The Life of a Book

I once had a friend tell me they were looking for a book at the library and to their dismay it was listed as damaged. “Oh, that happens all the time,” I said. They were shocked.

As a children’s librarian, I often personify books and have come to believe they have their own lives and destinies. Some have wonderful, long lives full of many journeys to peoples’ homes. Some are savoured by a few friends. And some, unfortunately, meet an untimely end early in life.

It is the nature of the public library beast that books often meet a sad end. When a book crosses my desk with a worn cover, a barely visible barcode, a ripped spine, or with pages that are missing, falling out, or covered in tape, then it has been well loved, but it can’t take any more. This book has fulfilled its long and wonderful destiny.

Where do those small tears at the bottom of picture book pages come from? Tiny hands trying to turn the page at the spine of the book rather than the corner of the page. This book is now primed for an untimely end. Those tiny tears are begging to be ripped more. I often imagine youngsters looking at those little rips thinking, “Oh, someone started this job, let me help them finish.” And so that page is removed from the book. Once again, this is the nature of public libraries, and this book has likely met its fate.

Library staff members have an arsenal of special tape and magic glue that we use to mend damaged books as best we can, but sometimes books are beyond repair. Occasionally books come to us with poor bindings, and two cracks of the spine is all it takes for that book to crumble. When children come for library tours I caution them to tell a librarian immediately if a book is damaged. “We can fix lots of things,” I tell them, “but we can’t fix a book if no one tells us it’s broken.”

So what happens to those books that fulfill their destiny? Some do get recycled. More often than not, they go to the library book sale and find a new home. Those books that are savoured by a few friends, but aren’t used very frequently, embark on a new journey. Collingwood Public Library boxes up books that are still in good condition, but not used by our patrons, and donates them to Better World Books, an organization that sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide. 

All is not lost, though. When possible, the library replaces well-loved books with fresh editions. We try to re-order books that have met their end too soon. And so the journey begins again.

--Ashley Kulchycki