Books

I have recently been given an opportunity to work in a library, which I am quite excited about, though admittedly a good bit nervous as well. But going into this, I am also being made aware of how little time I have spent in libraries throughout my life, which is not only a shame, but somewhat stupid, given who I am and what I want to be. This is a place where I can be surrounded by the things that I want to be able to create, and it doesn't cost me so much as a dime, and yet I hardly take advantage of the fact. So I was trying to think about why that was.

A friend of mine, who for a long time worked in libraries, pointed out a problem that she had with said libraries, which I think has been a subconscious concern of mine. All too often, she saw books that had been treated incredibly poorly. Pages and covers bent and falling apart, stains on the pages, writing inside of the book. Things that some might consider to be "well-loved" but to us is just misuse and blatant disregard for that book.

I hate seeing books treated that way. I've never been one to save a couple bucks by buying a used copy of a book, because I hate that someone would let a book degrade the way far too many used books are. Hell, I prefer paperback books to hardcover, and I'll place weights on them after I've read them for a while in an attempt to reflatten the inevitably curved covers. I want books to look as good as their contents are. If I see a book that is falling apart, I don't care how good the story it holds within might be, I'm probably not going to open it, both because it doesn't look good, and because I don't want to risk damaging it any further.

I once had a book that I loved, but part way through reading it I accidentally left it in the sun for an extended period of time in the midst of the summer heat on the passenger seat of a car, and the glue holding the book together came off. The cover removed from the pages entirely, and the pages themselves split into two blocks of pages with some loose leafs in the middle. As much as I enjoyed that book, I almost put it down entirely after that. I was tempted to go out and buy a new copy of the book, just so I wouldn't have to deal with the mess that my book had become.

I have seen used, well loved books. Ones that have been kept in excellent condition over the years, and have stories inside of them simply don't exist elsewhere anymore. These, I don't mind, because they have been cared for. It doesn't take too much effort to care for a book. You don't have to feed it or clothe it, and you don't have to give it new content from time to time. You just handle it gently, you don't throw it, and you keep it away from grease or other liquids. Yet, looking through a library, so few people seem to understand this.

Maybe I'm just too picky. Maybe I just don't understand the appeal. Maybe I'm blinded by prior judgements and should learn not to, quite literally, judge a book by it's cover. But I would far prefer to spend my time in a bookstore than a library.