Lagniappe: Library Ghosts of North Carolina

Abstract

A fanciful person might say that every library is haunted by the spirits of the authors of the books that wait on its shelves for readers to share their thoughts and memories. Librarians are not fanciful as a general rule, however, which may lend extra credence to the few who will admit to paranormal manifestations in their buildings. Stories unearthed in a recent informal survey of North Carolina’s public library directors on the subject are tantalizingly brief and uniformly tame, in keeping with the quiet, modest, hardworking, conscientious, and discreet image of the typical librarian or scholar.