We Use Our Special Collections!
 

E
 

HELENE G. BAER
 

AST year, a scholar from New Zealand, burdened with a
tape recorder, appeared in the Special Collections read-
^ ing room with the request that he be allowed to study our
early copy of Lenin's Sobranie Sochinenii, in order to compare it
with the taped version, spoken by Lenin himself, which the reader
carried with him. The staff of Special Collections is accustomed
to unusual requests and leaps to triumph over difficult situations.
To Miss Rita Burns, who is in charge of the reading room, this
particular request involved unusual factors since the sound of a
tape recorder might well disturb other readers. Consequently,
she settled the New Zealander well back in the stacks, in a dark
tunnel lined with books. Her assistants helped him to plug in his
machine and gave him a work table and a gooseneck lamp. They
suggested tactfully that he keep the tone volume as low as pos¬
sible and left him to his labors.

But no one had counted on the echoes! Lenin's voice hissed and
sputtered as it bounced through the dust and the leather. All
other research stopped in the twelfth tier. The ears of Herodotus,
Cicero, and the other greats named on the stone frieze of Butler
Library strained to hear the goings-on within the book aisles. Mr.
Baughman, Head of Special Collections, .Miss Bonnell, librarian
in charge of the books, and Miss Burns met in frenzied confer¬
ence. What to do? The New Zealander's work was important,
but so was the work of other readers, and nothing, nothing ever,
must disturb the stillness of Butler Library. AA'ait! One of them
found the answer. They called the Oral History Research Office
and pleaded for the loan of earphones and they borrowed an
electrician from the University's maintenance department.

By the following day, the problem was solved and the tape re-

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