Researching your next book

Wouldn’t it be nice to have some personal, free help? Don’t forget librarians.

It’s tempting to try to save time (and travel money perhaps) by doing all the research for your next book from your writing desk. Doesn’t the internet bring the whole world right to your fingertips?

If you’ve spent any amount of time really doing online research, though, you realize there’s a real skill to doing it efficiently. And a lot of the meaty historical stuff, which often underpins a great book, simply isn’t findable via Google. Maybe you’re not using the right word combinations, or it might be as simple as you don’t even know what you don’t know.

So let us remember the original research assistants that exist in nearly every town, and in great abundance in cities like New York. Librarians. They’ve spent their whole lives learning how to navigate through information. They like to help. And their services are free.

Wondering if it’s worth the bother? Check out this New York Times article The Library’s Helpful Sage of the Stacks, from several years ago, about David Smith, the gregarious “Librarian to the Stars,” who, until retiring recently, worked at the New York Library’s landmark 5th Avenue building. The list of the name authors he helped and how he helped them is impressive.

“I expedite the use of the library,” Smith said in the article. “I’ve been called a connector. I’m in a position to save people time. I know where to find things.”

One author I’ve e-partnered with, Kate Buford, recently published an exhaustive biography of Jim Thorpe, and laments that she just met Mr. Smith a few weeks ago. “He’s so nice and friendly,” she said. “I really could have used him on that last book."

A trained researcher who knows state-of-the-art sleuthing techniques, is eager to help, and costs nothing? What are you waiting for? Get thee to a library.

(And in case you may think libraries are passé, check out the photo (above) I took recently of the Rem Koolhaas–designed library in downtown Seattle. The angular silver exterior is deservedly famous, but the lofty interior is simply amazing, all open spaces and soaring glass framework ceilings. What a shrine to books and information! Many major cities these days have starchitecure-designed libraries, giving you another reason to seek them out and stop in… and then meet the librarians.)