Centered on technology and people, media that digs deep into “want to know” Sugo books and reading monkeys talk about the movie “New York Public Library Ex Libris”

Book review blog "You are probably reading the amazing book I don't know" (Amazing book) Manager. "I don't know if a book is interesting until I read it. But I don't have time to read all the books I'm interested in. So (I) read books recommended by people I'm attracted to. ”

reading monkey

"Reading monkey Classic: between / beyond readers" manager. unidentified. An expansive reader. Through e-mail magazines and blogs, he introduces everything from Greek philosophy to set theory, from modern literature to amateur scientist instruction books, and from obscure classics to new publications. It's a pseudonym that seems to eat people, but it's named because of "a shallow person who is far from reading people and people who call themselves reading people". An out-of-field sage who has both intelligence and humility. Author of "Comprehensive Ideas" and "Comprehensive Problem Solving" (both published by Forest Publishing).

Koji Yakou

Hatena Co., Ltd. Senior Editor-in-Chief / Producer of the 5th Development Group, Service and System Development Headquarters. Organizer of this interview.

Back number of a dialogue between Dain (Sugobon) and Reading Saru:

Tanikou: After the last and two previous interviews ended, we learned that Frederick Wiseman's new work "New York Public Library Ex Libris" would be released in Japan. I decided to hold a new dialogue with the theme of going around the library again.

Actually, when I watch the movie, the New York Public Library (NYPL) leaves a very different impression from the Japanese libraries we use every day. I feel that the scale of the services provided by NYPL is an order of magnitude greater than the role played by Japanese libraries, as an institution that is responsible for fostering the culture of New York. Reading monkey saw a movie yesterday.

Reading Monkey I saw it yesterday. It's a completely different movie when you see it and hear it. This is not a library movie.

Dain From there.

Tanikou: Shall we start from there?

Reading Monkey I brought this book for today's discussion. "Free Libraries for All: Carnegie Libraries and American Culture 1890-1920" (Abigail A. Vansrich, translated by Yoshitaka Kawasaki et al., Kyoto University Library and Information Science Research Group, 2005). The publisher is Kyoto Library and Information Science Research Group (Kyoto University Library and Information Science Research Group until March 2010), which publishes many wonderful books that will soon be out of print.

Free Libraries for All: The Carnegie Library and American Culture 1890-1920

Dain (laughs)

Reading monkey: This publisher really publishes a lot of literature related to library science, but it keeps running out of stock and out of print. To tell the truth, everyone reading this interview is full of books that they should read. For example, I wonder if books for reading research *1 were also here. It's a book that deals with a lot of research on how people read books. And he has translated many books on library science and library history for the new generation.

Reading and Readers: Research Results on Reading, Libraries, and Communities

What is the history of the library so far? It was "library history" that seems to be published in several years. Then there is the matter of the system. What kind of library system was there, and how it changed and reached the present. As expected, the history of libraries will not be at that level forever, but on the other hand, from the perspective of those who study history, I wonder if they thought, "Nani, you're acting like a child." I don't know much about history, but how did a proper person who studies history see it? So, what kind of new library history can be created if we accept the criticism and impact of historical research? This book, Free Libraries for All, is part of the history of a new generation of libraries that have been working on that.

In the translator's commentary, I briefly summarize the history of libraries so far. I say something like that, but there is a story that says that it is true.

Dain Yes! that is.

Reading Monkey: I think it would be better to name specific people, but first there is a person named Jesse H. Shera. There is a book called "The Establishment of Public Libraries" (Jassie H. Schera, translated by Yoshitaka Kawasaki, Japan Library Association, 1988)*2. This person is a super celebrity who will definitely come out in library history. He calls it the "library for democracy". This is the so-called democratic interpretation. In short, the process of establishing a public library is hand-in-hand with democracy. I mean, it was a beautiful story.

Establishment of a public library

Dain　It's a "good story".

Reading Monkey Yes. However, it was an era when we had to make such claims. Shera's book was originally published in 1949. It wasn't a history of the library itself, as had been published before, but a book that placed the public library in society. There was meaning in that. The whirlwind of McCarthyism*3 swept across America from 1950, but in 1947 the Committee for Un-American Activities expelled Charles Chaplin and film director John Huston from the industry. It's that kind of era, so I'm not going to criticize it. However, the question “Is it okay to leave it as it is?” naturally comes up. For example, when looking at the history of social education from the theme of ``What happened to the history of American education?'', if we replace the current story with schools, it becomes the story that ``schools nurtured democracy.'' You know. It has been very useful for democracy. Many immigrants came and helped them become American citizens. The fact that it was useful for the unification of America is like the history of a democratic school.

Dain: Well, that's right.

Reading Monkey 　However, of course, after that, the story of "Isn't that so?" In American history, they are called revisionists*4. In short, I am trying to revise. Against the democratic interpretation, these revisionists argue that schools were built on middle-class values, rather that the working class and immigrants were not aligned with those values. . People with middle-class values ​​fit in well in school, while working-class people and people from other countries drop out. In the 1960s, he argued, "Rather, the school system is designed to reproduce discrimination and selection!"

Dain I see.

Yomikizaru 　The question then arises as to whether the history of the library should remain happy with its beautiful story. The school history side has received these objections, and the discussion has progressed to the point of considering the next step, but what is going on with the library history? No, of course it's progressing. People like Michael Harris, who gave a revisionist interpretation to the democratic interpretation of the second generation of American library history, saying, "It's not right," came out, and this was the second generation of American library history. Three generations. Furthermore, since the 1980s, there has been a trend like the 4th generation, asking whether it is okay not to have a well-balanced view of both. One of them is this book "A Free Library for All".

The other is the 1960s. It's the history of white men. In the so-called civil rights movement, it is necessary to delve into what role women and minorities have played in historical studies, when people who are not like that have emerged through social movements. It came out. White men were the ones who controlled politics, so when you study political history, the light only shines on white men. So, if we want to focus on those who are not, we need a social history approach. So there is a trend that a lot of results have come out from social history. This is where the question arises as to whether it is possible to use such a social-historical approach to scoop up voiceless people in the history of libraries. In the history of libraries, women are the first. Because the overwhelming majority of librarians are women. However, there are a lot of men among the executive staff such as the director, so when it comes to the director's history...

Dain All men.

Reading Monkey Yes. The book I brought with me today is "People Who Raised Libraries (Foreign Version 1) America" ​​(edited by Yukio Fujino, Japan Library Association, 1984). It's still a good balance.

People Who Raised Libraries (Foreign Version 1)

Dain　Women will appear, won't they?

The reading monkey appears. However, the number of people is still very small. By the way, this [People who raised the library] also has a Japanese version, but the Japanese version is all men.

Dain Ah, yes, yes. I didn't read the whole Japanese edition, but I flipped through it. Definitely men only.

The exception was Anne Carroll Moore in America. She advocates for a children's reading room and introduces the NYPL's first children's reading room. It spread from NYPL to all over the United States. You have also been featured in the Herald Tribune as working on children's books. This was really an exception, and most of the American editions were men as well.

Reading Monkey 　The story comes out that it's not like that. There are books like "Women in Library History". A person named Dee Garrison published a book titled "Apostles of Culture: Public Libraries, Women, and American Society, 1876-1920" (Dee Garrison, translated by Eiko Taguchi, Japan Library Research Association, 1996). In this book, Garrison writes--unheard of until now--that the vast majority of librarians are women. This is the idea that a woman's perspective is essential to understanding the library. However, this was a topic that was hit a lot later, but the point is that ``the fact that there are many women is the reason why librarians' librarians have failed to become specialists'' (even if it is read that way) You're writing in such a way that you can't help it).

Apostles of Culture: Public Libraries, Women, and American Society, 1876-1920

Dain: Well, that's...

A reading monkey, right? That's why I get hit a lot. However, it is a fact that there are many female librarians. In addition, there was also reflection that even in the United States, the professionalization of librarians has not been fully established. One of the reasons, Garrison thought, was because there were so many women. It's just that Garrison wasn't seen as a "bad guy," but that he was actually seen that way by the public. For example, in the United States, many libraries have been built all over the country with the donations of the steel magnate Andrew Carnegie, but the Carnegie Foundation is actually a very tight-knit organization, providing money for establishment but not operating expenses. , said. So, the management side will hire a lot of women in order to have librarians within the framework of a certain labor cost.

Dain Oh.

Reading Monkey: In short, at that time, or even now, the labor costs for women were cheap. There is a person named Melville Dewey*5 who created the Decimal Classification System, and he says, "Women are on our side." "Libraries aren't places for quiet book-lovers, they're places for much more civilized 'people going forward'," he said. In order to create an image of a positive librarian, in short, I proposed that it was a job that men could do as well.

Then you don't want women to come in too much. However, in fact, if you want to operate, in other words, if you want to have a lot of staff with a certain amount of resources and money, there was also the reality that you had to rely on women with low labor costs. It's fine to say cool things ("I need to establish a librarianship"), but I was indifferent to the (indirect) exclusion of women. However, in the end, we had no choice but to hire women on site, and they were forced to work at low wages. Simply put, it's exploitation. Garrison wrote a book about it. Women were treated that way in a negative way. Garrison had his own ideas.

But I want to argue something.

