Cooley, Martha. The Archivist: a Novel (Boston: Little, Brown, 1998) 326 p.

Matthias Lane is the archivist at a great American university library. Matt's responsibilities include a collection of letters from T.S. Eliot to an American woman. He cataloged the collection shortly after assuming his duties as archivist. Now he is the gatekeeper.

As an archivist I have power over other people. I control access to materials they desire. Of course this power has limits. I can't arbitrarily bar from the library someone who is entitled to use it, nor can I prevent materials from entering the collection simply because I don't like their authors or content. Libraries have rules, which librarians follow so that readers can find what they seek. A good archivist serves the reader best by maintaining, throughout the search, a balance between empathy and distance. It is important, I've discovered, to be neither too close to nor too distant from a reader's desire. (p. 246).

Matt's position within the University hierarchy is fairly independent.

My work is whatever I want it to be, and I report to no one regularly. The head librarian -- the man in charge of the University's entire collection -- is a figurehead, well-to-do and poorly read, with whom I have only perfunctory contact. His deputy is Edith Beardon, who supervises several junior librarians. Once a week, over lunch, Edith and I trade news or solicit one another's advice on technical matters. (p. 8).

The Archive is Matt's kingdom and he knows it well.

The Mason Room was peaceful, as it always is at midnight. In a few minutes I heard the books' voices: a low, steady, unsuppressible hum. I'd heard it many times before. I've always had a finely tuned ear for a library's accumulations of echo and desire. Libraries are anything but hushed. (p. 287).