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Monday, February 23, 2015

Lenten Librarian 2.0: Getting Physical

Around an hour into my day I realized that I was getting sucked into the laptop black hole.  Since I'm trying to connect the physical to the intellectual during these forty days, I forced myself to shift my attention from endless document editing to the stacks.  The truth is, we have a lot of books we don't need.  That's hard for me to say, since I am drawn to most books for one reason or another.  It's a big problem in an old school library - what do you keep, and what do you toss?  Old does not mean important, yet new does not mean better.

Here's what I think.  Some of these older books are special (that's not a good word, but I'm not sure what else to use here).  They provide a glimpse into a different time, a different way of thinking, a different social context.  A title written about the New Deal and published less than a year after its implementation is special.  The Diary of Ambassador Dodd, accompanied by Erik Larson's contemporary book In the Garden of the Beasts (which was based on that diary) - special.   Books that act as time capsules, specifically for the ideas we teach in our classes today - special.  Still, there are a lot of books that are interesting, curious, amusing, or perplexing, but just not special enough to keep a place on our shelves.  I have to remind myself that this library must serve the needs of the curriculum, as well as the curiosity of the students.  This is not the same as serving my curiosity, dang it!

So, out they go.  I have weeded this collection before. It is time I do so again.  Four years in I know (most of) the needs of the curriculum, many of the students' curiosities.  It pains me to box up some of these books and ship them off to parts unknown.  But this is what I'm giving up for Lent, I suppose - the comfort I've found in the idea that someday, someone might want to take a little look at an American Literature textbook from 1962.  Don't you want to?  Are you sure?

It's a brutal job, but somebody has got to do it.

Upcoming mind/body connections in the Library:
Today after school Tania Mouchamel films her live TEDtalk-style presentation for the SRP.
Tuesday/Wednesday of this week Sahvannah Henry uses the back of the Library to film interviews for her SRP documentary film.

Next topic - How libraries across the country are transforming their physical spaces to allow patrons to MAKE something (Like Tania and Sahvannah!)

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