Garrison's work (original publication of Apostle of Culture, Public Libraries, Women, and American Society, 1876-1920) is 1979. A new study is now emerging that criticizes her claims. Writing Women in the History of American Libraries (edited by Suzanne Hildenbrand, translated by Eiko Taguchi, Kyoto University Library and Information Science Research Group, 2002). This book is a collection of articles edited by Hildenbrand. The feminization of the library, that is, the fact that many librarians have become women, does not impede the development of the librarianship. Rather, it was women who created the golden age of libraries. The proof is that it was a story that appeared in today's theme, the movie "New York Public Library Ex Libris".

Writing Women in American Library History

Social activities at the time, such as the temperance movement and the problem of prostitution, were led by women's groups. From there, more and more specialists such as social workers came out. These new professions were pioneered by women. That's why there are so many women. Women who become librarians naturally have networks with such people, and there was a common understanding that they are involved in society.

Until then, the library was just a book storage (vault), and there was no such thing as a library going out into society. Who did it? Women. It is women who have pioneered things that have not been the work of the library until now. Originally, the work of the library was held by men. So they wonder if there are any other jobs.

For example, I hear from people who are doing social work that "there are problems with children." So, I wondered if there was anything I could do in the library, so I created a corner for children's books and invited children. Then, we started talking about what we should do to call more people, and services for children, which had never existed before, began.

Or services for workers will start like that.

It was women who pioneered the (library) services that we Japanese were surprised by, like the ones in this movie. It's not really a surprise. Because I've been doing it for a long time.

That library, which was originally a study or a treasure trove of books, became the public library we know today because of the many women who worked there. found a new job on their own and opened the library to the outside, as is written in "Free Libraries for All".

The author of this book ("A Free Library for All") is an architect, so there are many floor plans in the book. There is a story about why it became this building, what kind of people were moving and how. The new jobs that the women just started need a building like this. It is interesting to be able to provide evidence with photographs and drawings. You can't see the activity, and it won't remain. Even if there is a testimony. We adopt an empirical approach that pursues such questions from the perspective of architectural history, such as "who is doing what in the library" and "how it has changed". Not just someone's testimony, but actual materials can be presented. I think, "This is amazing." While incorporating new achievements in historical studies such as social history and women's history, it also holds things as architectural history. I would definitely recommend it as a subtext for this movie.

Yakou 　The keyword "democracy" that frequently appears when talking about the New York Public Library. What is the concrete figure that comes to mind when we use this word? While looking back on the history of democracy, starting with the democracies of ancient Greece and Rome, we will consider the political ideology of modern America.

Dain　I was stuck in the story just now. The words library and democracy came out. Even in "New York Public Library Ex Libris", keywords such as "The New York Public Library is a pillar of democracy" are sprinkled somewhere. However, I am very confused. I don't mean to say that it's wrong, but there are places where I think it might be true, but when it comes to the forefront, I'm like, "Seriously?" So China doesn't have a library, and North Korea? in Cuba? That's what it sounds like. There may be such a side, and I do not deny that there is. However, if we equate "libraries = democracy" with that, I think something is wrong.

However, if you put in the so-called landmine word "democracy", the opinion that "then what democracy are you talking about?" It seems that everyone will take a step back and say, "Yeah, yeah," that democracy is a "system." "It's a gimmick," he said.

It can be the principle of majority voting, it can be elections or voting, it can be how parliament works, how to choose representatives, but the way democracy is based on what we believe to be democracy today. It can be considered a gimmick. When I apply this to the movie, there is a point that I think is a little different...

In the New York Public Library Ex Libris, the executive meeting scene plays many times. There, the director is chatting, but was that person elected by an election? and. I haven't taken the back, but I think it's probably different. There are various people in the executive committee, some holding wallets, some choosing books, and some at the top of the organization. How did they reach their positions? In other words, I think I'm there because someone told me to do some kind of role, not because I was elected. Then, when such people choose books, are there any rules? and. If you ask a person who lives in New York and has a NYPL library card what kind of book they want, I think they will say, "I want a book called ●●." So, are books bought in order of the number of requests?

Reading Monkey 　There was a discussion in the movie, such as "Is it better to buy a popular book?" At a board meeting about e-books, I think.

Dain　Yes. I don't think all the books on the NYPL's shelves have been selected through democratic procedures. If I write this as it is, it will be misleading, and I feel that the writers of Iwanami Shinsho (“The Library that Creates the Future: A Report from New York”) and their readers will be very angry, but ,I think so. I think there is a selection, in the library. It's not democratic, it's arbitrarily chosen by someone. Paternalistic, paternalistic, or rather, "I know better, so you should read this." I don't mean that the library is like that, but if you read the history of the library, there should be such a background or whatever. The adventure of the public library (Yoshio Yanagi and Shunsaku Tamura, ed., Misuzu Shobo, 2018), or the amazing book of 2018 by Reading Monkey, has that smell too. The "Modern Thought December 2018 issue Special Feature: The Future of Libraries" (Seidosha, 2018), which I brought with me today, also has that smell. There is no denying that libraries have nurtured democracy. But I think it's something a little different. I think that the way books are selected depends on what is decided at that time, such as "the best" or "should be like this".

Libraries to Create the Future: Report from New York (Iwanami Shinsho)

Public Library Adventure

Modern Thought December 2018 Special Feature = The Future of Libraries

Let's introduce the discussion about e-books that came up in the second half of the executive meeting. Quoting the pamphlet, "E-book or paper book? Is it a bestseller or a recommended book? Is it a general book or a research book? Budget is limited. The eternal dilemma of the library. It's time to reconsider the rules for collecting books." Ah, but if I remember correctly, in this movie, the rule was set in 2008, so I wonder if it will change in about 10 years. I thought it changed quite often.

That's why this pamphlet and the film say, "Libraries are the pillars of democracy!" I think it will also lead to the difference between "public library" and "public library" that will come out later.

Reading Monkey: I think it's possible that people don't quite understand what democracy is like. A loose understanding would be something like "democracy if everyone participates and decides together". I don't need a system. Or, including the mechanism, it should be decided by everyone. However, there is no country that has such a level of democracy. That kind of thing is not established, or rather, it is very unstable. In the end, it might end up as an internal dispute.

Democracy is democracy, the power of demos, the politics of the people. So, I'm really saying "someone", but people are short-sighted and self-interested. If there is a charismatic person, they will go in one direction and end up becoming a dictatorship, a very unstable existence. It's a beautiful story that everyone participates and makes decisions together. If you can turn the system around, it's impossible. I think that it is the wisdom and knowledge that human beings have cultivated throughout history that they cannot get along just by talking.

However, since pure democracy is not viable, is it unnecessary or should it be eliminated? I was thinking of talking about how a real, functioning democracy is "reinforced concrete." In order to establish a system where everyone participates and decides together, we put something different from that. It's like adding a different kind of reinforcing steel to concrete. This is the case in Japan, where we are, and in the United States as well. One of those different things is the republic system, or the principle of the republic, and I brought this heavy book with me today. "Machiavellian Moments: Florentine Political Thought and Atlantic Traditions of Republicanism" (John G.A. Pocock, translated by Hideo Tanaka et al., Nagoya University Press, 2008) *6.

The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition

The original is quite old. This translation itself was made in the early 2000s, but it was translated and published by Nagoya University Press. If I remember correctly, the original "Machiavellian Moments" was published around 1975*7.

After the publication of this book, a great controversy arose in the world of political thought and political history. Up until then, republicanism had been perceived as something of a jerk, something like ``it's just like that now''. In other words, the republic is still better than the monarchy, because it's progressing as much as there is no king. I just think it's a bit like aristocracy or elite politics. We've already gone as far as democracy, so republicanism is a bit old-fashioned. However, when this book came out, he said, "Although America is said to be liberal and liberal, its core is a republic." That hurt everyone in the American intellectual world. "We're liberals! We're New Zealanders!" The author is from New Zealand.

This book is as thick as "European Literature and the Middle Ages in Latin" (E.R. Curtius, translated by Shinichi Minamioji et al., Misuzu Shobo, 1971). The man named Machiavelli (who is the main character in this book) was the man who thought deeply about the republic. Because Florence, where he was a magistrate, was originally a republic, but for a long time it was ruled by the Medici family. Machiavelli's consideration of the possibility and unsustainability of the republic, drawn from the history of Aristotle and ancient Rome, is Harrington's (British political philosopher James Harrington*8)'s response to the Puritan Revolution and other British civil wars. This is passed on to thought, and this is further passed on to Madison (James Madison*9) who designs the system of the United States. It's a book that deals with the long history of Machiavelli-like opportunities that cross over people with different times and political contexts. Bibliographically, the material is also written with bonbons. So, if you have any complaints, try it. If you fight with quantity, I will accept it.

European Literature and Latin Middle Ages

Dain　Try punching him with a book as thick as this one.

Reading Monkey Yes. So I understand that it will be a big controversy, and until then, republicanism was an idea that was about to be forgotten, but in reality, there are many republican principles that are still alive today. It also became a starting point to be reconsidered. In fact, before this, there were several people who said that the republic system was working greatly in the United States *10, but it did not become such a big trend, including the controversy.

