YOUNG TURKS: The Schulz Library’s new tenders

This summer, following a bloody coup and a drastic overturn of power, a new junta has installed itself behind the librarian’s desk at the Schulz Library. Crawling over the mewling and broken bodies of their enemies,  punch-cards clutched in their clenched teeth, Dewey decimal references tattooed across their bulging biceps, new librarians Dan Rinylo (CCS ’13) and Simon Reinhardt (’14) promise to run the lending institution with fists of iron. This reporter took time this July to speak to the new rulers of the stacks about their plans for the library.

CA: Gentlemen, it has come to my attention that you guys are the new librarians here at the Schulz Library. I guess we should start with y’all introducing yourselves. Where are you from?

Behind Simon Reinhardt’s wholesome facade hides a cold-hearted, unforgiving despot

SR: I’m Simon Reinhardt, I’m from Williamstown, MA originally. I live here in White River Junction now. I’m 25…

CA: What’s your shoe size?

SR: 9 ½? I think? 10 ½?

CA: We should trade shoes.

Dan Rinylo, known to enemies as “The Steel Hammer,” poses with a weighty tome

DR: I’m Dan Rinylo, my shoe size is 10 ½.  I’m 24. I’m originally from New Jersey. I just graduated in May, and I’m sticking around White River and working at the Library, lovin’ it. I’m also extremely busy with other things…comics, a big project with a few other people and the Inky Solomon Center…

SR: I co-edit an anthology called Dog City, and we’re working on our second issue right now. We’re hoping to get that out in early September for SPX. [A post about Dog City and its editors is on the slate for early October.–Ed.] And I’m also just working on my own comics, working here at the library…

CA: Did either of you have any experience before this working for book-lending institutions?

DR:  No, I hadn’t. But I’ve always loved recommending books to people, and I feel like I’m constantly running a library through my own home. I’ve got books lent out to people right now, I’m borrowing books from people. Same goes for movies and stuff. I’m just always trying to spread my knowledge and gain more knowledge of comics. Because that’s my heart.

SR: I worked for a summer in the interlibrary loan department of the Williams College Library when I was in high school. Other than that I don’t have any real library experience, but like Dan, I do lend out a lot of books and read a lot of books, borrow a lot of books…which I think, in terms of working here, has been more relevant, since it is a comics library and I read a lot of comic books. I mean, everybody in this town reads a lot of comic books.

CA: How is this different from your experience [at Williams College]?

SR: A lot of what I would do was just walk from one branch of the library to another, carting books around. Here, it’s such a small library that everybody does everything. I mean, everybody breaks down into their special projects, but everybody’s aware of what’s going on with everybody else and working on everything. So you have to know everything about all the different parts of the library. It’s been really interesting.

CA: Do you have any particular goals in working for the library?

DR: One goal that comes to mind is to get more books over here [in the Post Office building]. We have a lot, a lot, a lot more books in off-site at the Telegraph Building, and we’re constantly getting new arrivals and cataloguing new books. And I’m trying to get as much of it over here as possible, because there’s so much good stuff.

SR: We have great stuff off-site. It’s something a lot of people aren’t aware of; I think a lot of people come in here and just assume that if you don’t see it on the shelves here, we don’t have it; when in reality, there’s a lot of stuff that we have off-site that I wasn’t aware of until I started working here. It’s pretty exciting. It’s all in the online catalog!

DR: We’re trying to get people to realize that we have so much more!

 SR: There’s just so much great stuff here in the library that people don’t know about. I want to showcase that a little more. The donation that we got from RAW has some really amazing books. I think doing something to notify people that “Hey, we’ve got all of RAW now.” Those books are really hard to find… I was just looking through our catalogue: we have a ton of zines from really notable people who’ve gone on to do big graphic novels, there’s a lot of old stuff from Kevin Huizenga which is really cool… We’re working on making that [section] a little more manageable. That’s probably going to entail a curated selection showing the highlights of the zine collection and more recent stuff in the library and storing the rest off-site, so that if you want to come in here and look at zines and just browse, you’ll be seeing the real cream of the crop, of which there’s a lot.
Another project we’re working on is being more active in collecting zines: we’d be setting aside some of our acquisitions budget…to actually go and purchase notable zines, so we’d have the new Michael Deforge minicomic in our library. Or whoever it might be.

CA: That brings me to my next question: Which sections would you like to see get more traffic?

DR: Erotica. I haven’t seen anyone check out any erotica, ever. It’s got those lovely tassels up there, too. It’s a very decorated shelf.

SR: There’s some of the great European cartoonists are pretty well-represented up there as well.

DR: I’d say the section that gets the most traffic is just the general graphic novels section, but I would like to see more people checking out weekly and daily strips, and the monthlies that we have. We have so much good stuff, and so much more off-site.

SR: I find myself increasingly interested in everything other than the graphic novels section…Recently I’ve been really excited about the comics reference section. We have a ton of great books about comics…some of which are not easy to find. It’s a really cool thing that’s specific to this library that I’d like to showcase a little bit more and have people take advantage of.

CA: Do you guys have any events or anything that you’re planning with the Library?

DR: We’re trying to raise awareness of how many books we have. The Center for Cartoon Studies does go to every convention, pretty much, and the library is represented there. We’re thinking about making a donation box where people can donate their minis, their books or whatever. You can just drop by the table and drop off a book. Just another way to get more books here.

SR: That would be a really great thing to have. As far as events go, there aren’t a lot of specific events planned right now, but I would really like to have tours of off-site and archive to showcase some of the stuff from the collection there, or just one of the librarians putting together a little selection here and giving a brief talk about some of the books we have. I think having reading events in here would be really nice. Getting people in here for events beyond just coming in to browse or chat or take books out would be really great.

CA: So what’s up with the rare books section?

DR:  I know they’re not borrowable. With the student work and stuff like that, stuff that’s not borrowable, you’re totally allowed to come in and request it. I’ve come in, before I started working here, and asked for books that I knew we had, and someone would go get it and bring it over, and tell me “just be here on so-and-so day and you can read it.” I knew we had Brian Chippendale’s Ninja [which is] oversize, and I wanted to read it, but I knew I couldn’t check it out. Someone brought it over for me and I sat down and read it. It’s the same with the rare books. Anything that’s not borrowable you can just sit down and read it. We have, in instructional reference, the Famous Artists Cartoon Course, collected in a binder. You can’t check it out, but we do have a scanner here, and if you wanted to photocopy or scan some pages just for your personal files, that’s totally cool. It might be the same for certain rare books, but some of them might be fragile old stuff.

CA: Is there anything else y’all wanted to say?

DR: Come in and read comics!

SR: Yeah, come in and read comics. I’ll yell at you about why you should read Jack Cole.

DR: I’ll force Nancy down your throat.

CA: Just cram that Sluggo right in there.