: future where like books were considered to be seditious or
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Speaker 1: in some ways, you know, infecting the minds of the youth. No,
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Speaker 1: this is about a different kind of infection, an actual
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Speaker 1: infection that you really could get several in fact, by
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Speaker 1: touching stuff small box scarlet fever and tuberculosis, the old triumvira.
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Speaker 1: So the idea of passing around community property or things
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Speaker 1: that were you know, borrowed and handled and passed around
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Speaker 1: the different folks was terrified. So it actually was an
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Speaker 1: attitude that persevered for around forty years. The idea that
4:22
Speaker 1: even after these these diseases have been dealt with again,
4:25
Speaker 1: like we're dealing with now, I think there are going
4:27
Speaker 1: to be things that have happened as a result of
4:29
Speaker 1: COVID that are going to continue to be with us
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Speaker 1: for some time. Oh absolutely. And we want to give
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Speaker 1: a shout out to Andrew McClary uh and his work
4:40
Speaker 1: in the Journal of Library History called but Where the
4:42
Speaker 1: Deadly Books I've Forgotten? Episode in Library History. This has
4:47
Speaker 1: also been written about in Bustle, in Smithsonian mag and
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Speaker 1: in Mental Floss. You nailed it well, You absolutely nailed it.
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Speaker 1: For people who remember the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic,
5:00
Speaker 1: one thing you probably heard pretty often was speculation about
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Speaker 1: how long the virus could remain on a given surface,
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Speaker 1: how long it could remain not metal versus paper, versus
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Speaker 1: wood versus plastic, things like that, And people thought during
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Speaker 1: a number of diseases and public health epidemics. People were
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Speaker 1: certain that books could be a vector for disease. Our
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Speaker 1: story really starts well the guy named W. F. Pool.
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Speaker 1: He was a librarian in Chicago, and he was at
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Speaker 1: a library director's meeting in eighteen seventy nine when he said,
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Speaker 1: I've heard people asking whether books can transmit disease as
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Speaker 1: effectively as any other inanimate object. No one really knew
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Speaker 1: the answer, and no one had really heard of the
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Speaker 1: question before at this meeting. So old WF. Mr Pool
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Speaker 1: writes to the foremost medical authorities in the United States,
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Speaker 1: and then he also writes to librarians at the largest
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Speaker 1: libraries in the country, and he asked them the same question.
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Speaker 1: He gets nineteen replies, and only one person was ever
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Speaker 1: able to say that at least heard of a disease
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Speaker 1: being transmitted by a book. It was Surgeon General Dr
6:24
Speaker 1: John S. Billings, who didn't confirm this had happened. He said,
6:28
Speaker 1: you know, I heard about something kind of like this,
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Speaker 1: maybe in London. And then the other eighteen people who
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Speaker 1: right back, they say, well, I guess it could happen,
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Speaker 1: but it doesn't seem likely. You know a lot of
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Speaker 1: these people are librarians. They're like, I deal with books
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Speaker 1: all the time, and I don't have smallpox, I don't
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Speaker 1: have scarlet fever, so maybe. And then some doctors come
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Speaker 1: in and they're trying to sort of so in the
6:55
Speaker 1: middle ground right there, saying, Okay, well how about this.
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Speaker 1: If you're a lie brarian, don't loan books out to
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Speaker 1: people who you know have smallpox or tuberculosis, where as
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Speaker 1: you said, well scarlet fever, just don't give books to
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Speaker 1: houses that have those people living in them, exactly. And
7:14
Speaker 1: then we have Dr Henry Lyman, who is coming out
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Speaker 1: against this and saying he's with Chicago's Rush Medical College, uh,
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Speaker 1: and he's coming out and saying that this is absolutely
7:26
Speaker 1: much ado about nothing. People are overreacting. He kind of
7:31
Speaker 1: snidely suggests hiring somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen thousand
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Speaker 1: quote sanitary policemen um to uh literally guard people from
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Speaker 1: entering these infected homes and to deliver children to uh
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Speaker 1: school in these glass cages, and to personally sterilize any
7:54
Speaker 1: of that's passing through the US postal system. But that
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Speaker 1: was it. He didn't he didn't really do very good
8:00
Speaker 1: job of quieting people's concerns because newspapers were all over
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Speaker 1: this and they were doing some serious fear mongering, uh
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Speaker 1: and specifically targeting these these disease spreading books. This is
8:13
Speaker 1: from Smithsonian Magazine, by the way, a fabulous article about
8:17
Speaker 1: the Great book Scare by Joseph Hayes. Were highly recommend
8:21
Speaker 1: checking it out in its entirety. We also have a
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Speaker 1: really telling quote from the Chicago Tribune that was published
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Speaker 1: on June eighteen, seventy nine talking about contracting all sorts
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Speaker 1: of diseases from these books. Um, you know, admittedly saying
8:36
Speaker 1: that the chances were small, and also it all depended
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Speaker 1: on the publication. You know, it's as far as the
8:41
Speaker 1: level of like fear mongering that was happening, um, but
8:44
Speaker 1: that it couldn't be ruled out certainly was possible, which
8:48
Speaker 1: you could argue was was was relatively um, thoughtful journalism,
8:52
Speaker 1: was relatively responsible way of reporting this. But then on
8:56
Speaker 1: November twelve, eighty six, you have the Perrysburg Journal saying
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Speaker 1: that books quote, books are one of the items to
9:03
Speaker 1: be removed from the rooms of the sick. Uh. So
9:07
Speaker 1: he's starting to pass around these little details. And then
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Speaker 1: the Ohio Democrats, says in the most extreme version of
9:14
Speaker 1: really trying to rop people up about this. The disease
9:16
Speaker 1: referring to scarlet fever has been spread by circulating libraries.