However, I don't really understand democracy, but I don't really understand republicanism either. One model is ancient republican Rome, before it became an empire. There is something like the Senate, the so-called political elite--a small number of speech professionals who can argue and deliver speeches, if not as good as Cicero--while keeping each other in check. to do. The principle is that "he who can discipline himself can also discipline others". Conversely, those who participate in that society agree to be governed by others and to be constrained by others. Politics conducted by multiple, but capable, people who bind each other. There is a way of thinking that this is actually not quite good.

As for what it is good for, one thing is that monarchy is good if the king is good, but if the king is not good, the country will go in a bad direction all at once. Besides, even a good king is not necessarily a good king because he wants his own useless child to inherit the throne. In that sense, we can immediately imagine the factors that would cause the monarchy to collapse.

So, we were talking about democracy earlier. There is a Latin phrase, "The voice of the people is the voice of God (Vox populi vox dei.)." *11 However, it is empirically known that the general public tends to run into self-interest and has a narrow outlook, so if one leans to one side, they will drift away*12, and from there they will easily become mob rule and dictatorship. . So what about an oligarchic republic that's somewhere in between? Oligarchy doesn't have a good image, but the principle, or rather the idea, is the idea of ​​``If you can control yourself, you can also control others.'' I thought it would be more stable if people kept each other in check and restrained each other.

Dain: I think that's exactly what happened at the NYPL executive meeting. oligarchy.

Reading Monkey: That's right. There are ancient republics and there are modern republics. But in modern times there is no Senate. Then, what we are doing is mutual constraint by the mechanism. Isn't it the same with the separation of powers? Legislative, judicial, administrative. By putting in these different principles and keeping each other in check, we are trying not to flow in one direction. In that sense, I am not trusting that if I do it this way, it will definitely go well. It's an "adult", or rather, a system created after knowing the bitterness of how to make use of the bitter experience of failing so far.

So this is actually all over the place. There was an executive meeting just now, but I think that the autonomy of experts is actually a republican principle. For example, in academia, that is, in the academic world, there is peer review. When you write a paper, you don't show who wrote it, but anonymous researchers in the same industry and in the same field look at it and check whether it's okay to publish it or not. Get out. Work hard with each other among people who are working on the same theme. If you do something too stupid, you'll get knocked out there. Because there is such a mechanism, it is freed to some extent from the bias that humans tend to fall into. Rather than the knowledge and abilities possessed by each individual, by creating such a system of mutual constraints, the quality of the academic field is secured, and the self-cleansing action works to prevent serious mistakes from occurring even if they occur. By creating such a mechanism, we ensure the quality of the knowledge we produce. There is such a system in academia.

The same goes for lawyers. If you do something too bad, you will be disqualified by your peers (lawyers), saying, ``That guy is no good,'' before being punished from the outside. Because of this kind of self-cleansing self-government, it is respected by other people, and it is possible to monopolize the business, saying, "This is something that only lawyers can do." It's the same with doctors. Because of that, doctors can be doctors no matter where they work. Whether it's a private hospital, a national hospital, or a public hospital, it's already decided what doctors can do, what they can do, and what they should do. That's why I have accumulated specialized knowledge and my job is decided. Even though I worked as a doctor, they wouldn't tell me to "distribute leaflets."

The librarian really wanted to be like that, too. There are jobs that only librarians can do, and I wanted to be able to monopolize the work and receive respect from people other than librarians (of course, get a high salary). So do nurses. Nursing is a field of study that was created to make nurses a profession. However, there is a doctor nearby. Doctors, the oldest professional group in the world. In the midst of this, we were at the brink of whether we would end up as subordinates, or whether we would be in a position to receive respect as professionals. Moreover, there are social workers and various co-medicals*13. In the midst of this crisis, nurses struggled to find ways to survive as professionals. That's why we need learning. In Japan, it is not so conscious, but in the United States, I thought that nursing science was on the verge of whether we would survive or disappear into history. I did my best with the thought that if we could not make this study independent, we would not be able to live in the next world. What we are aiming for is professional autonomy, a republic of knowledge, a republic of technology.

There must be a group that stands on republican principles not only in politics, but also in democracy. The people who wrote the American Constitution also wanted to make use of it. It was originally a democratic force. Didn't each colony make a decision at a town meeting or something like that? Everyone was saying different things there. It was put together because it was at war with England, but it would have really fallen apart if it hadn't happened. So, it's okay to fall apart (we all wanted to fall apart), but the people who wrote the Constitution thought they wouldn't win if Britain came again. Instead of creating 13 disjointed countries, I was thinking about how to combine them into one, so I made it quite by force.

Because European republics had nobles and kings. Because of such a tradition, the separation of powers was created by including the democratic system, the monarchy, and the aristocracy. There are no kings or nobles in America, but let's make a king. So I made him president. In an attempt to create an aristocratic hierarchy, it was purposely divided into the Senate and the House of Representatives. What's more, judicial judges were given lifetime tenure under the Constitution*14. The president appoints him, so when he appoints a president, he becomes a person who takes the breath of the president, but the president has a term of office and changes rapidly. But judges can't be removed unless they die or resign themselves. That's why I keep staying. What's more, it leaves the right for such people to say, "This is strange from the constitutional point of view." That is, I made a king called the president, but when the king goes out of control, I made a person who can say, "That's strange." Independent of both the president and Congress, the decisions of multiple intellectuals (judges) are accumulated as judicial precedents, and while binding each other, if the president or Congress goes out of control and issues strange orders or laws, it is unconstitutional. can be checked.

The modern republic was created as a hybrid system of government so that mutual constraints could be achieved in this way. It is precisely because of these rebars that a fragile cement-like democracy is possible. This is what is called a modern democracy. It's not just democracy. But then, is it okay to ignore the voices of the people? Even the so-called experts and knowledgeable people can't go out of control because they have the voice of the people. Wouldn't it be weak if it was assembled with only rebar? It's going to be funyafunya.

Dain　Concrete alone is brittle.

Reading Monkey: Fragile. So, I wonder if the principle of modern republic is that by combining these two different materials, we can create a strong political system and social structure. In that sense, from the point of view of the public, experts say things they don't like. He looks down on us, speaks with reasoning that we don't understand, and says a lot of things that deviate from our emotions and realities of life. So, should we dismiss such people and just rely on the voices of the people? No, no. The reason why populism is bad is because it ends up being concrete without reinforcing bars. If experts do not cater to the public, go their own way, and give complaints, there will definitely be backlash and criticism of experts, but after all, experts are indispensable. Well, I'm not an expert (laughs), but considering the principles of the republic, experts are very important. It is absolutely necessary for people to exercise self-government based on mutual constraints without relying on the public, and to act according to their own logic and make different judgments. Because it is different, it can be a reinforcing bar for concrete.

In the preface to "Idea Encyclopedia" (Reading Monkey, Forest Publishing, 2017), I defined the mission of the humanities like this. "Remembering/recalling what people have forgotten or want to forget, digging it up if necessary, and showing other possibilities than what exists now."

Including me, people forget, more and more. If you stop one by one, your daily life will not go around. But that's why I want experts to remember what we forget in each area. It may come in handy someday, for example, when we are in crisis. And I'm sure that's one of the roles of libraries and archives. Because they somehow remember things that we tend to forget, we can search for our roots like the woman in this movie, or search for literature at the NYPL and invent the photocopier. Like Carlson*15, you can come up with new ideas.

Yakou: In addition to the main library, the New York Public Library has branches in various regions. It is no exaggeration to say that the collection of branches forms the unique character of the New York Public Library. The existence of the annex nurtures the local culture, and at the same time, the people of the city draw out the unique “color” of the annex.

Dain So those people (experts) were executives of the New York Public Library.

Reading Monkey Yes. That is why they exercise their own autonomy as library professionals. However, on the other hand, since we are in contact with the outside world, we are told various things. If they are not told, they will surely run away as experts. Living as an expert in a democracy means being accountable. Or, while disciplining oneself, each other rotates in a well-balanced manner. I'm sure that's the role of libraries in democracy, and democratized libraries will be useless.

Dain　Yeah, I think it will be useless.

Reading monkey 　I wonder if the library will continue to be a library, even if it goes against the people, will ultimately make the democratic society stronger and save it from crisis. For example, during McCarthyism. He was very popular at the time. In response to such a voice, I am just a senator, and I will "hunt" various people. Many of the victims are celebrities. Only celebrities from all over the world. I think that was one of the reasons why the public applauded. That's the runaway of democracy. It's the flow of anti-intellectualism*16. McCarthy also inherited the whole anti-intellectual, revivalist rhetoric.

Dain　The flow of anti-intellectualism and revivalism.

Reading Monkey Yes. If you change "god" or "gospel" to anti-communism (industrial), what you are saying is exactly the same.

Dain Just replace the keywords.

Reading Monkey: And rhetoric. The same goes for how people are recruited.

Dain: Directing too? It's been handed down.

Reading Monkey Yes. So, various celebrities and movie directors were killed. It's aimed at the top people in the industry, so everyone cheers at first. But by the time you start to think it's funny, it's already too late. It's getting unstoppable. You can also do the library. A librarian can do it. They say he's communist. Another is a book. the book itself. He said he might have a Marx book. That's right, it's a library. There is a book about Lenin, for example. As for how I protected it, the library is such a place. "We must have everything"*18, we must have everything, which is our specialty. This must have been said by someone*19 who looks like the deputy director of the Library of Congress.

