The piece below comes to us from UVA instructor Charlotte Matthews. Reflecting on her time in Alderman (now Shannon) Library, Matthews helps us feel the warmth of an old library; now new again.
“All knowledge which ends in words will die as quickly as it came to life, except for the written word.” - Leonardo Da Vinci
My sister calls to tell me she is organizing her books based on the color wheel, starting with red, moving through orange and yellow, onto the greens and blues, and ending up with rose. I picture her in what our mother would call her stocking feet, standing on a stepstool, reaching up high to shelve her copy of “The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.” On the radio: Brandenburg Concerto Number 4. She has long admired how the two flutes can hold their own alongside a full-string ensemble.
No sooner could I let myself organize books by color than fly to the moon. While I recognize how striking it will look, much like a painting by Rothko, there’s no way I can do it. I need to rest assured that Rilke resides next to Ezra Pound and that they are flanked by Octavio Paz and Theodore Roethke.
Thirty years earlier, I’m in college, freshman year, and find myself adrift and lonely. I try most everything in hopes of fitting in. After my mother and I haul boxes in the stifling August air, my roommate — a kind girl from southwest Virginia — asks which sorority I am going to rush. I look at her petrified, thinking we will have to sprint somewhere. I have no idea what she is talking about.
Mid-September, I join the crew team. And I love it — the getting up in half-light to run the stadium stairs. The way water slips under our boat as eight of us pull our oars in unison feels as close to flying as I’ve ever been. I am briefly okay. I have a purpose, a seat in a boat. But after our first regatta, the coach pulls me aside to explain I am offsetting the boat. My height of 5’1” is so far from the others it will not work.
In late October, ginkgoes on the Corner brighter than bright, I make my way to Alderman library. The smell of all those books is better than walking into a bakery, better than the salty tang of low tide. It is all so right: like my grandmother’s house on Gibson Island where I first saw the immaculate plumage of a snowy egret.
There are carrels lining every wall, and you can set up shop all day in solitude. Not a soul will bother you. Out the window: the wide playing field beside Memorial Gym. You can leave your backpack, trot off to class with your notebook, and come back to have it all waiting just the way you left it. Between the numbered floors are mezzanines where everything feels like a secret. When I get sleepy, I lay my head on my folded arms and take a nap. Or I meander the stacks, discovering that “The Homeric Hymns for Children” resides to the left of “The Iliad.”
In 1984, the library stayed open until midnight, and many of us took advantage of that. Besides the one rumor of a stalker coming through and cutting off ponytails, there was not much cause for worry. So, the night I fell asleep and went unnoticed by whoever’s job it was to lock up did not make me one bit afraid. When morning came, and a custodian gently tapped me on the shoulder, we greeted each other like longtime friends. Let’s go get some coffee, I almost said.
Four decades have passed, and the library’s undergone a major renovation. There are open spaces to gather. The entrance is accessible to all. And there is twice the seating for reading. Fittingly, it has a new name. What once bore the name of a promotor in eugenics now honors a man who bolstered public education. But the smell is the same, a mixture of vanilla and coffee and curiosity. And the carrels are still tucked along the edges, little nooks to read and dream and try to figure out exactly where Cleopatra is buried, one of the remaining mysteries of the world. The Edgar Shannon Library, light-filled and majestic, is more home than anywhere else I know.
Charlotte Matthews is author of five poetry collections, a novel, and a memoir, which was a finalist for Indie awards best creative non-fiction. Matthews teaches writing classes and directs the Writing Center for SCPS.
Alderman Library closed in February 2020 for renovation, and reopened in 2024 renamed as The Edgar Shannon Library, after the University’s fourth president. Learn more about what’s inside Shannon Library (you can even take a video tour), and see full hours to plan a visit!