Library
Catch question from library sector:
What to do if you need more space?Answer:
Throw away old books. Nobody reads it anyway.
ZOOM Effect
At the beginning a little history with a ZOOM effect: an unspecified European university. ZOOM. Somewhere in Central Germany. ZOOM. In a unnamed city on the Main River, where the name giver of the university once was was knee high to a duck. ZOOM. Institute for Slavic Philology at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main.
Well, too specific. And being specific is the neo-kitsch. Because such stories happen nationwide, daily, annually, always. Not an individual case, but a rule… (This individual case took place in the year 2011)…
Just before we begin: Two words for non-German speaking reader.
Word 1. Wegrationalisierung
Here is another wonderful German word for you:
Wegrationalisierung
It does mean “economization”, a “rationalization with cut effect”. In our case let’s go further and call it: “Wegirrationalisierung” (or: “irrationalization”). Because what will happen next isn’t rational anymore. It’s rather irrational.
Word 2. Geist and Geisteswissenschaften
As being opposite to Naturwissenschaften (nature sciences) are Geisteswissenschaften (liberal arts, human sciences) focused on culture, philosophy, art and other humanities. Geist can be translated as “mind”, “spirit”, also as “ghost”.
So let’s begin with…
The successful Plan for the Systematic Irrationalization of the Mind in 5 steps.
Cut it out and distribute nationwide.
Step 1: Euphoria.
An Institute for the humanities is founded. Everything flourishes. Countless doctorates, habilitations, awards, publications, fame and laurels, attention on an international scale.
Step 2: Survival.
Tempora mutantur. Rectors of universities are changing as well. The Institute is endangered, and gets to know about its own closure from the news papers or from conversations at the next table in the academic pub. In-house communication is so overrated. The Institutes doesn’t give up. It is fought. Teachers, students, other institutes, deans, all are merged in a unique solidarity against the high level solution for closing the Institute. It is fought. But nothing, neither articles in the press, nor nationwide congresses running by and taking place at the Institute, nor extraordinary media work, nor restructuring in the whole faculty, nor compromises with savings accommodating to the University Board help. Nothing helps, actually. And yet: the fight is on.
Step 3: It is lost, or: Irrationalization.
Because apparently neither the scientific achievement, nor the number of students counts. But the acquisition of third-party funds. And the attractiveness for the market. And that is probably what the Institute lacks. How else can one explain that an internationally prominent institute is simply being… closed?
Step 4: Dispose of the vestiges.
There are still some teachers left because students are still enrolled. The institute library also remains, because the students also want to graduate (how dare they). But don’t worry, everything is transient. The last student leaves and…
Step 5. Ragnarǫk. Apocalypse. Конец света. Weltende. Or as you call it.
Institute:
away.
Students:
away.
Books?
Gone.
End of the book.
My Notebook entry from 9th December 2011:
“…Today I happened to find out that the entire library stock of Slavic Studies was about to thrown away today. Just like a used yoghurt cup. Auto-da-fé as a measure for acquiring space. Today was the last day to save the books (my former coworkers told me with bitter defaitism in his voice). I believe in destiny. I was there.
In the soon becoming former Slavic library hall I found thousands of books. Ready to be transported to the garbage dump. Or for recycling, to be transformed into the environmentally friendly Tabula rasa for your another yellow press. University library is tidying out.
Wait, were there another solutions possible?
Non-profit donations? Nada!
Campus book flea market? Non!
Funding books to the public library? Niet.
Support for another public institutions (like you know, language schools, culture clubs etc.)? None that I knew of. And I hoped very much for a denial, I hoped very much for a reassuring answer (like: “Hey, relax, these books go into safe hands, they will continue to work, they will continue to live, they will continue to be read”), still, most eagerly, desperately but…
Complete works of Tolstoy/Dostoevsky/Tchekhov/etc./etc. in hundreds of volumes?
=> Get rid of it.
Samizdat editions from NY and Paris, unique copies (you would be jailed back to the Soviet epoche if you had owned or read one of them)?
=> Away with it.
Countless newspapers and magazines, contemporary witnesses from the XXth century?
=> Throw it out.
First editions from the XIXth-XXth century, like Feltrinelli edition of “Doctor Zhivago”?
=> Dump it.
Secondary literature, indispensable for research?
=> Say bye-bye.
All was gone. And I was standing there with two ridiculous packing cases in front of the shelves full of books (you know, this Matrix episode being paraphrased “Books, lot of books”). With a feelings being oscillating between marauder and rescuer of the world literature. Only today. Next week, workers will come, pack everything together and — ciao. Why have I found out about it so late?
For the first time in my life I didn’t take any photos. I couldn’t do it. It was too cruel for me.
Don’t worry, some dear books that were saved by me today. You are in good hands. You will be fine. You will neither be sold nor shredded. You will be read. You will be alive.
What about other dozens thousands of books?
Let’s talk about something else.
I just… can’t...”
This article is my contribution to the series “Library Stories” by Susan Orlean.
