Most bibliophiles only flirt with books…they handle them in the bookstore, picking one up from time to time to take home. If the book and owner get lucky, the relationship is consummated with a thorough reading, cover to cover. Then maybe the book goes back on a shelf, never to be picked up again. Maybe it gets passed on to a friend. Bibliophiles flirt with books, but they don’t know love of books.

Loving books is like loving people: it’s hard work. Loving books means spending quality time with them, handling them gently as you seek out a verso with a call number on it. Loving means teaching yourself enough Russian to distinguish between the various volumes of Russian books without so much as a hint of English on them. Loving books means enduring the aroma of Katrina. Loving books means going through the drudgery of reinstating book after book after book with the mere hope that your work will make this book findable to some lucky, unknown soul.

Love can be funny, though. One can become as accustomed to books as to people, can take them for granted just like a beloved sibling or spouse or friend. So accustomed does one become to the presence of a beloved that something has to happen to remind you how much you cherish them.

This week we surpassed the 10,000 mark—10K books have been processed and re-shelved back at Tulane. Loving books isn’t always like loving people…sometimes it can be measured by the thousands.

Matthew Lawrence Pierce,
Processing Supervisor