A life put into words - histories and memoirs on the library shelf

 

library titles for history (Dewey 940s) rotated to make titles easy to read

At the branch library there is a bookcase filled with a variety of histories and memoirs to browse. Considering that each title is a self-contained work of one or more authors, almost always drawing on published work of others and interviews and other primary source material, as well, the true scope of page counts implicated in this modest collection is staggering, representing a volume of writings maybe 20 or 50 times as big as the space of this one bookcase.

The relationship of a book to its subject matter is similar to the classic illustration of an iceberg: the part that is visible (the individual book) is only a small fraction of the whole thing (cumulative mass of all the books and research sources used to create the one book that is visible on the shelf). Besides this compressed form of knowledge that the photo displays, there are other ways that the set of printed pages bound into book form are remarkable.

Asking a fish to describe the sea that it swims in leaves many important dimensions untold, since so much is taken for granted. The same is true in certain ways for a historian writing about the present day and the historical antecedents to it. Unlike the fish, though, a trained reader and writer of history can consult outside perspectives, cite documents, and study records for clues to bias and omissions. The books in this photo each represent many hours of drafting, then editing the books (not forgetting the shoulders that an author stands on and those many hours to author the earlier books on which the present-day books depend). Each title gives a representation of earlier people, places, and events. Necessarily, the process of telling about events requires "selective memory," leaving aside some parts in order to focus on other parts. That filtering effect probably owes something to the writer's personality and experiences, training and area of expertise, and current events and preoccupations around the time of composing the first draft. Having access to certain sources, but not to others, will play a part in the resulting book, too.

So much for the remarkable things going into this line-up of printed pages and the topics present (and by contrast the many other subjects that are absent). Another dimension of this library bookcase photo is the readership. It would be interesting to know what the lending patterns pre-pandemic and during the pandemic have been, either matched to demographic segments (male vs. female, retiree v. teen v. working age) or simply in the aggregate to discover which books are most and least circulated during their service life (until relegated to storage or sold). After all, the books in this photo appeal to certain sorts of people but not to others. Some readers are voracious in their appetite for the printed word (leaving aside the universe of ebooks offered to borrowers, too, as well as downloaded audio books or the audio CDs on a separate shelf), but others just read one book at a time and only a few per year. However, the usage patterns and sociological profiles may turn out, though, it is remarkable that busy residents of the city, surrounded by the "too much information" of 100s of cable TV shows, and the bottomless reserves ancient and modern discoverable online, still hunger for the people and places and events found on the books classified under the Dewey Decimal System under the history label.

Thanks to the Internet, such things as     archives of images, moving pictures, primary sources, and public domain books and music are only a few clicks away. It is getting easier than ever to travel in time or place by using these traces of earlier times and places. And yet, some readers eagerly browse the authors on this shelf to discover those worlds glimpsed through the mists of time in the words of delightful authors in well-organized chapters and paragraphs. It is hard to know exactly, according to the person or more generally for most readers of histories, what reasons attract people to the ink on these pages. Perhaps it is a desire to fill in hazy outlines of a particular time or place in the reader's mind; maybe there are personal or genealogical connections to the subject matter; or possibly the reader is hungry for escape from modern times and finds a sense of order and certainty that hindsight projects onto things. In any case, the books on these shelves - indeed on the shelves for all the other categories of publications recognized by the library system of classification - speak to certain readers and not to others, they reveal truths, and teach those searching for answers a few of the pieces to the puzzle that forms in the person's mind, one book at a time. Generations from now some of the same motivations will be there to write and to read history, although in that time maybe the idea of printing with ink on paper will be antiquated.

Library books to suit many tastes in reading

Fiction section, grpl.org 2/2019 (click image for full-size image view)

The top of every other bookshelf end row has a large signboard telling the genre collected on those shelves, along with a playful slogan or tag-line that fits that category of literature:

Give thanks with a great INSPIRATIONAL read
Find a ROMANCE you'll love
Unearth great MYSTERY books
New game, new voices, URBAN FICTION, real expressions
Boldly discover new worlds - SCIENCE FICTION, FANTASY & HORROR

With the advent of cable and satellite TV in the 1980s and then the home use of Internet in the 2000s, the hours available each day for a person to seek answers, information, entertainment or diversion have not grown, but the choices and perception of interacting with the materials has expanded. As a result, the volume of books loaned to residents has not increased with growing population size; in many cases even as titles published electronically and in print have increased, sales and library lending has declined. One commenter suggested that maybe 5 or 10 % of the US population reads for pleasure (not work-related or assigned in courses of study), but that those people have slightly increased the amount of reading that they do as choices of format has expanded to included audio download (while commuting, dog-walking, or dish washing, for instance) and e-books to carry on cellphone or dedicated e-reading device to fill the time spent waiting in line, or in-between tasks when there are 5 or 10 minutes available.

Public libraries serve many functions in the age of Internet and mobile computing and communicating. The act as places of warmth to those without a home, and places of cooling during hot summer days to these same people. Job seekers and people lacking Internet at home or work can use the public terminals for set daily time limits when they login. Library staff organize a range of events and programs each month to suit all the populations - children, retired, care-givers, parents and working-age people, teens, and so on. A large collection of music CD and feature film (and non-fiction) DVD is available for loan to residents or to people far-away who make a request though the state-wide interlibrary loan system.

In the time of the Information Economy and Knowledge Workers, it is especially important to be able to speak with a trained reference librarian to solve a problem, seek an answer, or make a strategy to gather needed information and make decisions. Like the rest of the society and economy, the public library and its branches continue to look for ways to be of most service to those it serves.