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The model for the Night Vale library
🕑 Added 2024-08-08 13:00:06 +0000 UTCIn the first Welcome to Night Vale novel, we have an adventure in the Night Vale library that, for the first time, describes that library's interior. When writing the rough draft of that chapter, I drew on what is still the archetypical library in my head, which is the library I grew up with. The Camarillo public library, about an hour outside of Los Angeles.
There is now a new Camarillo library, which is slick and beautiful and features a children's section with a pirate ship that you can climb on. But I grew up with the old library, a squat building with vertical blinds on all the windows, shelves radiating out from the center space, and, confusingly, a large part of the floor plan taken up by an indoor fountain area.
I'm now working on another piece of fiction that takes place in this library, and I've found that there are almost no images online of that old building. So I emailed the library staff and they were nice enough to dig up this slide of the fountain and the library.
And so, here it is, the model for the Night Vale library, mostly because it's what I think of when I think of the word "library". I should note that in my memory, since I was a small child at the time, the stairs down to the fountain were like the Chand Baori stepwell in India. As you can see, it was less impressive in reality:
Still pretty cool though.
-Joseph Fink
Comments
Eric Sowder
Does the lady sitting down remind you of professor Umbridge from the HP movies or that just me?🤣
C. Yavosaur
I wonder how many places have been preserved through art like this. I once based a building around my high school which has also been remodeled.
mguin
Ha, heavens to conversation pit! The main library in my hometown was of similar vintage (no cool fountain tho) and working there felt a bit like being in a well-read cave. Tall atrium that echoed, tall shelves to get lost in. Always love reading about NV library & its denizens.
Jon Allanson
Thanks so much for sharing this peak behind the scenes and into your thoughts. I'm sure I'm not alone in relating. In fact, similarly, the library I grew up with (just around the block in walking distance from home) is what I always picture when I think of libraries. It was built the year I was born, and I spent so much time there when I was in all levels of schooling. And, much like yours was, they are currently redesigning it and expanding it. The plans look great, and it will undoubtedly be wonderful, but I will always think back fondly on the library I grew up in.
Damo El Diablo
I mean, at worst it's only ever so slightly less impressive! That's still a pretty cool looking library!
KG
You re-created it well--that image is exactly how I imagined it. I feel like we have all somehow been in this exact library, even if we have never been in this library. I'm a real, IRL librarian, and the first novel was my beloved first introduction to Night Vale. The library dissolved me with hilarity like in that gif of a lifelike dog cake being cut into. The magazine racks... the biographies of Helen Hunt. Exactly how that library we've all somehow been in but have never been in really felt like. I love this post!
Julia Diem
That is pretty cool! How many books you think ended up in that fountain?
