4 I THE LIBRARY AND PUBLICATIONS £k 75 



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Monday morning tour through the MBL campus reveals one area of espe- 

 cially intense hustle and bustle. Carts of books, with their request slips 

 indicating desired page numbers to be copied, line the halls outside the copy 

 room. Piles of volumes to be reshelved cover the countertops. MBL scien- 

 tists and students have busily put the library to use over another weekend, 

 as always. Even on a stormy weekend night, with the wind blowing wildly 

 and setting up an unsettling moan throughout the building, people work 

 quietly in various tucked-away corners of the library stacks. Today the quiet 

 clicks of word processors at all hours augment the sounds of turning pages. 



Tfte Li5rary 



In many ways the real center of the MBL lies in the library, run since 1962 

 by head librarian Jane Fessenden. No locked doors or guards or stern looks 

 interrupt the researcher who comes to work in the library. Instead, library 

 readers meet friendly faces and cheerful smiles. Some people think the 

 library staff is not serious enough because they seem to have too much fun. 

 They are always there, ready to help with even the smallest questions. They 

 also make it clear that they believe a library is there to be used, and not 

 primarily to be preserved for some unsuspecting and very possibly unap- 

 preciative posterity. Anyone with a legitimate purpose, who gets prior 

 permission and who follows the rules, may use the MBL Library at any 

 season of the year and at any time of day. 



At first, the head librarian was a scientist who volunteered to take care 

 of the books. Then the lab hired an assistant, and then a full-time librarian 

 who would listen to the scientists and set up the operation the way they 

 wanted it, someone who would wcint to go to them for advice about their 

 library. 



The scientists respect this valuable resource, as they always have. Some 

 take it for granted: of course they can run in, find what they want on the 

 shelf, have it copied, and get back to work quickly and easily. Some of these 