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Speaker 1: Picture books have been taken therefrom to amuse the patients
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Speaker 1: and returned without being disinfected. Wowsers might sound a little
9:35
Speaker 1: silly now, but we have to we have to remember
9:38
Speaker 1: that here at the beginning of the twentieth century, for
9:42
Speaker 1: a lot of people, life was terrified. The leaguing cause
9:46
Speaker 1: of death in the United States was tuberculosis, which they
9:49
Speaker 1: called either like consumption, white death or white plague. This
9:54
Speaker 1: disease was killing around about this time, This disease was
9:58
Speaker 1: killing four hundred and fifty people in the country a day,
10:02
Speaker 1: and they were across the gamut of ages fifteen to
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Speaker 1: forty four, and they were already really concerned about an incurable,
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Speaker 1: potentially fatal disease. And the idea of library books, which
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Speaker 1: was a very affordable, wonderful means of self education. Uh,
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Speaker 1: the idea that these could become a vector for disease
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Speaker 1: seemed very plausible and very real. And this is strange
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Speaker 1: because there's a lot of stuff that a lot of
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Speaker 1: people were touching on a daily basis, handles, right, robs,
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Speaker 1: things like that, and so library books got singled out
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Speaker 1: for a specific reason. The idea was that because library
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Speaker 1: books have multiple pages and every page is to surfaces,
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Speaker 1: that it could trap germs. They were aware of germ
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Speaker 1: theory that it could trap germs in pages, and that
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Speaker 1: when you open the book to like when you open
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Speaker 1: a book and you get that nice old book or
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Speaker 1: new book smell, that you could be inhaling germs just
11:07
Speaker 1: as easily. Or someone could be reading and they could
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Speaker 1: put uh cough, I guess sort of like a frog
11:15
Speaker 1: in that example, onto the paper and then that would
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Speaker 1: hold the germs. Also, let's not forget public libraries kind
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Speaker 1: of a new thing, because the public could be anybody.
11:27
Speaker 1: That's very true. Um, it's very true. It's very very
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Speaker 1: helpful resource for the community. But it's truely that you
11:32
Speaker 1: can't really exclude people, which probably really riled up members
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Speaker 1: of the upper crust that maybe thought that sort of
11:39
Speaker 1: the unwashed masses could potentially have handled a book that
11:43
Speaker 1: would then be passed on to, like, you know, their
11:45
Speaker 1: child or spouse or whatever, although many of them probably
11:48
Speaker 1: couldn't be bothered to go to a public librries because
11:51
Speaker 1: they would have their own libraries, you know, in their
11:54
Speaker 1: in their palatial estates. But then wouldn't a lot of
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Speaker 1: this have to do with a very um distinct misunderstanding
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Speaker 1: of how disease vectors work and how long they're able
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Speaker 1: to survive on surfaces and things like that. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: and not all diseases are created the same way. It
12:16
Speaker 1: was interesting because public libraries, like we said, they're kind
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Speaker 1: of new, so there are a lot of questions that
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Speaker 1: people have about them. You don't really know who checked
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Speaker 1: out the book before you. You might see a name
12:29
Speaker 1: written on the inside jacket in some cases, you know,
12:32
Speaker 1: with a little card, but you don't know that person
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Speaker 1: from Adam. You don't know them from a can of paint.
