Libraries

I find myself attracted to large collections of books.

When I heard Fr. McNally’s library was going to be donated, I offered to help. Sorting, photographing, listing, and selling his personal collection of art books has been one of my summer projects.

The moment I saw the library at the school I’ll be working at, I knew I had to do something about it. Remember the Dewey Decimal System? Me neither. But I’m piecing the collection back together, book by book. Fiction. Reference. Biography. Pop Culture.

Maybe, one day, a student will break into the now welcoming library and feel invited to borrow a book. Perhaps the proper arrangement will help them find the book they need.

Also, maybe not. Most of the books I’ve handled this summer will never be read again. Most likely, I’m wasting my time. Books are ancient history anyways, right?

But there’s always a chance, and I’d spend countless hours creating the right set, setting, and place for that chance to happen.

What will remain

Imagine all the books in the world vanished. Audiobooks, too. Old books, new books, unfinished books–all gone for good. Disappeared into the ether.

How would we remember who we are? How would faith traditions endure? How would classes be taught? How would information be found and distributed? How would ideas be spread?

The answer is relatively simple: stories.

Without any fancy texts or comprehensive collections, humans would teach other humans through stories. Parents would recite bedtime stories from memory. Professors would lecture through stories of their lived experience. Businesses would operate based on human connection.

And when the time is right, the best and brightest of humanity would unite. They would share stories with each other and create a new curriculum. Age old information would be made new through this process of shared learning, and only the important, necessary knowledge would remain.

What would be lost? The irreplaceable books of poetry, fiction, and literature of the past. Textbooks could be rewritten, the Bible would surely be reliably pieced together, maybe even Shakespeare would be reassembled from memory. But if nobody memorized an ancient poem, it would be gone forever.

Perhaps we should spend more time on what matters–the stories of our history–than what can be easily replaced by experts. Why reinvent the wheel? Why rewrite a book on human anatomy?

Why not create a new story with your innate and irreplaceable wisdom?