The Library Book

Orlean joined an English conversation class at the Literacy Center led by instructor Jorgen Olsen. He was showing the class, which included Korean, Mexican, Ecuadorean, and Thai students, the differences between the words “latter,” “later,” and “ladder.” Like the students in the class, around 70% of the library’s literacy students are non-native English speakers. The rest are those who read at an elementary level or those who never learned to read. Carlos Nuñez was among the tutors. When he wasn’t teaching, he meets with anyone who stopped by and asked for his services. For instance, he worked for two hours each week with a young Mexican-born man named Victor who was raised in Los Angeles. Victor was applying for U.S. citizenship. Nuñez told Orlean that Victor suffered bouts of amnesia due to a work-related accident. Thus, he occasionally forgot the answers to questions. To ensure that he passed the test, Victor and Nuñez repeated the questions and answers again and again.

Bertram Goodhue’s associate, Carlton Winslow, agreed to finish the project on schedule, despite the team’s difficulty of coping with Goodhue’s death. On May 3, 1925, a construction crew laid the library’s cornerstone. It took them 21 hours to pour the concrete for the building’s enormous rotunda—“the largest concrete pour in the city’s history” (189).