In that sense, like many libraries, the New York Public Library was targeted. But I fought against it.

Dain　What we are doing is different from democracy.

Reading monkey No. We can protect democracy because we are different. There are things that can be protected because it is an organization that is not democratic. To tell you the truth, we may not know much about it. Japan received democracy from the United States as a ready-made side dish, and it was not created after repeated trial and error for overreaching failures and countermeasures. So does the library system. I'm sorry to say it's the skies, but I've received the finished product from the process of creating a library and going through trial and error on how to use it.

Dain　I only received the mechanism itself. The important thing is the "process".

Reading Monkey Yes. I can't move the process, so I can't help it, but I think it was hard to understand why there was such a thing. I don't understand why you would need a library.

However, the NYPL is saying such cool things now, but in the past, I didn't really want to build an annex (laughs). As the title of the book says, "Free Libraries for All," the Carnegie Foundation has given money to build many annexes. In those days, whether in Boston or anywhere else, a large library would have many branches, but the main library was a castle for the intellectual elite, so I didn't really want to open a branch that would attract workers. But since the budget was already covered, there were things like who should do it, who should be forced to do it.

But now it's really a library with an annex, isn't it? It's the New York Public Library with its annex. As is the case with this movie, the story of the research library doesn't come up much. Rather, there are many scenes where various people come and do various things to see what they are doing in the annex. But at the time, the main library had a research function, a collection of unique materials, and a large number of intellectual elites. That's why you should let someone who doesn't care about the annex work.

Dain Hahaha (laughs)

Reading Monkey: But that's why the annex started a service for children, for example. In short, in the library system, the annex was a marginal place (laughs), so it became possible to do new things and build up a track record.

Dain: You mean the annex?

Reading Monkey Yes. But once I said that, Carnegie forced me to pay for it, and I thought I had to open an annex. I'm talking about that kind of feeling as if I should throw the whole thing to whom. Because I have to make a tremendous number. It's hard. More than that, I want to do the main building properly. But it's money with a string. So, I had to make a branch, so I'm thinking of making a similar building like a housing complex. But it's a different city, isn't it? So even if you build the same kind of building, it will continue to change and eventually become an annex of ``the city''.

Dain Ah, each town.

Reading Monkey 　The things we do are different, and the collection of books is also different.

Dain Certainly, there are libraries where many mathematics books are borrowed in the movie...

Reading Monkey Yes. That's amazing. After all, the number 1 or 2 borrowed book is a fraction book? What kind of library is this? Did you mention business in the movie? The business that the library is doing and the collection of books are two wheels. The senior librarian who visited the annex told me that she wanted to do something like a mathematics class as a business, so she wanted to increase the number of books that matched that. Let's increase the collection of books and support them. And precisely because we are two wheels, if we do different projects, we will become different libraries with different collections.

Dain　Yes. So the background wasn't told in the movie, but I think the Parkchester branch was probably a place where math teachers would gather.

The reading monkey, and so do the little ones. After all, isn't it amazing to have a library where everyone borrows fraction books? Well, it's no good if everyone doesn't say "wow" more.

Dain　I think that's the part where you get stuck, or the part that surprises you.

Reading Monkey So business support doesn't really matter (lol), how much did you try to make a library where fraction books are the top loaner, that glasses-wearing Nie-chan (running a math class)? . That's where you should pay attention.

Dain: I think you worked really hard. I didn't do my best for the children. I think it means that only the results are cut out in the movie. I'm surprised by the results, but I feel like it would be a waste if I just looked at the results and said, "Wow, wow," without thinking about the process.

Reading monkey: The way mathematics is taught has changed, and parents are also worried because it's not the way they were taught. I know you're in trouble, but then why are you going to the library? I think it was because I used to go to the library. Whenever I had a problem, I would go to the library and do something about it. That's what it's been like all along.

Dain　That's it, it's a story about worries.

Reading Monkey Yes. When I had a problem and went to the library, I was told that there was a solution. how about this book and. It's called sotaku, the one that pokes the egg from the outside and the inside. The approach from the inside of the library and the outside of the library, the people of the city (to the library) are meshing.

Dain　The story of the previous dialogue (library as a ``problem-solving place'' - great book & reading monkey dialogue sequel). If you ask a question about your worries, you can get it answered in the form of a book.

Reading Monkey Yes. That's why it's a scene that needs a lot of attention. By holding math classes that both adults and children come to, the library grows in a circle. The NYPL has 92 *20 annexes that are working on various initiatives. It's already a super library. And the story of how women who had been driven out by cheap labor were the pioneers, is something I have to write about.

Connecting to the inside or outside story earlier, people who didn't use the library until now started going to the library because the library worked hard. Then the library will also change accordingly*21. So, even though they were supposed to be built in the same building at the beginning, they became different libraries in different areas of New York. That's because everyone comes to the library.

Dain　Ah, it's a given, but if there are no users, it's not a library.

Reading Monkey: Just because it was built in Chinatown, if users don't come, it will remain a normal library. But people from Chinatown started coming here, so it's become like that.

Dain　He's the one who's teaching me how to use a computer.

Reading Monkey: In that scene, everyone's English is really bad, isn't it? Uncles who are not good at English ask questions like "How should I save this?"

Dain　Because it's a library near Chinatown, I thought that those people would be in trouble, so I started a project like that.

Reading Monkey 　Perhaps he had been to the library before then.

Dain Even without a computer classroom.

Reading Monkey: There were a lot of Chinese books, wasn't there? And there is a corner called New American. In short, it's a corner where books on how to write naturalization documents are placed.

Dain　I see, I see. I can't stop anymore. I come to the library because I don't know how to write it because the government is asking me to write it.

Reading Monkey: So it's still coming. There are immigrants all the time in that town. I came to America with the help of my relatives.

That corner, that annex, is based on the premise of a newcomer. That's why, even though it's just showing the inside of the library, you can see what kind of town the branch library is in. On the contrary, it may be a movie that can only be seen. By showing the library, it's a movie that shows what kind of towns and communities New York is made up of.

Dain　Oh, it's in bold. This is the movie about seeing New York ``in'' the library.

Reading Saru: At the junction of the scenes, sometimes the library is projected, and sometimes the city is projected, isn't it? Connection, sequence. Right next to the library, there is a tarot shop, reflected. There's a sign there that says "Psychic Reading" (laughs). That's what I laugh about. "Psychic Reading" is located next to the world-famous library called NYPL, a temple of knowledge.

After all, it's a library in New York, so the faces and clothes of the people who come to each library are really various and very interesting.

Dain　At the George Bruce Annex on 125th Street in the Harlem district, there was a scene where internet connection devices were rented out to residents who did not have an internet connection at home. If you look at the people gathered there, you can see that there are many African Americans. And I notice that the clothes I wear are almost monotone, such as black or gray.

Reading monkey: The response of that female staff member is really absurd (laughs). He looks like an American office worker. Also how to explain. But I guess it feels like I can't turn around without it. If you listen carefully, you'll be able to say things carefully, such as "If nine people use the internet, my share will be reduced." It's a matter of course, but "It's giving other people giga that you can use". Oh, I guess I'll explain from there.

Dain　Probably, he did it many times and got in trouble. There must have been complaints.

Reading monkey 　In that sense, in the earlier discussion about ``seeing the city'', it is not about the New York Public Library's services, but rather about ``why are they doing this?'' coming out. And you can see what happened in the relationship between the library and the users, as well as the way the woman explains.

Dain　The background.

Reading Monkey 　What kind of city and what kind of people live and how they live is reflected in the movement of people in the library. You can see the city there. It's definitely not a library movie.

Dain　It may be a New York movie. Oh, this might get a little off topic, but when you go to Book Off, you can find out what the people in that town are reading. At first I thought so, but when I went to a book-off store near my university, students would come to sell their university textbooks, so it had an academic feel to it. So, I used to live in Kamata, but when I go to Book Off in Kamata, the atmosphere is completely different. Well, it's obvious. People who live there hand over books they've finished reading, so the product lineup changes. This is also related to the story of the annex, and I think that the color of each annex is related to the people who live there.

Reading Monkey　Also, the lectures held at the library are also shown (on film), and there are many stories about communities somewhere in New York.

You had a talk near the beginning about the Jewish community and the deli. That's so funny. I've never been to a deli, but it's definitely better than a bad restaurant. The price is also reasonable. It is also known as a pastrami sandwich. The deli was run by Jews. So, when you say Jews in New York, isn't it theater and movies? When asked where the plays and movies were shown, it seems that they were doing it at the deli that sells side dishes. What do you mean? I think so. It is said that Jews would gather in a deli and put on a play or show a movie there. The deli supports daily meals and also serves as a hub for people to gather.

At the end of that lecture, there was a talk about what the Jews are doing now. You live in the suburbs. After that, the ethnic people who came out are still living in a tightly packed group, and there is a branch building among them. Really, each branch is completely different. The clothes of the people who come are different, the complexion is different, and New York is all different. But you say you got out of there. He's researching the second generation of Jewish immigrants.

Dain Certainly.

