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!
Holly: Whyyyy don’t people just throw this stuff in the recycle bin and let it go?? Is it laziness or do they truly think the library wants it? These are probably the same people who are turned off by other library materials that are in bad shape. You know the ones – a page is dogeared and they are incensed and want to be sure they aren’t blamed for it. This thing looks so brittle that it will spontaneously combust when “I didn’t dogear it” patron blows their cigarette smoke into it while reading.
You asked why people don’t recycle or throw out these old books – the answer is guilt. People feel guilty throwing books away, so they look for the guilt-free means of disposal: giving it to the library. A lot of people assume the library is a repository of old books, and so surely we could always use more of them! They assume that we never discard anything. I’ve found through the years that many of the people who donate these old books are not users of the library, and have no idea of our efforts to maintain a current (and relevant) collection.
I agree that guilt is a major reason! I also know quite a few people who legitimately think everything they own is of great value and can’t imagine someone doesn’t want it.
I’m pretty sure that’s liable to spontaneously combust.
Love the cover. The artist must have also done the contemporary hard-boiled private eye paperback covers.
Quite apart from the material state this book’s in — the writer’s style is about a century out of date. If you ask me, this text would have sounded old-fashioned even back in the sixties.
Today I was notified that we received a 300 book donation. I cant wait to come back to work to sort through it.
We’ve been getting unwanted donations during the pandemic, even though we have a big “No Donations at this Time!” sign right by the returns bin. At least some people ask before they dump.
Free sneeze in your face with any donation.