12:37
Speaker 1: And there was this cool article Smithsonian mag Quotes from
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Speaker 1: Night that was titled books as Disease Carriers from eighteen
12:46
Speaker 1: eighty to nineteen twenty, and people were worried that not
12:51
Speaker 1: only might they get these this trifective terrible diseases by
12:55
Speaker 1: inhaling book dust, but people were also worried they could
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Speaker 1: get can sir, like someone had cancer. They read a book,
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Speaker 1: You read the same book and boom, you have you
13:06
Speaker 1: have cancer. Now you have cancer, and you're being punished
13:10
Speaker 1: because you wanted to learn more about Shakespeare. That's what
13:12
Speaker 1: you get. That's your Midsummer's night dream. But this was
13:16
Speaker 1: this was alarmist, right, Um, this was alarmist. But again
13:20
Speaker 1: because people really were dying, and because libraries and the
13:24
Speaker 1: idea of commonly shared books across a large population was
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Speaker 1: a relatively new idea, this took hold. Concerns started in
13:33
Speaker 1: the US. But let's go back to our Surgeon General
13:36
Speaker 1: who said, I may have heard of a case like
13:38
Speaker 1: this at some point in London. People in England started
13:43
Speaker 1: having the same concerns around at the same time, at
13:48
Speaker 1: least according to Anaka Man, who's a professor Arizona State
13:51
Speaker 1: University and an author about this very event, reading contagion,
13:58
Speaker 1: the hazards of reading in the age of it. And
14:00
Speaker 1: then we really start to see this very reactionary UH
14:03
Speaker 1: legislation start to sweep the United Kingdom that was really
14:08
Speaker 1: trying to address what they saw as a very very
14:10
Speaker 1: serious public health problem. UH. And so they passed this
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Speaker 1: collection of laws called the Public Health Act of eighteen
14:18
Speaker 1: seventy five, And while it didn't specifically list library books
14:22
Speaker 1: or target the public library. It very specifically had this
14:26
Speaker 1: language in it. Quote it prohibited lending or borrowing, quote
14:30
Speaker 1: betting clothing, rags or other things that had been exposed
14:36
Speaker 1: to infection. So I think you see where this is going.
14:39
Speaker 1: Other things, it's about as broad as as you can imagine.
14:42
Speaker 1: Uh language too to get right. Other things is it's
14:50
Speaker 1: easy to interpret it. The other things are anything that
14:54
Speaker 1: is not explicitly betting clothing or rags. Seven, they update
14:59
Speaker 1: this beautile, full little law by saying, if you are suspected,
15:05
Speaker 1: not proven, but suspected of having an infectious disease, you
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Speaker 1: cannot borrow, lend, or return library books. You'll get fined
15:13
Speaker 1: up to forty shillings for each offense. That's around two
15:17
Speaker 1: oder bucks. So this is this is not small pocket
15:20
Speaker 1: money for a lot of people. And we know that
15:24
Speaker 1: this we we have this specific language of the law.
15:29
Speaker 1: We know that in the US there they were also
15:32
Speaker 1: trying to prevent the spread of epidemics through book lending.
15:36
Speaker 1: But being the US at this time, there wasn't a
15:40
Speaker 1: federal level law at this point, it was a state
15:44
Speaker 1: level thing, and most of according to mand most of
15:48
Speaker 1: the anxiety was centered around the concept of the book,
15:52
Speaker 1: the concept of the shared book, the concept of the library,
15:56
Speaker 1: which means, you know, who becomes kind of public enemy
15:59
Speaker 1: number one librarians. That's right, the librarian. All along this
16:05
Speaker 1: this did a worse public image number for librarians than Ghostbusters. Right,
16:11
Speaker 1: it's I'm I'm laughing because every single librarian that I've
16:16
Speaker 1: had the privilege meeting has has been a wonderful, knowledgeable
16:20
Speaker 1: and and passionate person. So of course, and you know,
16:23
Speaker 1: not to be put to find a point on the pun,
16:25
Speaker 1: but a bit bookish, So a little interview. Are they're
16:30
Speaker 1: out there doing God's work? There's no question, um yeah.
16:33
Speaker 1: And they also the time has got a bad rap
16:34
Speaker 1: for being a little pedantic and shushy. But again I
16:37
Speaker 1: blame Ghostbusters for that. Remember the shush It was like
16:40
Speaker 1: the opening scenes, like the cold open of the movie.
16:42
Speaker 1: And then that's one of the biggest jump scares that
16:44
Speaker 1: to this day still kind of freaks me out when
16:46
Speaker 1: she finally does the final shush and they don't shush,
16:49
Speaker 1: and uh, she turns into a spooky muppet monster and
16:52
Speaker 1: flies right at the screen and the Ghostbusters titles. I
16:58
Speaker 1: also want to shout out what a favorite. Since we're
17:01
Speaker 1: in that era film, I want to shout out one
17:03
Speaker 1: of my favorite librarian scenes in Indiana Jones and the
17:07
Speaker 1: Last Crusade when they're trying to get into the catacot
17:10
Speaker 1: that's hidden in that library and there's that librarian who
17:13
Speaker 1: temporarily thinks he has this amazing book stamp, because that's
17:17
Speaker 1: when India is not going to lose. It was just
17:20
Speaker 1: it was just a good It was it was a
17:21
Speaker 1: good It was a good spot. But what do you
17:23
Speaker 1: prefer Last Crusade or uh, Temple of Doom? Last Crusade?
