Redactive

The first hint of this word came with a trip to a library in Los Angeles with my Grandfather. This was the stereotypical Carnegie public library where you had to walk up at least a flight of stairs to enter a portal of heavy wooden doors. There was something very forbidding about the place, it had the shusshing atmosphere, very dark interior, and a no nonsense staff. We were uncomfortable in an environment that my Grandfather had hoped would be a "positive experience."

Its rules counted more than its humanness, and when my Grandfather tried to describe his uneasiness with it he found it hard to describe. Years later I discovered the redactive word, and have found myself in other circumstances which would be well described by it. The dictionary definition of the word is fascinating in that it also relates to collecting, editing and revising.

My present public library is completely the opposite; and I have had the good fortune to work in several libraries during my years of labor as a librarian to work in open, welcoming circumstances, essentially unreactionary in their services and environments. Libraries have changed over the decades and it is tragic to see many library systems being shut down due to financial difficulties and the attitudes of legislatures and institutional hierarchies. "Comes the Revolution."