Cleveland Botanical Garden's Eleanor Squire Library
What does a librarian really do?
Libraries are the home of a vast variety of people’s writing, but how are people going to read these works if they are unable to find them? Organizing a library into a logical and systematic way is essential to a library and its readers. However, the process behind this organization is intensive work and often goes unnoticed. At the Cleveland Botanical Gardens library, the Eleanor Squire Library, Gary Esmonde, the head librarian, could tell you all about the work that goes into this huge reclassification process. As of right now, the library is still using a card catalog system. Card catalogs are known these days to be outdated. Because of this, Mr. Esmonde thought it was important to update it to an online Library of Congress system. This will make the library’s content not only available to the Botanical Garden’s members and visitors, but to the whole general public.
This has been a work in progress for the past 11 months, but is expected to be completed by December 1, 2007. Mr. Esmonde has had the help of 3 other staff members, along with 17 other volunteers. However, he reminded us several times how he very much welcomed more volunteers. It was easy to see that the more help, the better. He told us how this reclassification process involves taking each and every book on the shelf and entering it into the computer, putting it under the correct category it falls under. Though the work may seem tedious, it will very much pay off in the end.
The content of this library consists of over 17,000 horticultural books, magazine, and rare books dating back to the 15th century. Mr. Esmonde confessed that there are still numerous boxes down in the basement filled with miscellaneous effects that have yet to be sorted through and organized. This demonstrates the never ending work of archivists. After accomplishing the goal of publishing its catalog online, Mr. Esmonde hopes to explore these boxes and possibly add to the library. He mentioned that he has found some pictures down there and hopes to add a whole new picture display to diversify the library.
Although Mr. Esmonde is not a horticulturist himself, he still is successful in his position as the head librarian of the Botanical Gardens. He very much enjoys working with and reading the books in his library. He claims his favorite part to be the rare book section which is kept away in a special room and can only be seen by setting up an appointment. With his job of keeping the library update with its archives and accessibility is a time consuming job but is so beneficial in the end that it makes it all worth it.
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