Pasadena Central Library, East Wing, Upstairs

We've returned to the main floor and the room north of the Reference Desk. I've looked at the floor plan and I think the room is part of the Reference Materials area.

In my previous post we went downstairs. Now we're going up, into another "staff only" area. The upstairs in this wing is less used than that in the west wing because there's only one entry and one exit. It's not up to code, therefore not accessible to the public, nor is it a regular office space for staff.

Dan McLaughlin, librarian, archivist, historian and author, was my delightful guide for a wonderful tour of some of the library's secrets.

I'm pretty sure he didn't show me everything.

The room above is at the top of the first flight of stairs.We couldn't get the door open. It's currently being used for storage, as you see.

Dan takes a right turn and leads me across an open area with more storage. It's the balcony you've seen from the Main Hall.

We're facing west now. On the left you see the large, arched windows that look out over the front courtyard and fountain of the Walnut Street entry. The counterpart to this photo, looking out from the opposite balcony, is in my post about the east wing.

Each window bears an inscription. This one is above the balcony we're standing on.

Another view of the same window shows something I didn't notice until I enlarged it on my computer screen: it looks out over more windows. These illuminate more storage areas. Some we were able to access, some we weren't.

There is so much here. Archivists work constantly, and they will never catch up. Job security!

More stairs. We're heading to the third floor now. This small window looks across Walnut Street to Pasadena's Police Headquarters.

Yes, there is a fourth floor in this wing. We were moving fast and I was snapping away; I can't remember if there's a fourth floor in the east wing. If there was, I'm pretty sure I didn't see it. Notice the dust on the stairs. They are used, but not much.

We weren't able to open this door, nor were we clear on the origins of the message, "ESK BEFORE USING THIS ROOM." It appears a letter has been scraped off, but it still doesn't make sense.

It's just as well. The library has secrets. It always has and it always will. I'm glad of that. Secrets are mysteries, and I like mysteries.

Dan calls the rope "security." It seems to be working.

Pasadena Central Library, East Wing, Downstairs

Let's go downstairs first, shall we?

This stairway leads down from the room just north of the Reference Desk at the east end of the Main Hall at Pasadena's Central Library.

At the bottom you arrive in a public area where there are 30 or so (or more) computers available for public use. Just beyond that room is the copy/fax room, also available to the public.

Between the two rooms, a door leads to more of the staff's working spaces.

Soon we came upon rooms of archives. Dan McLaughlin, librarian extraordinaire, author and my guide, knew I was interested in archives because of the novel I'm working on about an archivist who finds something that puts her life in danger.

Dan's an archivist. This is his office. This particular view is so useful to me and it was generous of Dan to show it off.

Lots more people work in that basement. The library has a huge staff.

Who knew? Right there in the library's basement, just about under the Main Hall, there's a shiny conference room that can also be used as a screening room.

I've lost my sense of direction already. Can it be possible that the basement is larger than the main floor's footprint? There is so much down there! We're heading into more archives.

This wowed me. Presidential papers. Really? Well, not originals. Dan told me many libraries have these books.

More and more, on and on. Not glamorous, just hidden and utilitarian and overwhelming. Thank goodness for the big staff, because one brain could not hold all the information about where everything is. Well, maybe a good librarian's brain could do that. Maybe that's part of what makes a good librarian.

See if the room above looks familiar in the following clip from the 1978 film, "Foul Play." I never would have known about this if Dan hadn't told me.

At the end, Goldie Hawn runs out through the Central Library's Main Hall. The Hall is dressed up for the shot with extra shelves to block Goldie's escape. The shot was taken from the same angle where I took a photo from above the Main Hall in my previous post.

Pasadena Central Library, West Wing

When it comes to Pasadena's Central Library, there might be no better tour guide than Dan McLaughlin, Librarian, Archivist and Pasadena historian. Lucky me, I asked him for a tour and he said yes. He even held my book, Act As If, when I took his picture. (Which I did not ask him to do but I wasn't going to turn him down.)

Dan is also an author of novels, plays and history books, two of which I purchased at Art Night. You may remember Pasadena Pursuit, the Pasadena Museum of History exhibit he curated across the hall from Ann Erdman's Mystery History.

I'm working on my new novel and it takes place in a library. It might even take place in Pasadena. For research and inspiration, I hoped to snoop around, above and behind things in Pasadena's Myron Hunt-designed, 1927-opened, 130,000 square foot Central Library.

Let's start with the library's west wing, which is way bigger than I imagined it could be.

When you enter the door west of the check-out desk where it says "Staff Only," a corridor takes you past a coffee room and several offices. Pretty soon you come upon this long room where books are being checked in and catalogued. I'm standing near the west end of the room. The windows face out onto the parking lot. Does the purple protect workers and books from the sun? The door at the far end opens onto the hallway that leads from the parking lot into the library.

We're on the second floor now, right above where I was standing when I took the previous shot. I hope the employees don't mind me showing their lounge. I think it's pretty nice. Very roomy and comfy, with a kitchen off to the left. The coffee room on the first floor is a lot smaller. This one's more like a full kitchen.

I never knew about this and it's hiding in plain view! The walkway leads from the lounge to the office pictured below. You can look north over the parking lot and to the mountains from here. Next time I'm at the library, I'm going to look up from the parking lot and see if I can spot it.

We're looking toward the mountains. More purple. I'm gonna go with sun protection.

Dan asked me to be careful about taking photos of library patrons. "We like people to feel safe here," he said, "we protect their privacy." I don't think you can recognize anyone in this photo of the Main Hall, taken from the second floor balcony looking east. The Hall's floor is cork, to reduce noise. The woodwork is quarter-sawn oak.

An interesting tale about the chandeliers: they're replicas of the ones Myron Hunt designed for the building. Other lights were installed in the 1960's "which obscured the beautiful ceilings," and no one knows what happened to the originals. But Hunt had designed the same ones for the Huntington Library, and these are copies of the Huntington's.

I took about a million photos and I'll post more. But I want to thank the library staff right now, and especially Dan McLaughlin. I had hoped to be inspired by my tour and I haven't stopped writing since.

Do you want an architectural tour of the Pasadena Central Library? Yes, you may have one.