Gah... flop

[altivo]

This feels like a Wednesday and it's only Tuesday so far. Ugh.

Much alarums and excursions at work, but none about anything real, at least not yet real.

I've apparently misplaced an installation CD for OpenVMS Alpha 8.3. It's somewhere here on my desk amidst the mountain of paper, I'm sure. Time for a real cleanup. Now when is there time to do that?

Sifting through a mountain of donated books at work, found a couple of gems. Children's school reading primers from the 19th and early 20th century. I've just about built up a large enough collection of these to make a display case exhibit. The 19th century ones are just awful, so goody-goody and religious they are downright offensive. Engravings of children all dressed up in Victorian clothing and sitting or standing primly in front of a teacher or other adult. I'll bet real kids weren't any more like that in 1860 than they are today. Still the books are interesting and in remarkably good condition for their age. I certainly won't look that good when I'm 150 years old. They were really used, too, and have the names of half a dozen owners written in the front.

Of course there was also a truckload of dreck. There always is. At least a bushel of cheap Harlequin romance paperbacks. Hard to believe anyone could read that many of those, they are all the same. Well, they've switched from red to blue covers. Or maybe there's a content difference between the red ones and the blue ones? I'm not looking inside to see.

Comments

[merik]

This feels like a Wednesday and it's only Tuesday so far. Ugh.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels this way this week. The last week of classes of a semester is always an ordeal, but this time around is full of bonus annoyances and a flood of paperwork washing across my desk. :-P

Or maybe there's a content difference between the red ones and the blue ones?

Oh, those signify the "Red State" (heroine is June Cleaver-like, married couples sleep in separate beds, worst four-letter words are "heck" and "gosh") and "Blue State" (stories which read like they're straight out of Sodom and Gomorrah) editions. ;-) Not that I've ever read any Harlequin romances, of course. The few romance-style novels I have read feature gay werewolves, which is a whole other specialized genre altogether. *grin*

[altivo]

I almost believed that for a second (red v. blue.)

[schnee]

Of course there was also a truckload of dreck. There always is. At least a bushel of cheap Harlequin romance paperbacks. Hard to believe anyone could read that many of those, they are all the same. Well, they've switched from red to blue covers. Or maybe there's a content difference between the red ones and the blue ones? I'm not looking inside to see.

I'm just curious, what do you do with these?

[altivo]

Toss 'em in the library book sale. In the past, they haven't sold well, though, and end up being recycled. Along with tabloid newspapers, they are one of the poorest forms of reading material in the US.

[moonhare]

Still the books are interesting and in remarkably good condition for their age.

Do you put these in a special collection? We keep 'everything genealogical' to add to our Rhode Island room collection, but books like that would either be sold or misplaced.

Our booksale is May 22nd, and you'll see a post for "worst donation" pretty soon. It never fails that someone will include a coverless, acid-eaten, written-in gem within the mildewy bags and water stained boxes they drop off. I should do a 'funniest,' too, thinking of the optical laser disc with the "French Maid" chauffeur depicted on the cover (wisdom of ages: know where your porn is because if you suddenly die it could get donated among the other ephemera that might be given to your church or local library). hmmm, there was a scantily-clad, buxom cowgirl on one of those discs as well, doing something lewd with a rope...

[altivo]

We've had a couple of interesting "donations" from estates in the past, yes.

I'm building a special collection of old schoolbooks. We have a "founder's collection" of books dating to the library's beginnings back in 1909. Many were gifts of noted individuals in the area, and I've cataloged them and put them on display in the board room as a "non-circulating" collection. I hope to do a display of school primers and textbooks in September just as school restarts. That will go out in the main display cases. It's starting to look quite promising. I have several books with the students' names and dates in them, and am about to hunt for a little genealogical data on the former owners. I expect to find it too. For example, Henry Hudgens looks to have been around sixth grade or so in 1874, so he should be in the census from 1870...

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

People like those cheap pulp fiction for quick easy reads. When you're reading more involved stories with deeper plots reading them on the bus kind of ruins the flow.

[altivo]

Oh I dunno about that. I've never had problems reading large and complex volumes on the bus or train. I'll admit I've hurt my back carrying them around, though. ;p