Reading monkey 　That was at the beginning, and after that, there was quite a bit of talk about art. There will also be musicians. For example, I emphasized that we are doing this business together at the theater center in New York, by integrating our missions. It's also New York.

Dain I see. New York is also the city of theater.

Reading Monkey: It's also a show business town, so many people buy tickets and pay money. It also included the kind of people who supported it. If I had to add one more thing about New York movies, people were just talking about history.

Dain Ah, sure.

Yakou 　All the people who appear in the movie "New York Public Library Ex Libris" are good at giving speeches. From the remarks of the meeting, it has already become a "speech". Why are they so good at speaking?

Reading monkey It's not a three-pronged story, but if I were to summarize this film with a few keywords, it would be "show business", "art", "history", and "politics". At the event at NYPL, there were a number of interviews, rather than lectures with an audience. At this point, the interviewer asks the question, "Is it political?" Ask Elvis Costello, "Are you political?" I also asked the poet Youssef Komanyaka, "Are your poems political?" I ask everyone. When I invite a guest for a dialogue, I usually hear political talk, and "political" frequently occurs at executive meetings. How to reach out to political leaders. It's fundraising, I have to get money from the city by working with the mayor and lawmakers, so of course there are political issues. On the other hand, what connects politics and history is public speech. Everyone is very good at talking, but as far as I can see, it's not an argument, it's a speech. people in various positions. Even reading aloud is like a speech. In a way that sounds great.

Dain: Yeah, sure.

Reading monkey 　A person who is also at the executive meeting gives a great speech. I started talking, ``Our library has done this and that, and we've done this, and we've achieved results,'' in a row. All, You)” or something like that. Only there is a great slow motion. I'm sure you've been practicing public speaking since you were little. But this connects the 'what's the problem now and should we do this now' story with 'where did we come from, how did we ever get here'. Public speech connects politics and history.

I would like to talk about a completely different movie. People attack the earth and kill the gorgeous cast one after another. At the end, a dull boy (but handsome, Lucas Haas) finds a way to exterminate the Martians, and it's a big denouement. So, what kind of movie is this? It's a public speech movie. Guests always have something to say. There's a scene where they do something like a speech, and everyone says something really nice, but before they can finish that wonderful speech, they're killed by the Martians, and it repeats.

Mars Attacks! [DVD]

Dain (laughs). That's the pattern that's been created.

Reading Monkey Yes (laughs). At the very end, the boy who found a way to exterminate the Martians is asked to give a speech to the president's daughter, but it's really lame (laughs). But he says he will finish talking to the end. that he is qualified to do so. It's that kind of speech movie. Jack Nicholson is playing the role of the president, and he gives a speech so good it makes him cry, but he doesn't understand the Martians at all and gets killed in a bang.

Dain　In the end, he will be killed.

Reading Monkey: He told me to listen to him in a long way, but he wouldn't let me finish. It's a movie that does that kind of thing endlessly. So, can everyone give a speech? and. Scientists give speeches, presidents give speeches, and all kinds of people give speeches. I remembered it. Aren't the people in "New York Public Library Ex Libris" real people? It's not like I'm given a role, for example, even the uncle who is in charge of the construction is giving a speech. What I'm doing is a clerical matter of reporting what kind of repairs have been done using the emergency budget. However, like the basics of rhetoric, I put a lot of concrete numbers in, and use comparisons such as how many cases have already been done and how many are still underway. Be persuasive and really listen. But if you think about it, you're probably just reporting that you're fixing it.

Dain But let me hear it.

Reading Monkey Yes. I can give a speech to be heard. Everyone was doing it in "Mars Attacks", but that's normal for Americans.

Also, on a slightly different topic, isn't the magazine "Playboy" famous for its interviews with celebrities? Now that I think about it, that interesting thing is public speeches. I don't mind Japanese interviews, but if people reveal private things that they can't usually talk about, it's a "good interview". No, even Mike Tyson has a great story and says something moving. Tyson can't read, he can't even read numbers. That's why I started talking about how I didn't know how much fight money I was getting. And he will be caught. When he was arrested, Muhammad Ali came to see him and gave him the Quran. And study letters in prison. Oh, it's a Black Muslim, Malcolm X*22. It's a story, isn't it? That's how I finally woke up. I woke up, but I don't know if I've become a real person (laughs). But as far as I can see from the interviews, there is a beginning, a turn, and a conclusion, and ants appear and get excited. It may have been written by a speechwriter, I don't know, but the interview looks like it was written by a speechwriter. But that is surely what the reader is looking for, and I think it's only natural that anyone as a public figure should be able to formulate and refine their words. So, the NYPL executive meeting is not a meeting, is it?

Dain　It's not a meeting.

Reading monkey: The director also gave a short speech. Does that fix the problem? When I think about it, I feel like it's not. It's a nice thing to say and it's inspiring, but it doesn't solve the problem. For example, at a meeting about homeless people*23 (*homeless people often use the library, which can be a nuisance to other users), the director said, It's not. I have good things to say. "It's a tough question. I'm no expert, but as a citizen, I feel..." he says. Eh, why are the citizens coming out here, are you the director?

Dain　Well, as the director of the museum, there is a problem, so please listen to it as an opinion.

Reading monkey said, "The problem is the culture of this city, which is creating homeless people." No, no, you, the director, (laughs)

Dain said to show me the prescription.

Reading monkey 　It's not a meeting to ask "What should we do as a library?" It's certainly a good story, but it may be the only way to do it, but will it work? I mean. We are also working adults, so we don't have meetings, but the meetings we do are ugly. Everyone doesn't know how to speak, you don't really understand what they're saying, and there aren't any moving scenes. But the meeting of these people has nothing but moving scenes. On the contrary, I wonder why I have to say such a good thing.

Dain　The idea that the director cuts out a "moving speech" and, of course, Americans are steeped in the culture of giving public speeches, so they naturally appear at meetings There are two ways to think about it.

Reading Monkey: Probably both. The sound was really good, wasn't it? Oh, the director is doing recordings. There was a big clean plate at the meeting. I wondered why there was a plate, but there was something like a walkie-talkie inside. That's a mic.

Dain Ah, there was, there was!

Reading Monkey: It's okay to put the microphone normally, but it's a little unfashionable, so put it on a big clean plate (laughs). It's like this attention to detail (laughs). But as a director, I want to get my voice right. I think you're talking about putting the mic down because you have to catch how words are used. So on the plate (laughs). I laughed at their hospitality. However, I have a desire to capture the voice firmly and put it in the work. I think you want to say that you can make a movie out of a series of public speeches by various people.

Yakou: As a country of immigrants, the United States places great importance on documents (whether public or private) that record the roots of its people. It means preserving our identity as a relatively new nation born out of human contracts. Therefore, the importance of the role played by public libraries exceeds the expectations of Japanese people.

Reading Monkey: Ordinary movies don't consist entirely of speeches like Mars Attacks. She cries normally, and there are more private words. There are people and people, for example, one of them talks about private things like "How much do you like you?" A normal movie is interesting because you can peek at it from this side of the screen. Therefore, "Mars Attacks" is an exception, but "New York Public Library Ex Libris" is a film with a strong documentary flavor, and the director's intention is to capture the public speeches spun by various people in the library. . If you ask what this will lead to, I think it will be American politics and history. There are so many historical stories out there. Before watching this movie, I would have talked with Mr. Dain about "going to the archives and looking for my roots." That's exactly what happened at the beginning of the movie. A woman is looking for her ancestors who came to America in 1810.

Dain Ah, there was.

Reading monkey: If you know when you came and which ship you boarded, you can figure it out, and so on.

Dain　If you know the year, month, and day, you can find out because you have an immigration certificate.

Reading Monkey Yes. If you know the ship you boarded, you say. Some countries were created by people who came by boat.

Dain　It's a library. that is preserved.

Reading Monkey: I think you probably brought a copy with you. He said that there is also a little part that has been converted into data. And, as I said earlier, there is such a need for people who come to the library. We don't go to the library to find our roots.

Dain: If it's a family register, you go to the city hall, right?

Reading Monkey Yes. But they go to the library, and the library is prepared to do that, or they get a copy from the archives. Ordinary people go to the public archives in America. Some people want to write a family tree.

Dain　Because I want to know my roots.

Reading Monkey: It's really amazing to be able to find your roots like that. It has a long history of public records. Since the first Continental Congress and the founding of the United States, we have been discussing the importance of official documents. And in fact, they're building an archives early.

Not only the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but also museums for each president, as well as other city archives, historical societies, and, of course, libraries. We have a collection of local historical materials.

Anyone who goes to a facility like this can read the documents. Of course it's free. Because historical materials should be public. This idea is pervasive in the public consciousness.

Moreover, not only that, but also people who held important posts donated their private documents such as memos and diaries for public use. Such customs are widespread throughout the country. Rather, I almost feel that it is an obligation. Because such materials are organized and preserved, it is possible to reproduce and analyze the process by which a certain policy was decided, using not only public materials but also private memos.

