Cat Central : Bulldog-Loving Librarian Guards Trove of Feline Facts

The world’s largest cat library is operated by a pussycat.

Not that it seems that way when feline lovers step for the first time into the special collections room at the Glendale Central Library.

The sign over librarian Barbara Boyd’s desk depicts a snarling guard dog and warns that “trespassers will be eaten.” The tone in Boyd’s voice warns the same thing.

Boyd is barely visible behind a pile of cat books, cat posters and a toy stuffed cat--one that depicts a kitty that has been flattened by a car. She is grumpily taking research questions on the telephone.

“Cat people,” Boyd shrugs when the call is over. She points to a library cart standing in the aisle near her desk. It is stacked high with cat genealogy books and cat greeting cards that callers have asked to see.

“We bust our guts for people who had to have this stuff yesterday. Then they don’t show and they don’t show and it just sits here waiting for them.

“Cat people are particular. You say ‘female cat’ to a professional and you get ripped up one side and down the other. ‘It’s a queen,’ they’ll tell you. I get fed up not only with cats, but with people. My dogs are my cat relief.”

Snapshots of Boyd’s 2 1/2-year-old pet bulldog named Gin-Gin are displayed behind her desk, juxtaposed with cat photos, cat sketches and cat oil paintings. These are part of the 20,000 cat books, cat statuettes and cat curios that jam the room.

“She’s a house dog,” Boyd says of her bulldog. “Gin-Gin’s only seen one cat. She didn’t know what it was.”

Boyd didn’t know all that much about cats either 19 years ago when she took over the unusual Glendale collection. It had been started with about 150 books donated by Sidney Roberta Billig and her late husband, Dr. Harvey Billig Jr., an orthopedist who had studied the body mechanics of cats as research for a human medical book he was writing.

The Billigs helped organize the Glendale-based Jewel City Cat Club, which continues to collect books and other cat-related materials for the library.

Although smaller cat book libraries are at Yale University and in Switzerland, cat experts say the Glendale collection has grown so large, there is none like it anywhere.

It contains cat “stud books” and cat show catalogues dating from the 1890s that breeders use for pedigree searches. There are books of cat fiction and cat poetry. Books about how to photograph cats or draw them or build houses for them. Books telling how to breed, groom, clean, medicate, toilet train and psychoanalyze cats. Books about cats’ role in magic and religion. Books about cat zodiac signs. Historic cat books, including one published in 1837.

Humor books such as “101 Uses for a Dead Cat” are on the shelves. So is a cat recipe book--one that is aimed at making a Tabby dinner, not making dinner for Tabby.

“I just wandered around there with my mouth open the first time I saw that collection,” said Daphne Negus, publisher of Phoenix-based Cat World International magazine, which has readers in 22 countries.

“That library is a gold mine. The world of cats owes a lot to Barbara. A lot of us are planning on leaving our books to that library when we have no further use for them. It’s a remarkable place.”

Katherine Segnar, editor of the 317,000-circulation Cat Fancy Magazine in Mission Viejo, said she refers free-lance writers to the Glendale Library when they need to do research for their articles. “It’s terribly valuable since we don’t have anything else like it,” Segnar said.

Boyd grumbles about the writers. “I’ve seen information we’ve given someone used word-for-word in books and magazines,” she said. “The author who didn’t know anything about it before he came in here is suddenly viewed as a world authority on the subject.”

Those making their first visit to the cat library are quickly set straight by Boyd.

They are told that books cannot be checked out or even carried from the room for photocopying. They are encouraged to call before coming the next time to make certain that Boyd will be there; the cat room is closed when she is off duty. They are advised they should have a specific reason to be there.

“This is not a place to browse,” Boyd explained. “It’s only for adults, not for children looking for pictures of kitties. It’s aimed at the breeder or serious cat owner. We don’t give medical advice . . . we’re not licensed vets.”

Boyd glowers when library patrons stop outside the door and meow loudly. She winces when people step inside and joke that she must be the madam of the cathouse. “They think it’s so funny. But I get tired of it,” she said.

She is also weary of visitors looking at the hundreds of cat pictures and posters and exclaiming, “Oh, you must really like cats.”

“I tell them this is a special collection and there would be pictures of murderers on the walls if I was in charge of a special collection on murderers,” Boyd shrugged.

Cat owner Jeanne Biehler of Sunland said she was amazed by both the collection and the collector on her first visit to the cat library two years ago.

“She’s a little scary when you first come in. But she’s a sweetheart when she gets to know and trust you,” Biehler said of Boyd. “I think they should publicize this place more.”

That comment elicited a stern glare from Boyd. “No!” she shouted at Biehler.

“A while back a woman who saw the ‘How to Cook a Cat’ book said how dare we have shelf space for a book like that,” Boyd said. “She said she wouldn’t come back in here again as long as that book was there. I said, ‘Good.’ ”

According to Boyd, some of the telephone inquiries that pour into the cat library from across the U.S. and Europe are enough to make a cat arch its back.

“The most jackass question I ever got was, ‘How many cats get pregnant in a year?’ ” Boyd said, explaining that is an unanswerable question.

“When I didn’t say anything back to her, she asked me, ‘Are you still there?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m just trying to think of a way of telling you that’s the most stupid question I’ve ever heard without actually saying the word.’ ”

Officials of the Glendale Library say they don’t mind that Boyd fields questions that come from far beyond the city’s boundaries.

“True, we provide service around the U.S. and around the world, but it brings us recognition and gifts from around the world, too,” said Laurel Patric, Glendale’s assistant director of libraries. “People think about us when it’s time to make that donation.”

Patric said Boyd mixes just the right amount of “gruffness and good-heartedness” to protect the valuable collection while pulling in letters of commendation from grateful library users.

That means that instead of discarding unneeded copies of cat books when newer duplicates are obtained, Boyd sets them aside and offers them to library regulars she knows will appreciate them.

Recently, when she learned that a cat lover was making repeated trips from San Diego in order to make a handwritten copy of an out-of-print book about cat psychology, Boyd checked with book dealers and learned that a copy was available in England. Boyd bought it with her own money and gave it to the San Diego woman.

But she was in no mood to give in the other day when a photographer appeared at the cat library to take her picture.

She glanced at an oversized Garfield alarm clock across from her desk and announced it was time for her to leave. And for the cameraman to leave, too.

She was late getting home to her bulldog, the cat lady explained.

And she said it with more of a bark than a purr.