Sentence:  It was afternoon ... which meant that all the ample, high, soft-blue leather desks along the spokes of the great wheel that radiated from the Superintendent's desk, <WSD>ensphered</WSD> by the Catalogue, were taken, and he had to be content with one of the minimal flat triangular ends of the late-come segments inserted between the spokes. 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To place in a sphere; to surround in all directions (as if) by a sphere (one of the concentric hollow transparent globes formerly believed to rotate around the Earth).