In Japan, it's difficult to find roots using official documents. The retention period for family registers was about 80 years (until recently, in Japan, the retention period for the expelled register *24 (and the revised original family register) was only 80 years). It was recently extended to 150 years. Before that, it was a temple register, but due to the anti-Buddhist movement, there are many things that don't exist. There are regional differences in Haibutsu Kishaku. There are some areas where we worked hard and others where we were sloppy, and there are no more places where we worked hard. Former Satsuma clan. If there is no temple, of course there is no past book. I don't think Japanese people would doubt that they are Japanese, but if similar documents were destroyed or discarded in the United States, it would be like "Throw away our umbilical cords!" I think there will be fierce backlash and anger. To paraphrase Heine's epithet, ``Those who burn books will soon burn humans,'' ``A society that discards materials will eventually abandon humans.'' This is also not a prophecy or anything.

Reminds me of a novel I read a while ago. It's a terrible novel (I'm praising it) by the example of Kurt Vonnegut. "Slapstick or I'm not lonely anymore! (Kurt Vonnegut, translated by Hisashi Asakura, Hayakawa Shobo, 1983). It's about America dying. The main character is the last president of the United States. The translation is "archives", but the original text is the National Archives, and the inscription "Past is Prologue*25" appears in the novel, so this is NARA (National Archives). Public Archives), no doubt. It's okay to be a spoiler. America was screwed up for some silly reason, and became president when the country was on the brink of bankruptcy. (smile)

Slapstick - Or No More Lonely! (Hayakawa Bunko SF 528)

Dain Hahaha.

Reading Monkey: Why is it to keep a pledge? Fulfillment of a pledge to "give the people of America a new middle name." I have to run the computer even for such a silly purpose. However, the country is already destroyed and there is no electricity. It can't be helped, so they bring documents from the public archives and burn them. It's a terrible story that really symbolizes the end of America. What's more, it's the Nixon-era documents that are burned (laughs). By the way, the reason why I chose my middle name is because I wanted to make new friends and create an artificial family. He said that he came up with the idea that if he did that, "wouldn't Americans be more considerate of each other?" It really feels like America is over (in this novel).

It is absolutely unacceptable for Americans to burn official documents related to themselves and the very heart of the country. It's something that's directly connected to everyone's lives and roots, to the point that if it disappears for even a little bit, it'll become a huge scandal.

Dain　Documents are proof of identity, aren't they? They ask who you are, and when you take your name, where does that name come from? When you trace your ancestors, when did you come to America? That's the question. If you can figure it out...

Reading Monkey: If you know that, you can identify who the person is. It may be a story, but we Japanese are weak when we are asked what can replace the story. Somehow they say things like, "Well, I was born in Japan," or "Japan has a long history," but even if I was asked to submit documents, I couldn't.

Dain: When I look at the family tree of my grandfather and grandmother, there are myself, my grandfather, my grandmother, and my great-grandfather, and after that there is a long blank, and it seems that I arrive at the description in the Kojiki.

Reading monkey: It seems that somewhere you can escape to the myth. Conversely, there are no myths in America. We often say bad words and say that America has a short history or it doesn't. For example, if you follow the flow of anti-intellectualism and revivalism, you will find many gods, but as far as the roots are concerned, it is a country that began as an arrangement between humans. That's why the roots are only the story of the beginning of human beings.

Tanikou: Religion cannot be avoided when talking about the ancestors of the Americans who landed in the New World from Europe. They discuss the Catholic and Protestant churches and how to distance themselves from the Bible. What is the revolution in human history caused by the translation of the Bible?

Dain　It's a contract, isn't it?

Reading Monkey: It's a contract. So what do you mean by losing the document that wrote the promise? In terms of the importance of documents, I followed Mr. Dain's example and sent an email reference to the NYPL the other day. I asked about the correspondence of Marin Mersenne (1588-1648), a French theologian and monk. I was surprised to receive a reply so quickly.

Dain It's been about a week, isn't it?

Reading Monkey It's been 3 days!

Dain Seriously?

Reading Monkey Introducing "Early Modern Letters Online*26", a historical database of letters from the early 16th century to the 18th century in Europe, and "Mapping the Republic of Letters*27", which illustrates the exchange of such letters. He gave me

In the days when there were no academic journals or academic societies, correspondence between scholars formed a network of academic information. Among them is the phrase "Republic of Letters". It's usually translated as "literary arts community," but just as the "man of letters" refers to a person with knowledge, this letter refers to learning in general. If we were to go back to what we were talking about earlier, it would be called a "pen republic," or rather, an academic community created by communicating with each other through what was written with a pen rather than with print. That is the French “Académie des sciences”, in other words, it is connected to the Academy of Sciences, and in the UK we have to create our own Royal Society. After making it known, the academy = academic community was created. Its origin is the Republic of Letters.

In ancient times, republics were based on face-to-face arguments, but here the academic network is established as a remote republic through the exchange of letters. In that sense, documents as objects are extremely important.

As the ancient republic disappeared and changed to empire and monarchy, if you try to live with the technology of handling words, it will be the technology of handling documents. This becomes the “seeds of rice” for humanists and humanists. It can even go further and become a powerful force that can change the times. You can read Latin and compose poetry yourself, but on the other hand, in philology, you compare letters and ask whether they are true or not. Those who have built up their written language skills will gradually destroy the documentary grounds that have been vague until now.

There is a document called "Constantine's Donation," which is said to be the basis for the legitimacy of the Pope's land ownership, but Lorenzo Valla*28, who philologically revealed that it was a later forgery. There are people. He is the kind of humanist who philologically ended the Middle Ages.

Christianity itself is a religion based on a single document, the Bible, so this kind of philological technique can sometimes be a tremendous force. Because the thing called a document remains, it will be considered later. In biblical studies, advanced criticism is a detailed analysis of the Bible itself to find out which parts were written by whom, when and where. For example, "The Gospel According to Matthew" was not written by Matthew.

Dain So, it's because it's written words.

Reading Monkey: It's written, not verbally, so you can look at it with different eyes. That's why I get criticized for saying "It's a forgery" or "It was written by another person."

Dain　It's just proof.

Reading Monkey: Because it's still there, there's no way to cheat. If you talk about Buddhism, people will get mad at me for this, but the sutras themselves are called "buried sutras" and come out later. No matter how you think about it, it was written by posterity, so it's a text that the Buddha doesn't know. (laughs) In this way, sacred texts can be added later, so there are a huge number of Buddhist scriptures. I don't mind being so vague about it, but since Christianity was originally a religion that stated that it was based on this sacred book, I couldn't add it later, and when I traced it to the Bible, people would say, "Yeah." I can't help it. So do Protestants. The church or the Bible, which one should you choose? The Bible. I thought churches were built after the fact and weren't written in the Bible.

But really, Catholics don't use the Bible much. Luther wrote, ``I have never seen a Bible until I am this old.''[29] It's not just me, I'm sure everyone has never seen a doctor of the church. There are so many Bibles out there, but people don't read them. So how does (Catholicism) work? In Catholicism, the words for performing rituals were originally taken from the Bible, but the liturgical texts were arranged for rituals, and the words for believers to pray individually before meals. As a prayer sentence, it is determined. In other words, the church has decided, "Pray with this word at times like this." Not only the words of public prayers used at the mass that everyone participates, but also the words of private prayers. An individual believer can live a religious life with a prayer book containing these prayers. On the other hand, Protestants denied the church, including such things, so their motto is spontaneous and free prayer, and you have to think about the words of prayer every time. It's hard, isn't it?

Dain It's really hard...

Reading monkey: Once you learn some Latin words used in the liturgy, you can do mass, so it's been a long time since the establishment of Catholic clergy educational institutions. When the Black Death (the plague) broke out in 14th-century Europe, killing one-third of the population at the time, and of course there was a shortage of clergy, they recruited a large number of humanities scholars*. 30. Since the ritual revolves around the prayer book, the priest didn't need much specialized training. I don't want to go crazy (lol)

Dain　No, but I think it's true.

Reading monkey: Catholics don't read the Bible in the first place. Because heresy will be born immediately if you read it. Even if the text is the same, as time passes and different people read it, different interpretations will emerge. So we have many meetings to find out how to eliminate different interpretations and create an orthodox orthodoxy.

Dain　Don't try to make them understand, but imitate the rituals or patterns.

Reading Monkey 　Because heresy has occurred over and over again, it was my empirical knowledge that it would be useless if I let him read it. So I started hiding more and more. In order to hide it, you have to fill it with other text, right? That's why I have so many prayer books.

Dain I see. Hmm, I agree, I agree.

Reading Monkey So, even though we had made it this far, some people called Protestants began to say, "We're going back to the Bible." I translated the Bible and made it readable. In the first place, everyone had never seen it, let alone read it. Something that even the clergy had never seen. It's very open.

Dain I see, I translated what was hidden in Latin and only a few people could read it so that everyone could read it.

Reading monkey So the church was built so that there was no need to read. I made a Christian system like that. Fill the surroundings with various documents. I finally made it that far....

Dain Just because you can print it, you can distribute it cheaply.

Reading Monkey Yes. I really want to read it. uh, can you read? and. So it turned out to be a great product. The world's number one bestseller.

Dain　The product, right?

Reading monkey: Yeah, the fact that there were so many publications means that there was a need for it, wasn't it? You may think that everyone has had a Bible for a long time, but that is a revolution. You made it a bestseller. So what happened then? The idea of ​​creating an organization called the church and establishing the interpretation of the Bible and the language used in ceremonies was what Catholicism was about.

