It’s been a few months. Not as bad as I thought. For those of you who love libraries, there is an episode of This American Life you should listen to called “The Room of Requirement.”

In the Harry Potter books, there’s this place called the Room of Requirement. The way it works is you walk three times in front of this certain patch of wall at Hogwarts, thinking, like, I really need a coffee. And then suddenly in that room a coffee shop will appear. Or, I need a place to make my magic potion in secret, and then a room with all the ingredients for your magic potion will appear.

Libraries are like that. But in real life. That’s what they do. And today on our program, we have stories of very unlikely uses for these Rooms of Requirement, all driven by people who want something very, very specialized. Something which, in every single story in today’s show, the library is able to deliver.