Michigan State University’s library is home to the largest publically available comic book collection in the world and it is Randy Scott’s job to take care of it.
Scott is the assistant head of Special Collections at MSU Libraries. In the 1970s Scott was working in the library as a typist and learned someone had stolen the first edition of the “Spiderman” comic. As a lover of comics, Scott dedicated his lunch hour to stamping the MSU seal on comics to prevent them from being stolen again. After a while, Scott decided to get a graduate degree to become a cataloger and come back to MSU to take care of the library’s comic collection.
The special collections department also is home to rare books that date back to the 1500s and political propaganda from the ‘70s. Since it contains valuable material, only authorized librarians can access the material or escort the public around the section.
And tucked in the back corner of the special collections department is Scott’s office, where comics are piled on shelves and cabinets. A piano stands in the entrance, and a drum set surrounded by jazz fake books sits in the middle of the room. This space is where every Friday, for more than two decades, six librarians meet at noon to play music together for exactly 30 minutes.
The group, which calls itself “Bookman’s Holiday,” usually plays jazz standards. The instruments played include a guitar, piano, drum set, clarinet, a bass and perhaps an accordion or a saxophone. Scott said he knows five or six instruments and usually plays whatever instruments the others don’t know how to play.
“Generally we go through old fake jazz books. We start with A because we’re librarians and we proceed through to Z and it takes several months, 30 minutes a week,” Scott said.
While on Fridays, the group can jam in the privacy and security of the special collections section of the library, “Bookman’s Holiday” also can be heard playing at various events at the library throughout the year.
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