Theosophical Society Library - part 1

I have been wanting to review the library at the Theosophical Society for some time now, but every time I found myself in Wheaton it was before noon and the library was not open yet. Today I went out of my way to drive to Wheaton. So this is not the Xavier School for Gifted Students, no matter what it looks like.

Now, the library isn't actually called the Theosophical Society Library, it is the Henry S. Olcott Memorial Library (but no one I know calls it that) and only makes up one wing of the big building in the photo above. It's a pretty small library, but if you've never seen it before, you'll be able to tell from the following pictures why it's a must-visit library.

Okay, maybe not from this picture, as it came out all blurry...

...but by now you should have a strong sense that this is a gorgeous library.

The far end of the ground floor is a children's corner. I wouldn't have thought many parents come here, but I could be wrong. The back wall has this very nice painting on it that you'll see in this photo, and it wraps around to the next photo. The contrast of hi-tech printer and pastoral scene appeal to me here.

 The children's area (to the right of the printer) is a cozy little nook.

Most importantly, I found graphic novels in it! It's hard to see them, but there are three volumes of Usagi Yojimbo there! These are the earliest collected volumes, which is unusual because the early volumes don't deal with spirituality as much as some of the later volumes (they need Grasscutter on shelf!).  But all UY volumes should be at libraries, and luckily they have the complete collection available as ebooks through Hoopla.

Upstairs is a fiction collection with popular materials in it -- anything goes, so long as it has an element of spirituality to it.

Which luckily includes Tolkien! I got to sit down with the Tolkien Bestiary and skim through it, a book that I've long wanted to read. Interestingly, the Bestiary takes sides on the controversial issue of whether orcs were once elves (the Bestiary says yes).