17:28
Speaker 1: What about Raiders? What do you write before really quickly
17:33
Speaker 1: this is important stuff? Yeah, and uh, I want to
17:36
Speaker 1: use my lifeline to phone of friends here to get
17:39
Speaker 1: Max's opinion as well as your own. For me, Last Crusade,
17:44
Speaker 1: I that that is far and away my favorite, and
17:47
Speaker 1: then maybe Raiders. Actually, Temple of Doom is a little
17:51
Speaker 1: bit lower for me because although I love the the
17:54
Speaker 1: cult aspect and there's a little bit of supernatural in
17:57
Speaker 1: there as well, I don't know, even as a kid,
18:00
Speaker 1: the stuff they got wrong culturally kind of like, oh yeah,
18:03
Speaker 1: did not age well? The monkey brains and baby snakes
18:07
Speaker 1: and stuff and just that's that definitely didn't age well
18:09
Speaker 1: for me. I would say it would be Raiders. I'm sorry,
18:11
Speaker 1: it would be uh, Last Crusade Raiders mainly because of
18:15
Speaker 1: Sean Connery playing Indie's father. I love his role. And
18:18
Speaker 1: then Temple of Doom. Third, how about you, Max Um,
18:22
Speaker 1: I have only seen Get Out WHOA do not ostracize?
18:28
Speaker 1: We get pottery shards. No, Max says, we're gonna do
18:31
Speaker 1: what we're gonna get. We're gonna get together, We're gonna
18:33
Speaker 1: watch Last Crusade. It's awesome. But what about the crystal
18:39
Speaker 1: skull That doesn't even that doesn't even rank that that
18:42
Speaker 1: one does, that's not even in the conversation. Yeah, I
18:44
Speaker 1: don't knew that. I knew that would set you guys off. Okay,
18:47
Speaker 1: you know there's some stuff about the crystal skulls I liked.
18:50
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to spoil it. But yeah,
18:52
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't consider that cannon. Actually, but
18:57
Speaker 1: we want to hear your rank. It's what I um,
19:01
Speaker 1: we named the doll Indiana. Anyway, these books, you know,
19:06
Speaker 1: like Standard Delivery where he says these kids, Uh, this
19:11
Speaker 1: this idea of librarians being victimized of people in the
19:16
Speaker 1: US and people in England being already kind of anxious
19:22
Speaker 1: of the possibility that books might spread subversive or obscene ideas.
19:28
Speaker 1: This this is a perfect storm. But just like the
19:31
Speaker 1: weird advice you may have gotten about groceries, in the
19:34
Speaker 1: beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, people started trying to figure
19:40
Speaker 1: out ways to disinfect books. There is, um, there's a
19:46
Speaker 1: library in Sheffield, England, then plays a disinfection technique in
19:53
Speaker 1: using get this, carbolic acid crystals heated in an oven. Oh,
19:58
Speaker 1: that sounds scary. That sounds a little overdone, doesn't It
20:01
Speaker 1: sounds like could take the top layer of skin off
20:03
Speaker 1: while it disinfected you. Um, that's wild carbolic acid. Okay,
20:09
Speaker 1: I'm no uh chemist, but that definitely sounds like a
20:12
Speaker 1: little bit extreme. And in eighteen eight Great Britain was
20:16
Speaker 1: in the throes of a serious smallpox epidemic. And we
20:22
Speaker 1: do know that smallpox was insanely communicable, I mean really
20:26
Speaker 1: really virulent and transmit transmittable. Um, so you know some
20:30
Speaker 1: of the stuff maybe wasn't overkilled like I mean, we
20:32
Speaker 1: know that polio, for example, was something that could be
20:36
Speaker 1: transmitted to children through dolls or you know, like clothes
20:40
Speaker 1: and bedding and things like that. You see in uh
20:42
Speaker 1: period dramas a lot of times through that period where
20:45
Speaker 1: they had to like take everything out and burn it,
20:47
Speaker 1: you know, not just uh disinfected. It was that much
20:51
Speaker 1: of a panic. So I understand where all this is
20:54
Speaker 1: coming from. But as it starts to kind of, you know,
20:56
Speaker 1: outlive the pandemic itself, it starts to get a little interesting. Yeah. Yeah,
21:01
Speaker 1: and again you know, we're not ridiculing these people. These
21:05
Speaker 1: were genuine concerns and ASNAL said, smallpox very dangerous here.
21:10
Speaker 1: So people started giving the authorities list of all infected
21:16
Speaker 1: people that might have been interacting with the library. This
21:20
Speaker 1: is what we know now is contact tracing, and then
21:24
Speaker 1: they would find these folks and sees their books. If
21:29
Speaker 1: they weren't borrowing any books, then they would say, you
21:32
Speaker 1: can't borrow any other ones until your entire household is
21:35
Speaker 1: disease free. Back to w F Pool, he's still on
21:39
Speaker 1: the case. He is investigating the subject. He finds nine
21:47
Speaker 1: more doctors who say they know of diseases transmitted by books.
