Chances are that anyone even remotely interested in or associated with libraries has thought more than once about the famous library scene in Ghostbusters. And chances are almost as good that those people are among the nearly 3.5 million who saw the recent video of a New York-based improv group, Improv Everywhere, reenacting (with some liberties) that scene in the middle of a crowded NYPL reading room.
Ghostbusters, improv, ghosts in libraries–it’s all very “ha ha,” right? Apparently not. It turns out that libraries are not unpopular places for specters to reside (or to be thought to reside). Over at the Britannica Blog, one author has compiled various lists of libraries around the globe that are allegedly haunted.
Aren’t ghosts supposed to hang around due to some awful incident of injustice? Or to complete some unfinished work? As far as the latter goes, the librarian in Ghostbusters clearly had some more books to shelve or catalog cards to file. But I wonder what horrible events are thought to have taken place in these libraries?
Perhaps one of the more familiar (at least according to Google) library ghosts is the Gray Lady of the Willard Library in Evansville, Indiana. They are so confident of this ghost’s existence (or so eager for some PR) that they’ve even set up a ghost cam so that you can keep your eyes peeled 24/7.
Here is a nice lady explaining the lore and taking a tour of the ghost’s usual haunts. (Spoiler: they don’t see anything.)
Apparently, one of those lame ghost-hunting shows even came to film an episode in the library and didn’t find anything either. Quelle surprise.
I don’t think I’d be stepping too far out on a limb to say that most of the “ghosts” that people have seen in libraries are in fact doctoral students, whose life force and grip on reality fades with each passing year that does not see the completion of their dissertations. If it takes them long enough, they just might roam the stacks forever or, worse, succumb to the gristly fate of an overeducated, underskilled aspiring academic: ghost writing.
Tags: Britannica, Chronicle of Higher Education, Ghostbusters, ghosts, grad school, improv, Improv Everywhere, New York Public Library, video, Willard Library
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