BOOKS

The Bishop of St Albans wanted to meet Churchwardens in the Barnet Deanery, so I went along.  In due course he asked me what I did. I said that I was a University Librarian. “Oh, you lucky, lucky man!” he cooed.  My working life is concerned with managing lots of staff (many of whom have either personal or work problems) and large sums of money, which still seem insufficient to meet the needs of our students, and writing policies, strategies, aims, objectives, risk assessments and annual plans, all of which get discussed at endless meetings.   So I wondered if the reverend Bishop really had a clue about modern university life. I really have nothing at all to do with books in my daily work.

But in the end, that’s why I became a librarian: I believe in the value of published information, and I have a love of books as physical objects. That’s why I have an insane number in my house, many collected by my father, his father, my wife, her father and mother, my aunt… It goes on.  Recently an old friend turned 60. I offered to buy him a book.  He said “It would take a very great deal of persuasion for me to accept another book; and then I’d have to get rid of one in its place.” And he is a lecturer in History at another university.  I guess I use books as interior decoration, and keep them for their sentimental value, because I certainly haven’t read them all, and probably never will.

Many people have a bookcase in their house.  It contains a fraction of what I’ve got, though it represents things they feel are important for some reason: the spin-off from a much loved TV series; a DIY or gardening encyclopaedia; school prizes; novels which had rave reviews; purchases from a book club.  This monument to civilization in their homes is just as effective as the silly quantities of paper I hang on to.  Indeed, my professional work involves throwing books away, even though many find that unthinkable. Old ideas need refreshing. The past needs to be let go, for the most part.  Out of date information is actually harmful and destructive. (What Chemistry department has a working collection on Alchemy? Do we need treatises proving the earth is flat?).

I love books, but, as a poet wrote, “Love is in the letting go.” Tomorrow I’m going to start weeding my bookshelves.  Or perhaps the next day…

 William Marsterson.  October 2007