Fresh out of West Virginia for the first time in my life, I was a twenty-two year old library school student at the School of Library Service, Columbia University, in the winter of 1945-46. For several evenings each week, I was in charge of the Newspaper Reading Room of the library. I was living at Johnson Hall, then a home for women graduate students. Each night, someone who looked disheveled and, to me, old sat in the reading room with the New York Times and a dictionary. He would mark passages in the newspaper with a pencil and study the meaning of the words in the library's big dictionary. He would mumble something to himself and try to concentrate and would not want to leave at closing time. On cold evenings, he bundled up with a pull-down hat, boots, scarf, gloves and a heavy coat, and all this would take a lot of time. I tried to hurry him up as I turned off the lights and was preparing to lock the door. One evening, I didn't quite make it on time. By the time I got to the front door of the library, it was locked for the night and would not budge. The building seemed very large and dark and scary.

The young man in charge of the Magazine Room, next to the Newspaper Room, had been waiting to walk me across the campus to my dormitory, and we were both locked in for what seemed to be the night. Today's kids would have a cell phone, and today, I am sure, the door would not be locked to prevent exit from the inside.

I scarcely knew the young man who was my hero that night, but he told me to sit on the baluster of the stairway next to the front door of the library. He ran calling throughout the echoing hallways, floor after floor, until finally at the far end of the fourth floor there was a light.

The head librarian, Mr. White, was working late, and he had the key to let us out. We were thankful, but we were admonished not to let this happen again. I think the custodian who was supposed to lock up was admonished, also.

Last year I went back to visit the library from my home in Missouri. I didn't find the magazine room but I did admire, as always, the beautiful woodwork in the Reference Department where I also worked under the direction of a library legend, Miss Isadore Mudge. This was the beginning of my fifty-year career as a librarian.

Virginia Lee (Casey) Gleason, LS October 1946

(listed with the 1947 graduates)