Among the many, many people who helped me research this book, a few helped me time and again, across months and years, well beyond any reasonable expectation: Jenna Freedman, Susan Hamburger, Wayne Hay, J. J. Jacobson, Kathryn Shaughnessy, and David Smith. They were patient with me—I knew nothing when I started—and they shared their knowledge, skills, and insights with grace and good cheer. I’m grateful to them beyond measure. They, like all my sources, did not know what I would end up writing, and it’s my fault if anything has been garbled in the process.
I’m indebted to all the librarians mentioned in the book, many of whom did much more than their part in the narrative might suggest; I’m particularly grateful to Maurice (Mitch) Friedman and Siobhan Reardon. I would also like to thank the following people who were not mentioned but went to great lengths to help me: Elizabeth Bermel, Jane Marino, Sandra Miranda, and Stephanie Sarnoff; the IT staff of WLS, especially Wilson Arana and Rob Caluori; the staffs of the Chappaqua, Mt. Pleasant, Ossining, and White Plains branches; the Westchester Library Association; and the WLS board, especially Dave Donelson.
Rebecca Guenther of the Library of Congress led me into the back rooms of cataloging and was a wonderful guide through Washington, D.C., and London.
Meredith Farkas and Rick Roche were especially helpful. Thanks to Robin K. Blum, Jill Cirasella, Meg Holle, David Lee King, Edward Morgan, Tom Peters, and LISNews. My correspondence with The Happy Villain was one of the pleasures of this project.
Thanks to those who helped me in Queens and Rome and weren’t mentioned: Jean Davilus, Caroline Gozzer Fuchs, Cara McMahon, Dr. Anna Clemente Rosi, Blythe Roveland-Brenton, Joseph Sciortino, Angela Maria Bezerra Silva, Zeldi Trespeses, and Heather Wolcott. Thanks to the many who helped me navigate and interview in Second Life: Wrath Crosby, Mae Goldflake, Jack Granath, Trevor Hilder, Lorie Hyten, Jilly Kidd, Teofila Matova, Dennis Moser, Gareth Osler (Gareth Otsuko), Sonja Plummer-Morgan, and Sheila Webber, whom I met in London and who as Sheila Yoshikawa conducts a series of seminars on education and research in Second Life that helped me immeasurably. I could not have reconstructed the conversations and some of the events in this chapter without the technical assistance of my first friend in SL, Inigo Kamachi.
Thanks to the staff of the New York Public Library who appear in this book, but also Paul Holdengräber, Kim Irwin, and Meg Semmler, who put on excellent programs, some of which I participated in; Isaac Gewirtz; and Herb Scher. Stewart Bodner was a great help. I could not have written this book without the benefit of the Frederick Lewis Allen Room.
I’m grateful also to Solveig De Sutter and the Society of American Archivists, and especially L. Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Michael Cogswell of the Louis Armstrong House and Museum, and Mary Ann Quinn. Nancy Adgent and her reading list were invaluable.
Mark Bartlett of the New York Society Library was a thoughtful and generous source. Kathy Jennings of Topeka and Shawnee County Public Library gave me a special tour, as did Joseph Shemtov of the Free Library of Philadelphia’s Rare Books Department. Thanks to Larry Seims of PEN, David Sharp of BFI, Charles Warren, and the librarians of the Internet Public Library. Clifford Lynch of the Coalition for Networked Information generously shared his thoughts and insights. Rory McLeod gave me a whole day behind the scenes of the British Library, including its archives and its Coalition for Conservation; I’m so grateful to him and his colleagues, John Rhatigan and Alison Faraday. Thanks to Dottie Hiebing and Jason Kucsma of the excellent Metropolitan New York Library Council, the organizers of the Computers in Libraries conference, and the Center for Lesbian and Gay Studies and the City University of New York.
These lists do not include the scores and hundreds of archivists, librarians, clerks, pages, IT staff, and scholars who either helped me anonymously, prefer to remain anonymous, or have been inadvertently neglected here, to my great regret. Nor does it include scores of friends and family members who supported me, sent me clippings, and fed me, literally and figuratively, along the way, or any of the dear writers and editors who gave me advice, though Ben Cheever, Marcelle Clements, Lee Eisenberg, Esmeralda Santiago, and Larkin Warren improved chapters, and Susan Squire gave the complete manuscript her tireless and scrupulous attention.
I’m grateful to my agent, Chris Calhoun of Sterling Lord, and the good people of HarperCollins, especially my inspired editor, David Hirshey. Thanks as well to Jane Beirn, Milan Bozic, Shannon Ceci, Kayleigh George, Kate Hamill, George Quraishi, Virginia Stanley, and Nick Trautwein.
The generation behind me and the generation ahead, my children and my parents, are my motivators. Jackson, Carolyn, and Nick Fleder have, with grace and good humor, made space for this odd sibling. My parents, Dave and Dotty Johnson, taught me to love both books and librarians, and to follow my heart. That led me to this project, and it also led me to Rob Fleder, without whom this—all of it—would have been unthinkable.