Of sex and stacks

The pseudonymous "Thomas H. Benton" discourses upon the fate of intellectual inquiry (and other activities) in libraries when those libraries no longer offer the opportunity to immerse oneself in the printed work of previous generations.

I've commented before that some of most intriguing and life-changing moments I've experienced in my own life were the result of unstructured, free-ranging browsing in library collections. Without that kind of unstructured browsing, I would never have discovered James Branch Cabell, Lord Dunsany, or many of the other authors who have come to be part of my consciousness. I hope that similar moments of momentous serendipity are not forbidden to future generations by blinkered library administrators infatuated with shiny gadgets and ignorant of the value of the vast troves of ideas, stories, and information embodied in the printed collection of a typical university.

The Return of Gilbert Bland (and other comments on library thievery)

Several years ago, the book The Island of Lost Maps described in fascinating detail how an otherwise unremarkable antiquarian map dealer with the improbably appropriate name of Gilbert Bland sliced and smuggled his way to infamy by stealing hundreds of rare maps from atlases and other books found in the rare-books departments of libraries across the country. In the appendix to that book, the author expressed the hope that Bland's depredations would prompt libraries housing such collections to improve their security. Because the thieves won't stop coming just because one of them gets caught. Witness the recent capture of a "respected antiquarian dealer" who seems to have acquired the bulk of his inventory by stealing it in exactly the same fashion as Bland did.

Recently, a library at which I work lost an extremely expensive reference book when a thief simply requested it at the reference desk and then blithely waltzed out the door with it. The library does not require users of such materials to check them out or sign in or leave any ID at the desk while using them, and it's an open secret that the impressive-looking book-detectors at the public entrance are impotent scarecrows that are never turned on. Once the thieves figure this out, it becomes very expensive to run a library.

Moral of the story: If your library has anything in it that is worth stealing, keep it under lock and key, because no matter how innocuous they look, some of your patrons are thieving scum who will steal anything that's not bolted down.

Down memory road

This article made me feel a bit nostalgic. Perhaps I'll get other chances to go a-wandering in future summers.