There are so many denominations of Protestantism today. So it can't be helped. Because I don't bind it with structures, nor with interpretations or prayer books. But, well, there are stages, and although the Anglicans, or the Church of England, are a sect of Protestants, what they do is pretty close to Catholicism. I also have a prayer book. The mechanism of the monopoly of interpretation is inherited as it is. I just took the Pope from there. That's why the Puritans came out in England, saying, "We're not Protestants, we're not fake Catholics, let's be more Protestants." The word Puritan comes from the word "pure".

Dain Yes, Puritan.

Reading Monkey: It was purely a matter of doing Protestantism properly. So, he was persecuted in England and went to America. America is a country created by such people, so it started out as heretical, rebellious, and outsider-like.

Dain　He has a rebellious spirit.

Reading monkeys, but they say they have become mainstream in America.

Dain　Yes, yes. Because only such people gather and the country is completed.

Reading Saru: Then, in some kind of cycle, people who want to become a Puritan once again for something that has become established. That is the gospel movement and revivalism.

I said earlier that you can become a priest if you have the liturgical book, but if you are a Protestant pastor who has returned to the Bible, you have to study a lot. The reason is that there is a ritual in which all church members must say, "I have become a Christian." If it's Catholic, it's "read this way". But it is NG if it is Protestant. It has to be original, not tailor-made. For example, when a parent becomes ill, a confession of faith includes an episode of one's own. It's just a little literature. As a church member, the pastor must offer original prayers and sermons that go beyond that. In the case of Catholicism, it is decided which prayer words to use in which case, but in Protestantism, the pastor has to think in his own words every week. Moreover, the longer it is, the more it will be evaluated (laughs). This is hard. So I have to study a lot. In America, since the colonial days, Puritan pastors have been university graduates.

Dain Only graduates from college can work.

Reading Monkey Yes. It's not set in stone, but it's impossible to come up with prayers and sermons every week without studying a lot. That's why Harvard University was established less than 10 years after immigrating to Massachusetts. I would rather build an elementary school first. I think it's out of order, but they were wondering what they would do if the pastor was gone. If we don't make it now, what should we do when the next generation comes and everyone gets old and dies? I thought that not everyone could be a pastor. That's why I created Harvard University. Harvard University focuses on liberal arts. I don't teach much about theology.

Dain　Because that's what I originally came to America for.

Reading Monkey Yes, that's why the Bible is important. I do my best in Hebrew and Greek so that I can read it. However, in order to understand the content and be able to give sermons that people will listen to, I need to know a lot more. In short, it seems that you have to create a writer. I also do geometry and astronomy, and I also do rhetoric. Liberal arts and liberal arts. As a result, you will move away from religion. Then people say that Harvard has become too secular. So let's create Yale University. Another serious university (laughs). Then, after a while, Yale became useless, in other words, it became liberal (laughs), and the next thing they created was Princeton University.

Dain　That's the story of worker ants. In a group of worker ants, there will always be those who are lazy. If you select only working ants, you won't be able to say that they all work properly. It is said that no matter how much you make the top clear, what you are doing has not changed for a long time.

Yakou 　Here, the topic changes and the focus shifts to Japanese libraries. The NYPL is certainly great. However, Mr. Dain objects to the argument that Japanese libraries are ... .... Libraries in Japan are not abandoned. No, rather, it can be said that it is quite “advanced”.

Dain　By the way, after watching this movie, people who say "that's why Japanese libraries are useless" or "I wish we had a library like this (like NYPL) in my city" actually don't really like libraries. Maybe you haven't been there, or you haven't done anything but borrow books. Because the other day, I went to the Chiyoda Ward Library. "Adults are also addicted! ! There was a project called Kodomo no Shinsho, and I also uploaded a blog article. Great there! That's what I thought.

For example, the New York Public Library does something like Hello Work. This is fantastic. But wait a minute. The public library in Chiyoda Ward also does various things *31. I was moved and brought a pamphlet, for example this one. "I have no choice but to do my best. But I have no house to live in! ! ’ pamphlet. In short, this is a consultation for people who are about to be kicked out of where they live now, or who are unable to live due to a decrease in income and want to find a house. Life counseling, employment counseling, etc. The Chiyoda Ward Library is doing exactly the same thing as the New York Public Library's financial counseling and nursing care training.

There is also hikikomori support. People who are in trouble with being withdrawn should come to the library. No, I don't think people who are withdrawn even come to the library, but maybe the library has a surprisingly high affinity with people who are withdrawn*32. In spite of that, when I said, "The New York Public Library is so wonderful, the Japanese library is no good." When I say this, I think there will be a counterargument, ``Mr. Certainly, other libraries may not be that far. But the same is true of the New York Public Library*33. I don't think the great things about the New York Public Library and the good things about Japanese libraries are necessarily exclusive.

It was mentioned in the movie that the museum was open 6 days a week, which would appeal to politicians. Currently, the New York Public Library is open five days a week and closed irregularly on the sixth day. I looked this up on the website. As for the Chiyoda Ward Library, it works for a whole month, with only one or two days off. So, I'm doing it from 9:00 to 22:00.

The New York Public Library closes at 17:00, except for events (NYPL is usually open from 10:00 to 17:00 (depending on the location, branches may close at 18:00)). There is also the issue of security, but if you look only at this, the Chiyoda Ward Library is more convenient. Also, the New York Public Library has facilities for the visually impaired, which I thought was amazing, but the Chiyoda Ward Library has an elevator and parking lot for the visually impaired. So, if you live in Chiyoda Ward and think "New York Public Library Ex Libris" is wonderful, I'd like you to reconsider your neighborhood's Chiyoda Ward Library.

Also, what I thought was interesting in the movie was ``Do unicorns really exist? In the reference service phone scene, I thought I might try it, but my English wouldn't be able to convey it, so I decided to use it as an email reference service. Mr. Reading Monkey said, "Usually people say it's good to do something like that, but there aren't many people who go that far." Even if you think it's good, less than 10% will actually do it, and less than 1% will continue. The same can be said for libraries.

Reading Monkey: If I remember correctly, the New York Public Library used to be a reservoir *35. The water reservoir here was made of artificial bricks to store water, and from there it was distributed to the water supply. Since the land is not expensive in the city, it is said that the bricks were removed and the building was built as it was. The first director, John Shaw Billings, did it. It seems that it is almost the same as that "People who raised the library Foreign edition I America edition". Before that, I made a building for a medical school somewhere. A hospital was also built. He's like America's Nightingale. I used to be a doctor, but I was a leading figure in building hospitals from the perspective of preventing hospital-acquired infections, and then I built a medical school library, and I became a leading figure in libraries as well.

DainYes, yes, yes.

Reading Monkey: Also, I like great work. I made almost all the catalogs for the Surgeon General's Office Library by myself. No one else could read the medical literature. I'm the only one All the materials are brought by my subordinates, but I look at them all at home and tell my subordinates to do this. It was daytime, and he was working as usual. Because I'm a demon of work (laughs)

Dain Because Carnegie also likes to work. Ah, that's why the staff was created and connected to PubMed*36.

Reading Monkey: Yeah, the doctor's subordinates have finally come. So the two of us were able to do it, and this time we created an index for medical journals. This is not a finished product, but a monthly magazine. Current monthly. I read all the articles published in various medical journals and edited them. However, when Billings and his subordinates quit, there was no one to do it. But I thought I needed it, so some foundation gave me money, maybe Carnegie Mellon. I thought this would be a public job.

Tanikou: No matter how much we emphasize the importance of the role women have played in the history of American libraries, we cannot overstate it. Follow the flow of development of a women's circle library into a public library in the city.

Dain　When we talked before, there was an expression like "the king's library". About the origins of libraries in Europe?

Reading monkey: Ah, the king's study.

Dain　European libraries started out as the king's study, but in the context of the American democratic republic, I wonder if it will become a library among local users.

Reading Monkey: In terms of comparison with the king's study, I think it can be said that American libraries came out of voluntary associations*37. The story of a woman building a library is exactly the same. , 2018).

Women Who Enjoyed Shakespeare's Plays: Early Modern Theatergoing and Reading

Dain Oh! Is that it? I said it on Twitter.

Reading Monkey: A story about women pushing Shakespeare up into scripture. The same is true in America, where wealthy women with higher education study literature. He said he wanted to get together to talk about the books he read, rather than the literary talks that he had at school*38, and that he wanted to continue that even after he got married. It's that kind of literature club. What was the trigger?

New Edition New Translation Uncle Tom's Cabin

Dain Ah, the book reading club.

Reading Monkey: It's a group of people who want to get together and talk about books, like what we're doing now (laughs). That was the beginning of the library. So, of course, we wanted to keep our own books, so we brought our own books and created a library. This is the same as the Franklins I talked about before. After that, I wanted to spread it to other people, not just my family, so I decided to make it a membership system, so that people who paid money could use it even if they were not members, so it became a social library.

Dain, and from there it became a public library. Oh, that's how it went. From "My Bookshelf"...

Dain & Reading Monkey Our bookshelves, everyone's bookshelves.

