Stacks and Stacks, and a Found Photo

Last year at some point, a young woman from Bucks County's Pennsbury High School, for her senior project, collected 25,000 books (twenty-five thousand, yes) and donated them to the Trenton Public Library to sell at their book sale fundraisers. You may remember the fanfare that surrounded this generous donation, and certainly her charitable impulse and recognition of the importance of urban libraries should be celebrated. But think about this: 25,000 books. Imagine what that looks like, and how much it would take to sort through them. I don't have to imagine, because last weekend I went over to help do some sorting, and the piles and piles of boxes of books were daunting, and kind of depressing. And as I sorted through box after box--some full of books people may well want to buy, but many full of 30-year-old encyclopedias, out-of-date textbooks, etc.--and as mold and mildew filled my lungs, I thought: this is why we need eReaders. Because the fact is, a large number of those books--the moldy and damaged ones, of which there were many--are just going straight to the trash, where they probably should have gone in the first place. And many won't go to the trash at first, but will sit out at book sale after book sale until someone decides to give up and throw them away. And although I'm one of those old school readers who likes to feel the book in my hands, I could definitely see the argument for going electronic if it meant that someday no one would have to spend a Saturday in a basement trying to decide whether anyone would buy a 15-year-old Fodor's guide to Ireland.

On the other hand, if I hadn't been there sorting, I would never have found this photo, which fell out of one of the books.