On Doing Research: The Stacks

I’ve spent the last two days in the “stacks” at Butler Library, Columbia University doing research for my biography of the friendship between Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony). There are nine floors of books in the library–rows and rows of shelves that are 7 rows high and 15 feet long loaded with books, journals, and other printed material. It’s a heavenly place. Here’s a visual sampler: Butler Library, a corridor between rows of book, and a row in the “stacks.