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On Libraries by Oliver Sacks: Summary | Questions and Answers | Class 12 English
On Libraries by Oliver Sacks
Table of Contents
GLOSSARY
fantasies (n.): imagination, not real
morocco (n.): a fine soft material used for making covers for books
curl up (v.): to form or make sth form into a curl or curls
absorbed (adv.): with one’s attention fully held
astronomy (n.): the scientific study of the Sun, moon, stars, planets, etc.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
On Libraries by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks was born in 1933 in London and was educated at Queen's College, Oxford. He completed his medical training at San Francisco’s Mount Zion Hospital and UCLA before moving to New York, where he soon encountered the patients whom he would write about in his book Awakenings. Sacks was a neurologist and an author whose case studies of patients with unusual disorders became best-sellers. His focus on patients with particularly rare or dramatic problems made his work popular with writers in other forms, and his case studies were adapted into several different movies and operas. Dr. Sacks spent almost fifty years working as a neurologist and wrote a number of books - including The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Musicophilia, and Hallucinations - about the strange neurological predicaments and conditions of his patients. The New York Times referred to him as "the poet laureate of medicine," and he received many awards, including honours from ‘The Guggenheim Foundation,’ The National Science Foundation, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, and The Royal College of Physicians. His memoir, On the Move, was published shortly before his death in August 2015.
ABOUT THE ESSAY
On Libraries by Oliver Sacks
The essay 'On Libraries' is an autobiographical essay that has been written by British author Oliver Sacks. In this essay, the author has presented his childhood memories as well as his experiences regarding his interest in libraries. This essay has been written in praise of intellectual freedom, community work, a high state of unexpected discovery, and so on. Here, he has presented his delightful feelings for all the readers (book lovers) in the world. He has shared his experiences regarding the change that occurred in the field of reading books at libraries.
SUMMARY OF THE ESSAY
On Libraries by Oliver Sacks
The author begins his essay with his childhood days. According to him, he grew up in an oak-panelled library inherited from his father, where so many books were stacked. When he was a child, his favourite room at home was the library, a large oak-panelled room with books on all four walls and a solid table in the middle for writing and reading.
That library was his father's special library. Her mother had her favourite books in a separate bookcase in the lounge. Medical books were kept in a special closed cabinet at the surgery (office or clinic) of his parents. For the author, the oak-panelled library was the quietest and most beautiful room in the house.
For him, his favourite place was his library. He was found in his library, completely absorbed by a book, whenever he was late for lunch or dinner.
He learned to read at the age of three or four. His first memories are of the books and the library, among his other memories.
Overall, the author disliked his school as well as sitting in class and getting instructions and education. He didn't care much about the information received in the class. Information was going into one ear and coming out of the other. He couldn't be passive—he had to be active, learning for himself, learning what he wanted, and doing things in a way that best suited him. He was not a good student, but he was a good learner, and in the Willesden Library and even all the libraries that followed later, he roamed the shelves and piles, at liberty to choose whatever he wanted, which he used to fascinate, to be himself. In the library, he felt free—free to look at thousands, tens of thousands, of books; free to roam and enjoy the special atmosphere and quiet companionship of other readers, all, like him, on their quest.
As time passed, he got older, and his reading interest in the sciences was biassed due to his growing interest in astronomy and chemistry. After that, he went to St. Paul's School at the age of 12, where he got a chance to visit an excellent library called the Walker Library. The library was particularly heavy with information related to history and politics. Later, he went to Oxford University. At the University of Oxford, he got a chance to access Oxford University's two great libraries, the Radcliffe Science Library and the Bodleian, a wonderful general library that could trace itself back to 1602.
In the Bodleian Library, he stumbled upon the now-obscure and forgotten works of Theodore Hook. Theodore Hook was a man greatly admired in the early nineteenth century for his wit and his genius for theatrical and musical improvisation. He was said to have composed more than five hundred operas on the spot. After studying much about Hook, he became fascinated by him. Due to his extreme fascination, he decided to write a sort of biography or "case history" of him.
At Oxford University, he loved the library of Queen's College the most. The library was in the vaults with arched roof rooms, where he got the chance to gain a sense of history and his own language.
At first, he came to New York City in the year 1965. During that time, he had a horrid, pokey little apartment. The apartment wasn't spacious. It was quite difficult for him to read or write there. He longed for spaciousness a lot. Fortunately, the library at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, where he worked, had this in plentiful supply. He had a very good time over there. He would easily sit at a large table to read or write for a while and then wander around the shelves and stacks. The author opines that in the library we may be reading our own books, absorbing our own worlds, and yet there prevails a sense of community, even intimacy.
According to the author, meeting people in a library, handling and sharing books, and passing them on to each other develops a kind of friendship and trust between people. The conversations in a whispering manner in libraries develop friendships between them.
Later on, the author talks about a shift that occurred in libraries during the 1990s. During that period, he would continue to visit the library frequently, sitting at a table with a mountain of books in front of him, but students increasingly ignored the bookshelves, accessing what they needed with their computers. Very few students went to the shelves anymore. The books, so far as they were concerned, were unnecessary. Seeing the majority of users and their disinterest in using the books, the college ultimately decided to dispose of the books.
The author became quite confused. He didn't have any idea that this was happening. He experienced that not only in the AECOM library but in college and public libraries all over the country. He was horrified when he visited the library a couple of months ago to find the shelves, once overflowing, sparsely occupied. Over the last few years, most of the books have been thrown out of libraries with remarkably little objection from anyone. He felt that murder, a crime, had been committed, resulting in the destruction of centuries of knowledge. Seeing his distress, a librarian reassured him that everything "of worth” had been digitized. But he did not use a computer, and he was deeply saddened by the loss of books, even bound periodicals. For the author, there is something irreplaceable about a physical book: its look, its smell, and its heft.
He wondered how the library once treasured old" books—a special room for old and rare books—and how, in 1967, while searching the pile, he found an 1873 book, Edward Living's Megrim, which inspired him to write his first book.
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