After a decade under the indentured servitude employment of my local library, my constant proximity to books has instilled in me both a deeper love for them, and a heightened sense of impatience with them. I’ll be the first person to dive into a pile of moldy old books that someone found in their basement and left on out doorstep like some kind of orphaned child, however moldy and antique that child might be. I have no qualms about dust, grime, hidden spiders and insects, nor The Dreaded Papercut. I’ll rescue books that have even the most remote chance of being interesting to someone, somewhere. Detailed instructions on how to macramé a Firebird engine cozy? Why not?… but the rest of the books continue their journey into our voluminous, and often full, dumpster.

The fact is that your local library, with their seemingly endless collection of knowledge and people secretly surfing for pornography and Russian brides on the none-too-private public computers, does not have room for everything. And it’s tragic, really, the way that the epidemic underfunding of libraries prevents expansion, collection development, and (ahem) proper salaries for their loyal and amazing employees. So, when you donate books to us, there’s a certain likelihood that they’re just going to a landfill. You can blame underfunding to local recycling programs for that also.

So, I’ve had to develop a callousness about books. I’ll throw out most of the Danielle Steel that you donate, since every other old lady in our town has already donated their copies also — and of all of the books that I’m forced to dispose of, Ms. Steel’s regurgitated tripe are the only books that I take pleasure in slaughtering. The others pain me, and because of this unending guilt for the outright destruction of these books, I’ve ended up either taking them home and caring for them, or finding other purposes for them before I send them on. In a slightly different universe, I might be talking about abandoned kittens or food items - I’m glad that my collecting insanity hasn’t breached those unspeakable barriers.

Recently, I came across a Reader’s Digest copy of ‘20,000 Leagues Under the Sea’. The copy itself was handsome, but worthless - made moreso by the way that Reader’s Digest hacks apart every piece of literature they touch into so many bite-sized, ineffectual story niblets. If you’re going to read a story, sit down and take it like a man. However, I surmised, any copy of ‘Leagues’ worth its pulp would probably have a picture of a squid in it somewhere. Lo and behold, somewhere inside was an etching of Captain Nemo going at a squid with an ax. The artist was uncredited, and the etching was crudely colorized by those fine folks at RD, but it was a squid, and I had to have it.

So, I cut up the book. I bought a cheap wooden frame about the size of the image and slapped it inside, caption and all. And dammit, by the way, it’s going to hang in my kitchen or front hallway, a mere appetizer to the wonders within.

There was a time when I couldn’t bring myself to slice apart any book, but an entire encyclopedia set from the 60s has no sensible place in my life, nor in a modern library’s collection. The neat images of smocked scientists toiling over bubbling test tubes, though - those were completely worth keeping. The collectability of older science textbooks is another thing entirely, since they didn’t yet make quite so intense an effort to over-protect our children from harmful vapors and small explosions, but that’s best left for another day. I just wanted the crazy retro-pictures to draw from and be inspired by. Without such an accumulation of precisely extricated images, my masterpiece ‘Cthulhu Emergency’ might never have existed, and no one wants to live in a world without THAT.

So, I am the harbinger of death for many books - but I’m far, far less cruel than some of my co-workers, who might not know a good, kitchen-able squid picture from a punch in the face. As often as I’m tempted to test that theory, and I shudder to think of the pure gold that they’ve destroyed and the deserving faces that go unpummeled, I use my powers for good, and rescuing as many books as possible, even if that means harvesting their organs.

——————————–

Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect! Check out our Collectors' Community

================

Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 1st, 2007 at 4:00 am and is filed under collecting fyi, decorating. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.