In late November National Public Radio aired a story regarding
a children’s book about William the Conqueror, sold by a British bookstore
after it had sat on the shelf for 27 years. Check out the article here. In the story author Sarah Todd Taylor is quoted as tweeting what she thought
the book might be feeling: "The book held its breath. It had hoped so
often, only to have that hope crushed. Hands lifted it from the shelf, wrapped
it warmly in paper. As the door closed on its past life, the book heard the
soft cheers of its shelf mates."
It is a charming story, and one that speaks clearly to those
of us who live in “special collection land.” We seek out books not because they
are guaranteed use through their appearance on the required reading list of a
university course or a quick turnover because of being a New York Times bestseller, but because there is information in the
book, information someone is going to be looking for one day. Some of the books
we save are not very well written. A few of them are virtually unreadable. But even
in those with confusing pages are located gems of history. Little nuggets that,
in the right hands, are things of great value.
And like the book about William the Conqueror in that
British bookstore, many of our books quietly sit on the shelf, waiting for that
reader who needs what they possess. Public libraries rightly weed out books
that just sit, assuming the space can be given to something the public is more
interested in checking out. Special collection libraries take a perverse pride
in those same books. They are unused, but not useless. Rather, they are simply
waiting for the right person to walk into the reading room and say, I need to
look at you. Waiting for that moment when their shelf mates can softly cheer
the arrival of a soulmate who asks to see the book, knowing that they share
something very important between them.
I sometimes wonder, as I walk through the stacks, if the
books are quietly holding their collective breathe, wondering who I’m coming to
look at this time. Being blessed with an identity card that swipes me into the
stacks, I have occasionally just looked across the shelves, wondering what
would happen if all the books the library houses suddenly started to tell their
story. Steam engines would roll down the tracks. Mysteries would be played out.
The voices of those long gone would be again heard. It would be a wonderful
learning opportunity, although certainly a bit noisy.