Today I lost the McHenry Library. Strange, especially since it’s a building that has such a large footprint (as the architects say) and I could swear I hadn’t moved it when I departed UCSC last August. Yet, I walked from Bay Tree Bookstore, took a right up the road, kept going even when it looked like it was going into the forest primeval, kept going until I saw the sign for McHenry and Classroom Unit 1 (clearly someone needs to step up and claim naming rights for that one), headed toward where I thought the footbridge was, and yes, it’s still there, and over the bridge and …no library.

However, I did manage to find the Earth and Marine Science classrooms. And another sign directing to the library back the way I had come. At that point I could see a silver something or other (roof?) through the trees, and hear the hum of something that was either a large hover craft or multiple air conditioners cooling a five story building. It was the latter.

Despite my dismay, I’m not particularly surprised that I lost the library. The entire campus of UCSC looks much like a state park. In fact, the signage on campus is of the brown painted wood variety, with engraved letters highlighted in white. Very Smokey-the-Bear-ish. So everything looks the same, and buildings are cleverly hidden in the natural environment.

That said, the McHenry Library has at least a couple unique features. The first is a terrace complete with smokers. Two of them as I passed by. And an ash tray, which implied permission to smoke less than 30 feet away from the entrance of the building. Or maybe the structure is cleverly designed so that the smoking area is 30 feet away, which would imply that someone intended for it to be there. At any rate, smokers in California are a dying breed (literally and figuratively) because they’ve been chased out of most public places, including bars (!?) and restaurants. Turns out that inhaling second-hand smoke is a health risk. Too bad. As a former smoker, I enjoy a good hit of second-hand smoke every now and again.

Speaking of smoke, the second singular feature of the McHenry and UCSC in general is that it is the archive of the entire Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead archive, donated by the band in 2008. In fact, a couple years ago, right before I got my master’s from UCR, I saw an advertisement on the AWP web site for a chief archivist. Too bad I haven’t ever been a Deadhead or I would have applied.  In fact, UCSC was awarded a National Leadership Grant of $615,175 from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) – the primary source of federal funds for the nation’s museums and libraries. The grant enabled the UCSC library to digitize materials from its Grateful Dead Archive and make them available on The Virtual Terrapin Station web site. (Not up yet. I checked.)

My mission at the McHenry was to secure a temporary library card because writers and readers need those sorts of things. I also went to reintroduce myself to my friend Alex who helps manage the Media Center to finagle permission to check out DVDs. We aren’t supposed to be able to do that this year, even though our classrooms have no Internet capability so we can’t stream excerpts of video for our students. I guess that our administrators expect us writer types to retire to the classroom, draw the shades, light a few candles, trim our nibs and get our parchment stacks ready.