You can see that dynamic at work in Litchfield, where the 112-year-old classical-revival-style library is a meeting place for young and old, complete with a coffee station and candy for sale at the circulation desk. She’s an ice breaker who brings people in and makes them feel at home. Library cats in Illinois carry on that proud tradition, but a good library cat is more than just a mouse hunter. The post of library cat is often traced to ancient Egypt, where cats protected precious papyrus scrolls from the ravages of hungry rodents. It was a struggle, and I’m too old to go through that struggle again.” There were people in the community who were terribly unhappy that we got a cat, and boy did they let us know.
They don’t want cats near them, and to those of us who do like cats - or clowns - it doesn’t make sense. “It’s like there are some people who don’t like clowns. “There are some people who just don’t like cats,” said Anne Newman, library director of the Paxton Carnegie Library, where Max, a former shelter cat, presided from 2002 until his death in 2011. Librarians point to several factors working against the pint-size literary lions, including concerns about allergies, the digital age pressure to seem “modern” and “relevant,” a highly litigious society, even social media, which can amplify the concerns of a small but passionate anti-cat minority. “Even (at) the library in Spencer, Iowa, where the incredibly world-famous library cat Dewey lived, the board of directors voted that no animals - aside from service animals - can be allowed in the library.” “The odds are, unfortunately, against them,” Rogak said. And the World” says that other states are losing library cats as well. And Lisa Rogak, co-author of the new book “The True Tails of Baker and Taylor, The Library Cats Who Left Their Pawprints on a Small Town. That’s a decline of 60 percent in six years. A Tribune search, based on an old master list and a query published in the Illinois Library Association’s electronic newsletter, turned up just two full-time feline residents: Stacks, of course, and Newby, a handsome black cat with a dash of white on his chest who resides in the staff offices of the Nippersink Public Library in Richmond. Their ranks are down considerably from 2010, when there were at least five library cats statewide. That’s a popular sentiment in this town of 6,900 set amid cornfields 250 miles southwest of Chicago, but in the larger world, library cats face an uncertain future. Stacks, believed to be the last full-time, free-ranging library cat in Illinois, hops onto the desk, stretches out luxuriously and falls into her signature near-snooze, a restful state that invites pats from shy tweens, curious senior citizens, even a 1-year-old who proclaims ecstatically from her mother’s arms, “Like cat!”
But if not, their owner will be happy to introduce herself, pushing her head under your hand, rubbing a silky black flank against your leg, leading you, fluffy tail at half-mast, to the wood circulation desk where she does her best work. You may recognize those emerald orbs from the Stacks the Library Cat mugs, the T-shirts or the photos at the Litchfield Public Library website. Not at eye-level - look lower, and there, hovering in the shadows behind the glass door, are two ice-green eyes, staring up at you with frank curiosity.
#Cat stacks person windows
Even before you enter the stately limestone library with leaded glass windows and copper-colored trim, you see signs of the local celebrity.
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