I had never heard of this before. It does make sense that valuable books need to be in a heated space. Unheated spaces are damp with mold and mildew.
I know a couple regulars here are librarians . Perhaps they’ll comment? I assume this would be common in many older libraries everywhere?
The article calls them custodians. But, they were big and spacious apartments. Mch to nice for a janitor. I’d guess the library’s manager or asst manager lived in them?
Here is the original link to the Atlas Obscura article, for those who wish to avoid the illiterate bloviating of the Daily Fail.
I don’t see why you’d think that. The article makes very clear that the apartments were occupied by custodians. (And that the one in the article was an exceptionally nice version.)
It was an interesting article. (Thanks, friedo!)
Custodians are janitors?
The ones in my school were paid very little. They typically were assigned a tiny closet, filled with cleaning supplies and a beat up stool. They’d close the door and sit in there during work breaks.
Anyway, it would be nice living above the library. No commute. No subway or bus tickets to buy.
Custodian, janitor, caretaker, super- all different words for roughly the same job. And arrangements are different at different workplaces - your school system may have paid janitors very little and given them just a closet, while mine paid them pretty well, gave them a large office and paid for equipment that the custodians ended up owning personally after some period of time. Oh, and they used to live in the building. Even today, it’s common for superintendents of apartment buildings to live in the building.
Apartment building super is a great gig if you can get it. You often get substantially discounted or even free rent, and you live at your office. The pay may be little or nothing (plus big Christmas tips), but such jobs are highly sought-after in expensive real-estate markets like New York City.
My grandfather was the custodian at a stone quarry, and was the only employee kept on through the winter, where he was provided with a house for his family of eight. This would be 1905-10 era.
The custodian/super of my parochial high school had an apartment for himself and his family on the second floor of the building.
TheHuntington Free Library in my neighborhood in the Bronx has rather sizable family quarters in the back (gabled roof to rear of builiding).
The Reading Room was used for a scene in Boardwalk Empire.
The Daily Mail is a British paper. Over here custodian does not mean janitor but rather would mean someone who is responsible for looking after something (but not cleaning etc which is what I understand a janitor does, similar to what we would call a caretaker).
More likely to be a librarian as op suggests.
It means responsible for looking after something here, too. Earlier I said custodian, janitor, caretaker, super are different words for roughly the same job and that 'roughly" was there for a reason. " Custodian" and “superintendent” are generally used for a person who is responsible for the whole building and its grounds , from mopping the floor to repairing the furnace to changing locks to clearing snow and trimming hedges., etc. " Janitor" is typically used for those who do cleaning and possibly some maintenance/grounds keeping tasks , but does not have overall responsibility for the building. In large buildings or developments , the custodian or superintendent may direct a staff of janitors, maintenance workers, caretakers , groundskeepers , plumbers, electricians and so on but in a small building (like most libraries I’ve seen), there’s only one person who is both responsible for the building/grounds and does all the work that isn’t outsourced. That person is also usually called a “custodian” or “superintendent”
What would you call the single person who has both the overall responsibility of looking after the building *and *performs most of the tasks?
A contractor. I’m not sure I know what they used to be called: care-taker? The old aparments in my city were emptied by town planning rules before my time.
The Matterhorn in Disneyland had a small basketball court in it back in the day when climbers used to be a feature.
Mind blown now?
“Facility Manager” is a term for a roughly similar role I’ve seen used in the Air Force. In their case, they might do all of the hands-on work or none of it. At the very minimum, they’re responsible for making sure the Civil Engineering squadron is notified of any deficiencies, and they are also expected to be aware of the facility’s condition, perform fire safety inspections (checking fire alarms, extinuishers, etc.) shoveling snow, etc.
That said, it’s entirely possible for a Facility Manager in the Air Force to do none of this and still be good at it, if they delegate it effectively to other folks in their building. It’s typically an additional duty on top of their normal jobs. That said, the only such folks I’ve heard of living in the buildings they work in, Air Force wise, would be the Dorm Managers, and even then I’ve been to bases where they only had an office in the building and still lived elsewhere.
I would not mind having a job where I lived in a library, even if 90% of it was plunging toilets and changing lightbulbs.
