I’ve always called our library the Brooks Memorial Library, think that “Memorial” was part of the name. More recently I’ve seen official library announcements in which it is called, simply, Brooks Library.
My question: which is it? Was the name officially shortened? Was it never as long as I thought?
I like to use the right name, but also don’t mind shaving off a few letters from a frequently-typed phrase.
What say ye?
Promised Land
His full name I can’t remember, but won’t soon forget the story, even though I only know vaguely the main points. Mr. Brooks’ goal was to establish one of New England’s premier libraries. He lobbied, curated, acquired, and brought the dream to fruition. This was in the era when local Transcendentalists were making a mark on world thought. But like Moses, Mr. Brooks died on the very cusp of deliverance, the evening before opening, never getting to step foot or browse in the grounds he led the way to.
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As I said, this is from scratchy memory. Hopefully responsible myth making, if incorrect. Holders of the real story, please feel free to amend or correct. Kudos, Mr. Brooks.
I've always known it and
I’ve always known it and referred to it as Brooks Memorial Library. I have also noticed that in some postings of events it’s called just Brooks Library.
For convenience sake, maybe? Hopefully someone affiliated with the library will answer this question. Whatever it’s being called these days it is a truly wonderful library.
Brooks Library vs Brooks Memorial Library vs George J. Brooks Me
Yes, we do sometimes use the less formal Brooks Library for our name..I guess to be completely up and up, we should go by the George J. Brooks Memorial Library. So,as you can see, we are guilty of slipping and abbreviating when possible in the age of Twitter.
Did you know there is more than one Brooks Library?…sort of…there is the Gladys Brooks Memorial Library (Mt. Washington Observatory), and the Brooks Free Library in Harwitch, Mass (on the Cape).
At any rate, before our esteemed donor–not Ronald Read–but the first one, George J Brooks, donated funds to build the original Brooks Memorial Library in 1886, the library was called the Brattleboro Free Library. The sign still hangs in the library interior above the room, which we used to call the “Quiet Room,” that used to house the “Loud Collection.”
A little inside library baseball (:
Oh, BTW, our Twitter handle is.. @brookslibraryvt…
Jerry Carbone
A place for mammals
I’ve always called it Brooks Mammalian Library. Stay out, reptiles!
Possible reptiles
In the early days of the library, it was home to the Natural History Museum. Lots of stuffed birds and animals.
Possibly a reptile.
And, yes, spinoza gets it right. Brooks didn’t live to see the opening of the library bearing his name. He was very involved in planning and building it, but his number was called shortly before opening day.
checking out; various intpretations
I’m guessing Mr. Brooks died of natural causes, unlike Moses, apparently.
We tend to think of Moses’ demise as supernatural. A deus ex machina deal where the Big Man lays down the law, closes the gate, and we little people are left in awe to ponder. That’s how the traditional story goes.
Sigmund Freud turned all that on its head with his final work, Moses and Monotheism. In it Freud not only claims Moses was an Egyptian by Birth- not a Jew- but that far from a lofty ascension, he was murdered, by his own people. And their subsequent guilt gave rise to the exalted place Moses receives in lore, a sort of massive cultural compensation.
At this point it might be best to separate Mr. Brook’s myth from that of the Ocean Parting Law Giver. Except as this idea rattled around I found an interesting connection.
From an article that appeared in NYTimes magazine 2007:
“About two-thirds of the way into the volume, he makes a point that is simple and rather profound — the sort of point that Freud at his best excels in making. Judaism’s distinction as a faith, he says, comes from its commitment to belief in an invisible God, and from this commitment, many consequential things follow. Freud argues that taking God into the mind enriches the individual immeasurably. The ability to believe in an internal, invisible God vastly improves people’s capacity for abstraction. “The prohibition against making an image of God — the compulsion to worship a God whom one cannot see,” he says, meant that in Judaism “a sensory perception was given second place to what may be called an abstract idea — a triumph of intellectuality over sensuality.”
If people can worship what is not there, they can also reflect on what is not there, or on what is presented to them in symbolic and not immediate terms. So the mental labor of monotheism prepared the Jews — as it would eventually prepare others in the West — to achieve distinction in law, in mathematics, in science and in literary art. It gave them an advantage in all activities that involved making an abstract model of experience, in words or numbers or lines, and working with the abstraction to achieve control over nature or to bring humane order to life. Freud calls this internalizing process an “advance in intellectuality,” and he credits it directly to religion.”
And this from an avowed atheist to the end. My point being, if Freud was onto something true and correct, Mr. Brooks and Moses did come to similar ends, by different means, but their goal was the same.
To dedicate a place where intellectuality is advanced. Where the powers of abstraction are strengthened. Where humanity itself may be improved by exercise of a Life of the Mind.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/09/magazine/09wwln-lede-t.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
The advent of the greatest “death culture” known on this planet
Sorry George, but I must digress….
“Freud calls this internalizing process an “advance in intellectuality,” and he credits it directly to religion.””
I guess the Jewish born Freud in his 80’s (who wrote the book “when he was old and ill, suffering badly from cancer of the jaw”) wasn’t up to par to his youthful mind that earlier offered his fresh take on the mind’s “internalizing process” (of) an “advance in intellectuality.”
In any case, the human advance in intellectually certainly began long before the advent of the Jewish-inspired monotheism. The idea that is almost implied that we couldn’t have advanced without somebody’s god or their religion does not hold up with me.
However, it is most unfortunate that alongside with this unseen Jewish god (and its later derivatives) was the advent of the greatest “death culture” known on this planet, that persists to this day.
Can we credit the distinctive advances in killing technology to this belief-dependent “advance in intellectuality?”
Space Odysseys
It is most unfortunate that advances in intellectuality come with improvement to killing technology. This was perfectly illustrated by Kubrick and Clarke in the watering hole/monolith scene in 2001, when apes who got the brain boost, used it to build a better bone crusher. Archeological records show, Cro-magnon arrowheads and spear-point are so vastly refined and specialized compared to tools of their ancestors. It sparks shock and wonder in trying to understand what was going on.
What grabbed my attention here was the parallel between two men who labored long and didn’t get to see the fruit of their work. Freud suggested Moses was killed because he tried to establish a more ethical, (and what was seen as restrictive) method.
Our awesome library is now also threatened by advancing technologies, and proliferation of superficial and commercialized mindsets. When Mr. Brooks hatched his plan, a place of study and contemplation was the goal. Now this very same space must compete with TV and Facebook, and Wal-Mart, as destinations, and places of attraction.
It’s idle speculation, why Moses and Brooks got cut-off before the arrival of their dreams, and others die only after long labor, but having gotten to see their work finished. Goethe comes to mind, who passed after the completion of forty years work on Faust Part 2. I’m sure there are many more instances of this.
What isn’t idle speculation, but I’ve got no answers about, how can cultures advance ethically and spiritually at a pace that matches its intellectual and technological capacities?
A "free library is a powerful and wise educator"
“What isn’t idle speculation, but I’ve got no answers about, how can cultures advance ethically and spiritually at a pace that matches its intellectual and technological capacities?”
That is basically the heart of the matter. Answers? Well, not as a total summation. But I personally do not strongly associate ethical behavior with spiritually or any other belief system. I do see ethically inclined people as being “intellectually advanced” and therefore having a better chance of being more moral and ethical than believers. (Historically, believers have not fittingly demonstrated ethical behavior, at any pace they’ve taken.)
As George Brooks wrote shortly before he died, “A well selected free library is a powerful and wise educator, and, second only to the common schools, should receive fostering care and generous financial backing.”