Reading Monkey Yes. So, I made it, but at that time women didn't have a way to earn money. In an era where it is difficult to do things like work. That's why I begged and borrowed a room in the city hall, and then other people changed clothes in that room. If the wind changes direction, you will be kicked out saying, "I'll use it for something else." So, when I was wondering if there was anything I could do to find a place to live in peace, I was told that if I were to build a library, the Carnegie Foundation would provide the money. This is it! and.

Dain　This leads to the story that "a woman built a library".

Reading monkey Carnegie is really a "self-help person", so he demands efficiency and spontaneity even in charity. I don't want to waste anything. That's why it's no good to donate your inheritance after you die. Bequeathing means that there is no string attached. I don't know what (my money) will be used for when I can't see it (laughs). Therefore, while my eyes are black, I pay for it and keep an eye on it. That is responsible charity! That's what I mean. I also make rules. They put out conditions regarding the operation policy of the library, such as that it must be free, that the city should pay for its operation, and what percentage of the initial construction cost should be paid. I told him to raise his hand if he wanted to do something on top of that. It is also a prerequisite to consider a sustainable system. I wonder who would do such a troublesome thing, but in fact a lot of hands were raised. It was a women's club. They were the women who had built their own library. They wanted to establish their own library somehow.

Dain　My original motivation was to continue doing literature.

Reading monkey: Also, while working in the library, you will have a point of contact with society. The same applies to lobbying activities such as dating government offices, and holding bazaars. Because they can't buy books because they don't have money, they try to raise money to buy books at bazaars. make a cake. So, for those who don't have money, I don't need money, so I'm going to bring a book that I don't need instead of the admission fee.

Dain I see! smart.

Reading Monkey: That's good, isn't it? Isn't it a wonderful initiative that you still want to do? But, well, I can't collect big things. Everyone brings a lot of books. But it's a good aim. While doing that kind of thing, more and more points of contact with society will be created. I also understand the importance of money. If I had the money, I could do better. Contributing to society and running the library will proceed in parallel. Even after the library is completed, I will not leave it alone. Or make a list. Well, but it connects to the previous story that they were beaten for low wages because they did it as volunteers, but it was precisely because of those people who did it that libraries were built all over the city. Libraries didn't pop up just because Carnegie handed out money. He wouldn't give money unless he raised his hand. At that time, it is said that there were about 1 million participants in the women's club *39.

Dain 1 million people! ? That's amazing.

Reading Monkey: The whole women's club. There are 12 women's clubs in a town with a population of about 3000 people. There are so many towns, and it has become a branch stream of the history of women's liberation after that. They were very moderate, submissive to the gender norms of the time, and acted in a “feminine” way. That's why the next generation would say it's lukewarm. At the time, the women's right to vote campaign was considered radical. And at that time, not many women rode. As a result, the women's suffrage movement itself became more and more conservative, compromising on the status quo. Later on, I was finally able to achieve success... but it took me a long time.

In that sense, the suffrage movement wasn't very mainstream. At that time, it was more of a women's club. Because everyone has needs.

I believe that social movements need three elements. First, there is the “philosophy” of what kind of society we want to create. And in order to continue, there is also some kind of "material return". In other words, money is necessary for sustainability. Finally, the joy of social connections and “human relations” that can be obtained through activities. Because of that, everyone participates.

Dain 　Companion?

Reading Monkey Yes. I believe that without the three incentives of ideological attraction, material attraction, and relational attraction, a social movement cannot sustain itself. In that sense, women's clubs have a lot of relationship attraction. I want to talk about literature with everyone. Since then, women have become more involved in society. At that time, there was a movement to stop drinking, and workers' wives were standing in the streets because they had no money, and it was a movement that said, 'We have to do something about that.' Not all of the philanthropic movements had a positive effect, but there was a tendency to think that we had to do something about society based on Christian ethics, and that what could be done was to make the most of our femininity. rice field.

In one of the attempts to get involved in society, the library was easy to do. First of all, reading books is a good thing. Many of the participants were housewives, and even the husbands said, "Well, isn't that good?" That's why, philosophically, I'm doing something that's good for society. And you can hang out with your friends. There was also the temptation that if I went there, I would be able to meet people in a similar position when I was shut up at home and could not make horizontal connections. So in that sense, it's a very successful social movement. The fact that so many people participated also means that the needs of the participants at the time were captured. And as for the material attraction, the Carnegie Foundation gave me money for the establishment of the library.

Dain　He said that money was also important.

Reading Monkey: The General Federation of Women's Clubs (GFWC) was organized by gathering women's clubs across the United States. Here, along with various social improvement movements, the goal was to establish a library. So you created a nationwide network of horizontal connections, like "Let's start a library at home." It spread more and more while sharing know-how. Women's clubs across the country were involved in fundraising for the establishment of the library, lobbying local governments, lobbying for support from the Carnegie Foundation, and even cataloging the library after it was established.

Dain　Women gathered not only at the church but also at the library.

Reading Monkey: You built the place yourself, didn't you?

Dain　The church may have been given by God.

Reading monkey: In a church, there is a pastor, in other words, a man. So we created our own place that is not. I still use the term “whereabouts” a lot, but I don’t think there is any other example of a movement to create a place that has achieved results on such a large scale nationwide. That's amazing, isn't it *40.

Dain It remains in history.

Reading Monkey: There are really things left. According to a survey by the GFWC and ALA (American Library Association)*41, 75-80% of public libraries in the United States were started by local women's club movements*42. This is ridiculous. I thought that everyone should know about such an incredible story.

Dain　It's a story that makes it very easy to understand why American libraries are "public" libraries. The difference from Japan's "public" library is also very convincing.

Reading monkey Carnegie wanted the library to be within walking distance of the residents. But in order to do that, someone has to raise their hand within walking distance. The people you mentioned were there at the time. And it was a women's club.

Dain I see. I feel like that would be an empirical study. Compare the location of public libraries displayed on Google Maps with, for example, the situation in European countries. If you compare statistically something like "library density" (not population density), like the number of libraries per million people, it seems that the United States has an overwhelmingly higher number.

Reading Monkey: It's like library geography. I think that library science should incorporate more methods from various social sciences. Library-related books, including academic books, are classified as 020 in the "Nippon Decimal Classification (NDC)" *43. It's all there, it's hardened. If it's easy to find, it's easy to find. But really, that's not good, and our argument was that books on a certain theme should rather be managed in a manner that is distributed across all categories (see: "Problem Solving Places"). Libraries as ”—Conversation with Amazing Books & Reading Monkeys Sequel). It follows that library books should be on the architecture shelf as well as on the geography shelf. It should also be on the history shelf.

Librarianship is too closed "inside the library"... Recently, I've finally started to incorporate the research methods of history and sociology. The book I showed you earlier, "Writing Women in the History of American Libraries," introduces the emergence of such a new library history. In that sense, I think there is still a lot of room for development in library science. Library geography, library sociology, library economics. Then the library isn't just inside the lending counter, it's even more outside...

Dain Spreads outside the rental counter.

Reading monkey should spread. The reason why the library has a lending counter is because I started lending books at some point. Before we started the rental service, there was no rental counter.

Dain: That's right.

Reading Monkey　Before there was a lending counter, there was an accounting counter. In other words, the library was completely closed. However, with the start of the lending service, the shelves became open. In addition, more and more services are becoming free.

Dain 　Anyone please come. And you can borrow books for free.

Reading monkey It's not that new, it's only been around 150 years since it started. If you look at the long history of libraries, you can rather call it a new attempt.

Dain It was also in "Adventures of the Public Library". In the past, it was a closed rack, and you had to pay or buy a coupon.

Reading Monkey: To put it in extreme terms, the library management side and the users considered each other to be "enemies". It's a prison, it's called a panopticon*44, with a watchtower in the center to keep an eye on the prisoners, and other rooms arranged radially. It's in the library.

Dain Don't let the book be stolen.

Reading Monkey Yes. Therefore, library architecture reflects the fact that in the past people did not trust their users*45. In addition, there is something like a skylight above, so you can see it from here but you can't see it from the other side, just like in a prison.

Dain thought it was a joke.

The reading monkey is real.

Dain　Well, there may be people who steal books, but I think it's only a handful.

I became a reading monkey because the library has come to trust its users. As a result, users stopped stealing books. Even with the current homelessness problem*46, there is a man named Arthur Bostwick*47 who was appointed librarian by John Shaw Billings (the first director of the NYPL) at the New York Public Library. I quit, but until I quit, I was the one who was entrusted with the management of the branch that had increased. At the time, he was saying that the workers just came to read the newspaper or just come to sleep, so they should be kicked out. That was my consciousness.

Dain　I think it comes from the idea of ​​wanting to protect books.

Reading Monkey He later quarreled with Billings, quit the NYPL, and went to the St. Louis Library. On p.106 of "Free Libraries for All", there is the following description.

It is true that many librarian leaders, like men like Arthur Bostwick of St. but never for reading—” and he continued to complain about that tendency.

That's why Bostwick didn't want to build a newspaper room.

Dain　I know what you mean. It was also discussed at the New York Public Library, but no conclusions have been reached yet.

Reading Monkey: I think Bostwick's attitude is based on his experiences with the branch of the New York Public Library.

He was in charge of the entire branch of the NYPL, so I think he was a guy who played hard. But with the change of times, closed shelves became open shelves, and the library changed to a place where workers would come. The annex involved the people around it, and the library began to change rapidly. He was in the