Grads whisper stories from student days in the library stacks.
Heavy Books, Light Hearts
By Kathleen Fisher Kelly (BS ’77), Salt Lake City
Fall semester 1976 was my senior year. I had just started dating this new guy who was super cute and fun and smart.
One day a stack of extremely large books showed up in my apartment. I couldn’t figure out why the books were there. It turns out that my new friend had somehow managed to get my library card and checked out huge architecture books and other volumes from the Harold B. Lee Library—in my name.
I guess he thought it would be hilarious that I would have to return these books before they were overdue. Not owning a car back then and living quite a distance from the school, I trekked through the snow to the library to return the heavy books in a timely fashion.
In the end I married that funny guy. After 46 years of a blissful marriage, he passed away. But I still chuckle when I think of those early days.
Contract Confusion
By Aubrey W. Stewart (BS ’23), Springville, UT
In 2020, after working for BYU Grounds, I was eager to get a job with hours not dictated by the snow. A family friend who worked in the Harold B. Lee Library’s digital imaging lab in Special Collections said they were hiring. I applied, interviewed, and was offered a job. I signed a contract promising to work for at least two years and was excited to start.
Special Collections is in the Lee Library basement, with gray walls and no windows. All day I scanned historical documents and uploaded books to an archival site. The high-tech equipment challenged me. I would have trouble sleeping the night before my shift, wracked with anxiety over how I would manage to operate it. But I showed up to work each day and was committed to stay the course. I was confused when other students, hired at the same time as me, would quit. What happened to their two-year contracts?
But I stayed and learned to enjoy preserving letters and diaries. When my two years ended, I decided to stay for my last year at BYU.
One day I mentioned to my boss that I was so glad I had stuck through my two-year contract, even though it had been difficult. I immediately registered the confusion on her face.
“What two-year contract?” she asked.
Somewhere in my pandemic-addled brain, I had gotten confused. My boss had asked if I could stay for two semesters. And nobody had made me sign any sort of time-related contract.
I’m glad I got confused. I got to walk through the glass dome, experience the terrible shaking of the library renovation, meet true HBLL legend Richard B. “Rick” Anderson (BS ’91, MLIS ’93), and make a small mark in helping preserve important documents. It was the best misunderstanding.
Plunder and Launder
By Joel W. Warren (BS ’10), Richfield, UT
I used to wander the Harold B. Lee Library looking for the most obscure books, and I was especially curious about old adventure novels.
Once while traveling home, I threw my laundry into a duffel bag with a library copy of the 1922 pirate novel Captain Blood: His Odyssey by Rafael Sabatini. It was not until after running my parent’s washing machine that I noticed the soaked book still among my clothes. In the space of one regular cycle, I had become a vandal.
I could almost feel the “vivid . . . preternaturally bright” eyes of Captain Blood himself upon me, “and from those eyes two tears had ploughed each a furrow through the filth of his cheeks” (p. 347). I wondered how much the book cost, but that information had washed away like gunpowder soot from Blood’s face.
Later, I approached the library desk to confess. After being sent to security, a zealous student worker asked if I had damaged the book on purpose. But they set me free with a small fine and my promise to separate books from laundry.
I learned from the Harold B. Lee Library (and Captain Blood) that “a man must sometimes laugh at himself or go mad” (p. 73).
The Whistleblower
By Emalie Adamson Jones (BS ’58), Mona, UT
On the first day of freshman orientation in the year 1954, I met Ivan Blaine Jones (BS ’58). We later began dating, and as money was limited, our usual date consisted of studying together in the Heber J. Grant Library.
One evening as we sat working on our lessons in the deep silence of the library, Blaine became bored with his books and began playing with my keys. On my key chain was a tiny whistle that I had found in a box of Cracker Jacks. Blaine began to tease me by putting the whistle to his lips as if he would blow it. Alas, by mistake he did blow it, sending a piercing shrill whistle through the library.
Heads jerked up and books hit the floor as my clever friend quickly put the whistle down on the table in front of my very red face.
Birthday Bookends
By Lindsay Haddock DeGraw (BA ’24), Topeka, KS
Not many people can say they had their birthday party at midnight in the Harold B. Lee Library. I had two.
Growing up, my birthday was all about ice skating, decorating cookies, and Christmas caroling. It was also all about being handed a gift accompanied by the dreaded words, “This is for your birthday and for Christmas,” the highest possible offense to a child born in December.
In high school and college, a new monster emerged and threatened my birthday peace to destroy.
Finals.
Yes, that dreadful second week of December—cold winds a-blowing, sun early setting, students all a-studying, grades likely suffering. How could one celebrate a birthday in such a climate?
As fall semester 2019 neared an end, nerves were high as my first BYU finals week approached. But when I least expected it, an unassuming sticker on the library door saved me from my woes: “Extended Hours for Finals, 7 a.m.–2 a.m.”
I decided right then that I was going to turn 19 in the Harold B. Lee Library.
The next week my friends and I strolled into the library at 11:50 p.m. in our pajamas, arms laden with my favorite dollar store snacks, and settled at a table on the third floor. When the clock struck 12, we celebrated the start of my 20th year with soft library voices and swigs of Sprite, basking in the privilege of being in the library past midnight.
I loved my library birthday party so much that we repeated it my senior year. I couldn’t imagine better bookends for my BYU experience.
Call for Stories: Admitting Success
Remember the anticipation of applying to BYU, the waiting, the email refreshing, or the mailbox checking? How did you feel when you received your acceptance letter? How did you share your news and celebrate with friends and family? What led to your decision to apply in the first place? Tell us the story of your admissions experience, and you could feel the joy of being accepted again. Deadline: July 3.
Y Magazine pays $50 for stories published in First Person. Send anecdotes of up to 300 words to firstperson@byu.edu. Submissions may be edited for length, grammar, appropriateness, and clarity.
