Faith, Hope, and Charity

We all know about faith and hope, especially when it comes to our household trash. We separate the plastic bottles from the newspapers, and the cans from the compost, and we faithfully place the residue in the appropriate collection bins in the hope that they will be duly recycled and come back to us as useful products. (This is different from the faith you have in your toilet; that’s more like a agreement that whatever you put in it must never, ever, EVER come back.)

In what passes for a “library” in today’s digital era of illiteracy, we see an interesting exercise in recycling. There once was a time when citizens could take old books to their public library with the assurance the titles would be evaluated for inclusion before their final disposition was decided. No more. In today’s ultra-modern temple of Information Science, old books are only so much more clutter that must be dealt with. The increasing frequency of “used book sales” demonstrates the main function of the contemporary Biblioposer Building, aside from makerspaces and read-to-a-dog kennels, is now the recycling facility for a given community's books. People bring them in, they are temporarily stored, sales take place every few weeks, people pay the Biblioposers for the discards, take them home, and then bring them back to start the process all over again. Think of it as a tax-supported used book store where the inventory is donated gratis.

Here at True Archives we wonder how our beloved libraries became little more than specialized Salvation Army stores, but then we glance around at the ear-bud wearing, glazed-eyed, internet-addled youth of today and we have our answer. If mankind is ever to rediscover deep reading in the future, is it not the duty of archivists to preserve something to read? Otherwise we can “faithfully” pile the despised codex next to the used toasters and discarded Salad Spinners at Goodwill and only “hope” they are used for something more than fire starters and furniture stabilizers.