Gerald Dillon, A Perfect Library, 1936

Gerald Dillon (1897–[after 1952]), the Irish-Australian freelance journalist who, in 1934, wrote an article on Haywood's Female Spectator for the Australian Woman’s Mirror (see my post on this here), also wrote an article on the "perfect library"—by which he meant, the perfect public library. In a 2021 post on Dillon's journalism (here), I rashly stated that I would "soon" post that essay. Five years later is a little late for "soon"; but, here we are.

While I don't agree with all of Dillon's sentiments (and I explicitly disavow either keeping volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary on the floor, or resting your weary feet on them), it is an amusing fantasy—especially in light of recent moves to strip libraries of books, and convert them into wayfaring stops / coffee lounges.

[Gerald Dillon, "A Perfect Library," The Bulletin, vol. 57, no. 2593 (16 September 1936): 2b–c [occupying one and a half a columns of "The Red Page"—and appearing in the same issue as the first "10-page Instalment of 'All That Swagger'" by Miles Franklin] (here)]

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A Perfect Library

I read the other day of a lady, a potential frequenter of public libraries, who was actually too fearful to enter any of them without introduction, without guidance.
  I can well imagine her trying to summon up courage to enter one of the tomb-like buildings in which we harbor public books. Of course she would never get in. The whole external atmosphere is too stupendously chilling. I feel quite certain that hundreds of citizens often make pilgrimage to these ghastly-looking public libraries: and, of course, they never get any farther than the threshold— simply because these libraries do not look like places in which one could read.
  I rejoiced, to the limits of rejoicing, the other day when there came into one of these places a smallish boy who was part of a family—"looking round." I suppose books, even in a library, look just the same to a smallish boy as books anywhere else. On the outside, at any rate. So this smallish boy very intelligently essayed to have a look inside one of the books. He approached the vast shelves, took out a book, and was returning to a table to read it when he was intercepted by an attendant, who whispered, with bated breath, that it was against the rules to take books from the shelves. Then she pointed to a notice which read:—

Please Do Not Touch the Books.

  I never heard what the smallish boy said in reply. Doubtless he thought, reminiscently, of the zoo:

Please Do Not Make Faces at the Triantiwantigon,

and probably he accounted for this eccentricity at the library by deciding that maybe at feeding-time he would be allowed to look at the books to see what they contained. But I should love to know what that smallish boy really thought of our absurd adult world!
  I have often dreamed about the perfect public library, which, in the first place, always has a notice like this above the door:

PUBLIC BOOK HOUSE.
COME RIGHT INSIDE—NO CHARGE.
YOU MAY SLEEP IF YOU WISH, BUT WE WOULD RATHER NOT.
HERE YOU CAN CONTRACT LIFELONG PARTNERSHIPS.
THE HELPERS WILL INTRODUCE YOU.
THAT IS WHAT THEY ARE THERE FOR.

  The book attendants in this perfect public library welcome you at the entrance. In secluded nooks they seek out the lonelier patrons—of course we allow conversation in the perfect public library, because we are all so tremendously buoyant, with, the good fare provided.
  Nothing is inaccessible. The place is warm in winter and cool in summer. There are most delightful balconies on which you can sit out and read. You can get meals there too—at very reduced rates, of course. All the pens provided can be written with, and the ink is kept entirely separate from the water with which they scrub the floors. The library never shuts. You can sit there all night reading if you wish. The walls are hung with the most delightful pictures, for the perfect public library is also the perfect art gallery and the perfect museum rolled into one, but the museum atmosphere has been done away with. They have also done away with the gaol atmosphere and the public-institution atmosphere. In fact, this perfect public library is so perfect that all the folks have taken to going in there. In some parts of the library you can always happen on an interesting talk about books. There are halls there in which real Australian poets give readings of their own verse. Well-attended readings, too. And real Australian authors discuss their books at other times, and invite criticism from the audience—which is but grudgingly given, because the folks are so tremendously patriotic.
  And it was while I was dreaming this dream one night that I saw that ageing, lonely and book-eager woman come in. She had come right up in the lift, but the attendants saw that she was obviously unbookish looking and a little bit astray. At the threshold the principal book-assistant went forward and led her to the nearest armchair. Then he said in such a kindly voice: "Put your feet right up there"—motioning to some copies of the Oxford Dictionary which were lying on the floor—and then, after he had brought her a cup of tea, he said: "Well, where would you like to begin?" And she said: "Well, maybe I won’t live long enough to get through all—I mean all the literature I’m dying to read." And he replied: "Fear not, madam, from this day forward you have entered on a new lease of life."

GERALD DILLON.