A Hammer in the City
LaGuardia
1962
Submitter: I call this a preemptive weed. It was dropped off in our return box as a donation. Old, yellowed, and the spine is hanging by a thread. I know people mean well, but recycling is good too!
Category: But it’s Historical!
Old stuff, textbooks, past events, etc.
Pros and Cons of the Soviet Life
The Soviet Union
Opposing Viewpoints
Bender and Leone, ed.
1988
All of a sudden I have a bunch of Soviet Union material from the 1980s. The Opposing Viewpoints series of books is practically a staple of youth/teen nonfiction collections. In 1988, this would have been a great choice. The Cold War dominated news of the 1970s and 1980s. Brezhnev’s death in 1982 marked the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union. So this little book was published at one the most interesting times in history. For the most part, there is a discussion on policies such as human rights, women’s equality, and government.
The Air Officer’s Guide
The Air Officer’s Guide
The Military Service Publishing Co.
1957
Another Swedish Death Cleaning Find
My dad was a ROTC during college and grad school, around 1958 to 1964 or so. This was one of those items from my mom that was in a pile of other stuff. Why it is in my personal library is a mystery. Part of this is my mother can’t abide throwing things out. I have a feeling there is “Mary is a librarian, she would probably want this” assumption. I’m not so sure my sisters have similar random books in their library.
College Memories
The Western Experience to 1715
Chambers, Grew, Herlihy, Rabb, Woloch
1974
Another Swedish Death Cleaning Find…
This time we have a college history textbook. The only reason I know it was a textbook from college was the used book price from IUB also known as the Illini Union Bookstore. (Both my husband and I graduated from Illinois way back in 1982.) My husband recognized this book as his text from his Intro to Classical Civilization class. Professor Richard Scanlan’s class was arguably the most popular class at the university during our tenure. My husband, an engineering student and a guy who would take math classes for fun, absolutely loved this class. I am quite sure that is why this book is still sitting on our shelf. Scanlan died in 2009.
The book itself is nothing particularly special. The content probably can be found in many more current published books. Although we get to make our own rules with a personal library, this sentimental feeling about particular titles or even editions, can also plague librarians trying to weed a collection. It is easy to get caught up in what the book means to us personally. No one is immune to this.
200 years of fun
The Bicentennial Almanac
200 Years of America
Linton, ed.
1975
Another book from Mary’s Swedish Death Cleaning Project.
This title really had me scratching my head. I was a cynical and naive kid back in the 1970s. I was a history fan, so I can only surmise that someone gave this to me as a gift. I doubt it was ever opened. If you were around back then, the whole country had bicentennial fever. Every product out there seemed to make a “Bicentennial” version of whatever was around.
Many events, especially the more shameful, are downplayed or are omitted. Almanacs are not to be considered comprehensive, but this book has very little meat. It would be useless to a student of American history. I think this book was probably cobbled together from other materials and sanitized for our protection.
I doubt this would be purchased for any library even at the time of publication. Mostly because it is really just a calendar with a sentence or two. I would like to think that a library would want a little content for their budget.
Name It!
Last Names First
Lee and Lee
1985
This is basically a genealogy for kids title. In general, I think genealogy items have a longer shelf life than many books. Tech related genealogy books, not so much. This one is showing its age in the “humorous”, I mean cringe-worthy, illustrations. The actual text isn’t too bad and I will give the author props for including non Western Europe information.
American Forts
Historic American Forts
From Frontier Stockade to Coastal Fortress
Colby
1963
I have no doubts that historical forts are worthy of a book. Back in the early 1960’s, this was probably a reasonable choice. This is some brief history and a bit of tourist information on about 15 forts across the United States. Not bad, but I am sure any tourist information, including maps, are woefully out of date after more than 50 years. The library binding of the old days, dense print, and lackluster photography means no one will be giving this book a second look no matter how informative.
Mary
Merry Ditties
Merry Ditties: Over 50 Lusty, Unexpurgated Songs and Ballads from Popular Tradition
Cazden, Ed.
1958
Submitter: This book might have value somewhere, but it not at my public library. It hasn’t been checked out in our ILS ever. No idea how many circs it had before we automated in 1997.