21:53
Speaker 1: One guy reports scarlet fever spread by book and letter
21:57
Speaker 1: to people the president of the Tennessee Word of Health
22:00
Speaker 1: and the Secretary of Massachusetts Board of Health site cases
22:04
Speaker 1: of smallpox spread by books. Professor Josephie Winters in City
22:10
Speaker 1: University of New York's Medical College says, you know what,
22:14
Speaker 1: we shouldn't remove people's right to knowledge. But if we
22:17
Speaker 1: have infected patients, let's just give them, you know, not
22:21
Speaker 1: the best books. Let's give them the kind of books
22:23
Speaker 1: we can just destroy after they're done with them, the
22:26
Speaker 1: kind that won't make the library the worse for wear.
22:30
Speaker 1: And he's another ascid guy. Well, he's like, you know
22:33
Speaker 1: what we should do to disinfect books? He looks around,
22:35
Speaker 1: He's like, you, guys, sulfuric acid gas. Right, we can
22:41
Speaker 1: we can only picture there's some there's some other people
22:43
Speaker 1: in the meeting where they're like, damn, Dr Winners, why
22:47
Speaker 1: do you keep pushing sulfuric acid gas is your solution
22:51
Speaker 1: for everything? I like to picture that. He was always
22:53
Speaker 1: pitching that maybe he had like a sideline and gas.
22:56
Speaker 1: What do you think? I don't know, man, It sounds
22:58
Speaker 1: like a secret satist. And it's a weird one though, man,
23:01
Speaker 1: because you know, even as they were doing this, they
23:04
Speaker 1: were they were comparing registers of the infected to library
23:08
Speaker 1: registers or you know, those with library cards and excluding
23:11
Speaker 1: people from checking out books. It still didn't really quell
23:15
Speaker 1: the like public you know, panic around it and the
23:18
Speaker 1: library system with like it was, like you said, Ben
23:20
Speaker 1: was still relatively new, was really starting to take a hit,
23:23
Speaker 1: and it really kind of got what could have been
23:25
Speaker 1: it's death blow UM in h eight in Nebraska when
23:30
Speaker 1: a woman named Jesse Allen died of the consumption. And
23:34
Speaker 1: this is something that happened all the time around you know,
23:36
Speaker 1: in that period. It was you know, again like it's
23:38
Speaker 1: something you see in in in period dramas all the time.
23:41
Speaker 1: People that and then you pull away the nap napkin
23:45
Speaker 1: or the hanky, and of course there's blood in it. Um.
23:48
Speaker 1: But this woman that happened to be the librarian or
23:52
Speaker 1: a library and at the Omaha Public Library, and with
23:55
Speaker 1: no real proof, public opinion assumed that her death, uh,
24:00
Speaker 1: they they ascribed it to the idea that she got
24:04
Speaker 1: it from an infected book. And we have a report
24:07
Speaker 1: from October of eight from the Library Journal UM that
24:11
Speaker 1: was published by the American Library Association. The death of
24:15
Speaker 1: miss Jesse Allen is doubly sad because of the excellent
24:18
Speaker 1: reputation which her work one for her, and the pleasant
24:21
Speaker 1: affection which all librarians who knew her had come to
24:25
Speaker 1: feel for her, and because her death has given rise
24:28
Speaker 1: to a fresh discussion as to the possibility of infection
24:32
Speaker 1: from contagious diseases through library books. See, this is like
24:43
Speaker 1: the kind of thing we've talked about recently on stuff
24:45
Speaker 1: they Don't want you to know, our other podcasts. How
24:48
Speaker 1: you know, you could argue that this is editorializing, right,
24:51
Speaker 1: This is the person is putting forth this notion is
24:54
Speaker 1: like planting the seed of infected library books, and that's
24:59
Speaker 1: all it takes. There's no scientific evidence here that that's
25:02
Speaker 1: what the cause was. It was just talking about. Now
25:04
Speaker 1: the conversation has started again around infected library book. There
25:09
Speaker 1: was already one that had been, you know, very much happening,
25:11
Speaker 1: So it kind of pushed things over the cliff, didn't it. Yeah.
25:15
Speaker 1: I think you're right, no, because it's almost as if
25:18
Speaker 1: the zeitgeist was waiting for a librarian specifically to die
25:24
Speaker 1: right now, and all of a sudden supports the logic
25:27
Speaker 1: of this idea. And we know that the Library Journal
25:30
Speaker 1: tried to quell or at least temper people's concerns, because
25:36
Speaker 1: they went on to say the following in the same article.
25:38
Speaker 1: Possibly there's some danger from this source. Since the bacillus
25:42
Speaker 1: was discovered, danger is found to lurk in places hitherto unsuspected.
25:46
Speaker 1: But the greater danger perhaps comes in overestimating this source
25:50
Speaker 1: of danger and frightening people into a nervous condition. That is, again,
25:54
Speaker 1: like I said, with that, it could happen, but it's unlikely.
25:58
Speaker 1: Type of journalism, it's probably be a little more measured
26:01
Speaker 1: and maybe a little less grabby and click baity, you know,
26:05
Speaker 1: the historical equivalent of click bay. But I would say
26:08
Speaker 1: this is the more measured and thoughtful approach. But people
26:11
Speaker 1: don't usually glom onto the more measured and thoughtful approach
26:14
Speaker 1: to their They don't, that's right. Uh. Despite good faith efforts,
26:20
Speaker 1: public libraries were unable to get this concern founded or unfounded,
26:25
Speaker 1: out of the public mind, and people kept going in
26:32
Speaker 1: the media and in you know, dinner and table conversation.
26:36
Speaker 1: The fear just escalated. And for all our fellow ridiculous
26:40
Speaker 1: historians who are asking, well, when did they start burning
26:44
Speaker 1: the books? Now is the time? In this story, it
26:48
Speaker 1: wasn't like people were already sterilizing books with chemicals by
26:53
Speaker 1: the nineteen hundreds, But eventually this escalated such that in
26:59
Speaker 1: Britain and in the US, people were burning books to
27:03
Speaker 1: prevent what they feared would be the spread of disease,
27:08
Speaker 1: and numerous doctors recommended that people burn contaminated quote unquote
27:14
Speaker 1: contaminated books. This was even featured in the Library Journal itself,
27:21
Speaker 1: a trade publication for librarians. It was like, hey, sometimes
27:26
Speaker 1: you know, I know you're a librarian, but sometimes you
27:28
Speaker 1: got to burn the book. Yeah, And it just got
27:30
Speaker 1: weirder ben um where they were literally beginning to do,
27:37
Speaker 1: you know, they didn't have the technology or the medical
27:39
Speaker 1: knowledge to truly trace these contagions sometimes, you know, especially
27:45
Speaker 1: if it was just suspected, you know, or again because
27:48
Speaker 1: of the how long do things actually stay viable, you know,
27:52
Speaker 1: when they're in a dry situation, like pressed between the
27:56
Speaker 1: pages of a book. It's not the same as like
27:58
Speaker 1: having like anthrax in a book. It's not just gonna
28:00
Speaker 1: like pop out at you like an envelope of anthrax,
28:03
Speaker 1: and then the spores that are live are gonna like
28:05
Speaker 1: go all over the room and like infect everybody. I
28:08
Speaker 1: mean these things, if placed there by an infected person,
28:12
Speaker 1: they cannot live. They kind of cannot remain viable in
28:16
Speaker 1: you know, forever, right, so they kind of the awareness
28:20
Speaker 1: was there that we need to do a little more
28:22
Speaker 1: research than this, but it just got so bizarre. Nineteen
28:25
Speaker 1: eleven and an article called the Disinfection of Books, this
28:29
Speaker 1: hysteria was absolutely uh escalated and pushed to the next level.
28:34
Speaker 1: This was by lb nice Uh and published in the
28:37
Speaker 1: Bulletin of the Medical Library Association. He said, books seem
28:40
Speaker 1: well adapted for carrying smallpox, measles, scarlet fever, trachoma, diphtheria,
28:47
Speaker 1: arrest less dysentery, typhoid, and tuberculosis. Yet so far as
28:52
Speaker 1: I have been able to find, no satisfactory method for
28:55
Speaker 1: the disinfection of books is being used anywhere in this country.
28:58
Speaker 1: Books are a particular diverse version of invalids and convalescence.
29:02
Speaker 1: In other words, saying that people that are like in
29:04
Speaker 1: the hospital have nothing to do past the time but
29:06
Speaker 1: read books. Therefore they are in much danger of becoming
29:09
Speaker 1: infective they being the books. So yeah, I mean, really
29:14
Speaker 1: fanning the flames here. He goes on to say, besides
29:16
Speaker 1: the danger of contamination in these ways, and in the
29:18
Speaker 1: ordinary handling of a book, many people persist in the
29:21
Speaker 1: uncleanly habits of moistening their fingers in their mouths when
29:26
Speaker 1: turning the page leaves, which is gross. It's on board,
29:32
Speaker 1: that's gross. But so uh yeah, this is this feels
29:39
Speaker 1: like an escalation and worry, but again it's coming from
29:42
Speaker 1: good intentions. One scientist, William R. Rennick, says, Okay, let's
29:47
Speaker 1: figure out if that really works. So he cuts out
29:49
Speaker 1: the dirtiest parts of pages from very well used library books,
29:55
Speaker 1: mixes the paper with silin center, fugues the liquid, and
30:00
Speaker 1: and injects it into forty guinea pigs. According to him,
30:04
Speaker 1: all forty of his test subjects died of Strep, tuberculosis
30:09
Speaker 1: and sepsis. And then other people were conducting experiments giving
30:14
Speaker 1: monkeys a drink of milk on a platter of what
30:19
Speaker 1: was thought to be contaminated literature. All these experiments, like
30:24
Speaker 1: you said, Nolan, real weird, But they came to one conclusion.
30:29
Speaker 1: The risk of infection from a book might be very small,
30:32
Speaker 1: but it couldn't be completely ruled out. We already knew
30:36
Speaker 1: that just from like speculation. You have to imagine you
30:40
Speaker 1: have to mess with the poor guinea pigs. I hate
30:43
Speaker 1: that me too, man mean too. And so, eventually, luckily
30:47
Speaker 1: for readers around the world, your faithful host included, people
30:54
Speaker 1: began to say, look, is this just kind of an
30:57
Speaker 1: outbreak of public hysteria and fear because we feel powerless
31:02
Speaker 1: in the face of some of these um infections and maladies. Librarians,
31:08
Speaker 1: someone finally points out, aren't getting sick more often than
31:11
Speaker 1: people with other jobs, and so librarians begin to address
31:15
Speaker 1: the panic directly. In New York, people started objecting to
31:23
Speaker 1: the idea of having books disinfected. The panic began to
31:27
Speaker 1: subside in Britain because experiment after experiment found the same thing,
31:33
Speaker 1: that you have very little chance of getting one of
31:35
Speaker 1: these diseases from a book, and so the panic finally
31:39
Speaker 1: came to an end, sort of mostly caveat asterix because
31:46
Speaker 1: we know how people are. As late as nineteen thirteen,
31:50
Speaker 1: the Highland Recorder, a newspaper in Virginia, said public library
31:54
Speaker 1: books may scatter scarlet fever. In the nineteen forties, people
31:58
Speaker 1: in the UK and even Japan, and we're still saying, well,
32:01
Speaker 1: what if books could give you a disease? Luckily for
32:05
Speaker 1: all of us, that seems you might as well win
32:09
Speaker 1: the lottery, at least the way these folks were thinking
32:11
Speaker 1: of it. And nol I think that brings us to
32:14
Speaker 1: like our last question of the day. We can't be
32:16
Speaker 1: the only ones they do this. I gotta ask you
32:19
Speaker 1: how dirty your library books? Actually, it's a good question, Ben,
32:23
Speaker 1: and we do have something of an answer from infectious
32:27
Speaker 1: disease specialist Michael Z. David Um who was quoted by
32:31
Speaker 1: the Wall Street Journal and a piece that we found
32:34
Speaker 1: through a Mental Philoss article, how many degrees of Kevin
32:37
Speaker 1: Bacon is that? Um? He said that virus isn't. Bacteria
32:41
Speaker 1: can live in the pages of library books, but the
32:45
Speaker 1: risk of infection is very very low. Libraries today do
32:50
Speaker 1: still clean their books, and in the same way that
32:52
Speaker 1: like you clean bowling shoes, right, I mean, it's just
32:55
Speaker 1: kind of a thing you do with anything that's like
32:57
Speaker 1: passed around. It's it's it's just it's just good practice,
33:00
Speaker 1: good good, good standard operating procedure. At the Boston Library,
33:03
Speaker 1: Mental Floss reported, Uh, the books go through what is
33:07
Speaker 1: sort of amounts to kind of like a tiny car
33:10
Speaker 1: wash conveyor belt. Obviously it's not wetting them. That would
33:13
Speaker 1: totally ruin the books. But it's just to remove dust
33:17
Speaker 1: from the pages and dust you know, as we know,
33:19
Speaker 1: oftentimes it's like dead skin cells and all kinds of
33:22
Speaker 1: things get mixed up in dusts. You know, there's certainly
33:25
Speaker 1: if you have you have you ever taken a big
33:27
Speaker 1: old whiff of dust and sucked it down your throat?
33:29
Speaker 1: I mean, God knows what's in there, and you certainly, uh,
33:32
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna feel very good after you've done that,
33:35
Speaker 1: a because it like really hurts, It goes down your
33:38
Speaker 1: throat and you kind of feel it in your lungs
33:40
Speaker 1: and be because there could be some you know, contaminants
33:43
Speaker 1: in there, There's no question about it. Um. But library
33:47
Speaker 1: books can have some nasty things hiding in those pages.
33:50
Speaker 1: And Belgians and TOWRRP Public Library did a test and
33:55
Speaker 1: found traces of cocaine and herpes. That's fair. But what
34:00
Speaker 1: we talked about, Ben, We've said this many times in
34:01
Speaker 1: the past. A money, Money is the grossest thing ever
34:05
Speaker 1: and the most community you know, uh item that we
34:10
Speaker 1: pass around, and money oftentimes has high instances of having
34:15
Speaker 1: cocaine traces, and traces is the the operating word here
34:19
Speaker 1: because these were minuscule amounts and Antwerp is apparently quite
34:23
Speaker 1: the drug trafficking epicenter. But it doesn't that doesn't really
34:28
Speaker 1: account for the herpes. Yeah, well, it's definitely not enough
34:31
Speaker 1: cocaine to get you uh high, or it's enough herpes
34:37
Speaker 1: virus to give you herpes. Also, I love you point
34:41
Speaker 1: that out. It's one of my favorite statistics. A ton
34:44
Speaker 1: of paper currency is you do only to worry about cocaine.
34:49
Speaker 1: You don't even worry about coronavirus. That stuff is riddled
34:51
Speaker 1: with human feces. Like, uh, this is the gross out
34:56
Speaker 1: fact for the day. Apologies to any of the many
35:01
Speaker 1: awesome educators who are playing today's episode for your classroom,
35:06
Speaker 1: but your kids are gonna love this. Uh. It is
35:10
Speaker 1: virtually certain that you have encountered traces of human feces
35:15
Speaker 1: if you have touched any paper US currency. If that
35:19
Speaker 1: makes you want to wash your hands right now, please
35:22
Speaker 1: get the into a washroom because it will be worth it.
35:26
Speaker 1: But I'm just so glad you know that libraries are
35:29
Speaker 1: still around right now. Mission I think it was Michigan
35:32
Speaker 1: asked people not to microwave their books because the coronavirus. Right,
35:37
Speaker 1: but it will it won't kill it. Well, not only
35:39
Speaker 1: will it not kill it, they were asking for specific
35:42
Speaker 1: reason because the new way of cataloging library books is
35:45
Speaker 1: through these little like scannable r F I D chips
35:49
Speaker 1: which contain ding ding ding metal. But then in the
35:52
Speaker 1: microwave it will cause the book to burst into flames.
35:55
Speaker 1: So yes, good note, don't microwave your books. That's one
35:59
Speaker 1: of the other takeaway. Uh. And this, uh, this will
36:03
Speaker 1: wrap our episode for today. We want to hear your stories,
36:07
Speaker 1: you know, no, Max, do you think we have some
36:11
Speaker 1: librarians in the audience, folks with their masters in library science?
36:15
Speaker 1: Holly fry of stuff that you missed in history class.
36:18
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken, in the past life was a librarian. Amazing, amazing. Uh.
36:24
Speaker 1: So thank you to all the librarians, not just you,
36:27
Speaker 1: but thank you to all the scientists. Thank you to
36:29
Speaker 1: all the bibliophiles in the crowd today. And thanks to
36:33
Speaker 1: our super producer Max Williams, who, to our knowledge has
36:37
Speaker 1: never microwaved a book. Right, Max, don't put it. Don't
36:40
Speaker 1: leave us hanging here? What wow? Okay, alright, moving on,
36:46
Speaker 1: Thanks to Alex Williams, who can post our track. Our
36:50
Speaker 1: soundtrack can't me to his book Microwaving Habits either, But
36:53
Speaker 1: I know he's a avid, voracious reader, so I have
36:56
Speaker 1: a hard time believing that he would ever do something
36:58
Speaker 1: so offensive to to the written word. Huge thanks to
37:01
Speaker 1: Christopher Osciotis here in Spirit. Eve's Jeff co who actually
37:05
Speaker 1: you know what. She recently left the company UM to
37:09
Speaker 1: pursue adventures on her own, and we love you and
37:11
Speaker 1: we will miss you very much. Ease look for great
37:14
Speaker 1: things from her in the future. She's a really awesome
37:16
Speaker 1: person and we're very proud of her and has never
37:19
Speaker 1: left our hearts. Speaking of that, we did mention in
37:22
Speaker 1: a previous episode that I think all three of us
37:25
Speaker 1: kind of miss our old nemesses who has infected our
37:29
Speaker 1: hearts and minds. Jonathan Strickland a k. The Quister, look
37:32
Speaker 1: forward to hearing from him very soon. And with that,
37:36
Speaker 1: Noel next Paklin the Curtain. I think I'm gonna I
37:39
Speaker 1: think I'm gonna go find an isolated part of this
37:42
Speaker 1: uh of the situation and and go dig into a book.
37:46
Speaker 1: I think it's a smart idea, gets you a nice
37:48
Speaker 1: beach read on. We'll see you next time. Flix For
37:59
Speaker 1: more podcast from my heart Radio, visit the I heart
38:01
Speaker 1: Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your
38:04
Speaker 1: favorite shows.