Damaged Books Reborn as Art

In 2001, the San Francisco Public Library began finding books that looked like they had gone through a Ronco Chop-O-Matic.
Almost 600 books were sliced, diced and nearly julienned by a vandal with a knife— then shoved back in the shelves.
All of the books destroyed had common threads: gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender issues, HIV, women’s health and multiracial families.
“He had an agenda,” said Mary Bennett, a former San Francisco resident who moved to Santa Fe three years ago. “I said ‘God, that’s awful. Let’s do something with that.’ ”
What she did has become Santa Fe’s Center for the Contemporary Arts’ latest show: “Insight Out.”
Bennett put in a request to the library for some of the damaged books. Her idea was to ask local artists to rework the books into art pieces.

Full Story.

May 31, 2004 by Books Libraries

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7 Responses

  1. John says:
    May 31, 2004 at 6:45 am

    also covered
    here

  2. Anonymous Patron says:
    May 31, 2004 at 8:37 am

    Librarians do what?
    Nothing? Librarian and Library staff’s cluelessness and failure to do
    ANYTHING to prevent the vandalism and
    theft of books or catch the culprit
    always amazes me.

    Pay attention. Catch the creep and sue
    him or her for the full replacement
    cost of the books and make em spend
    lots and lots of times with the people
    he or she apparently has a problem with.

  3. vapid says:
    June 1, 2004 at 5:42 pm

    Re:Librarians do what?
    Librarians are busy trying to keep the library together, answer questions, help people, and do a million things on ever shrinking budgets, with an ever shrinking amount of staff. Anonymous library patrons are more likely to see this kind of damage being done than we are.

    Why don’t you do anything? How dare you assume nothing was done to try to catch this person?

    And why force anyone to spend time with this horrible person? What have they done to deserve the company of this person?

  4. Anonymous Patron says:
    June 1, 2004 at 9:24 pm

    Re:Librarians do what?
    Nothing is done or these cases would not be a pervasive as they are.

    Plenty of staff handle library materials
    and they all know what’s being vandalised.

    There’s an attitude that since library are
    materials are “public” property that any
    member of the public can do whatever they
    want to it…it’s rare that such cases are
    ever prosecuted…and if they are it’s usually
    because the media became aware of it.

    The “let’s keep quiet about this and just replace it” rather than “let’s kick the ass of the person who destroyed it and make HIM replace it” prevails.

    People who hate others need to spend time with
    the people they hate to unlearn their hatred.

  5. Snave says:
    June 1, 2004 at 10:37 pm

    Re:Librarians do what?
    You are insulting library staff everywhere, who work very hard to keep ALL their books and materials intact. If you think that it is “easy” to replace books, you’ve never worked in a library. The sheer cost of labor in replacing a book (assuming you can get a replacement copy) is staggering. There is the actual cost of the book and shipping, plus finding, ordering, paying and receiving the book, not to mention the processing costs of cataloging it, creating an item record, putting library material on it, etc. Library budgets are stretched as it is. Replacing vandalized materials represents a substantial commitment to keeping the title available, not a cavalier disregard for those who want to use it.

    Yeah, my circulation staff handle a lot of books. What makes you think that a person vandalizing books is checking them out first? A lot of books get vandalized in the stacks, and no one knows about it until long after the fact, when someone tries to use it and brings it to our attention. Most libraries provide ample hidden spaces, including bathrooms, for someone to vandalize materials in privacy. Again, most libraries simply do not have the budget for sophisticated security systems or round-the-clock patrols of the stacks (and there is still the bathroom — are you suggesting cameras or an attendant the entire time the library is open, for every bathroom? Scissors, swiss army knives, nail clippers, and sharp-edged rulers confiscated at the doors via body searches?). If there is a persistant target, every library will try to address the problem. However, there is simply not enough staff and money to be sure of being successful because vandalism is, unfortunately, easy in an environment that depends on the easy access to shared materials.

    Of course, every public library could just become a closed-stack library, which presents a multitude of other problems. But it is the most effective way to deal with vandals.

  6. Anonymous Patron says:
    June 2, 2004 at 9:11 pm

    Re:Librarians do what?
    Actually (some) librarians’ neglect and indifference to the book collection…both the condition and the selection of books has been a strong trend in public libraries…especially since the book you went to the shelf to check is now on your PC.

    (see Baker, Berman and Chaffee and the LisNews article archives) Books have been enthusiastically trashed by librarians themselves who need to clear space for PCs and they’ve shifted the book buying dollars to PCs and databases.

    When books are not valued or cared for, vandals and theives have easy pickins. The indifference or perhaps powerlessness of library staff to do anything about it…is real and visible evidence of the decline of libraries.

  7. Anonymous Patron says:
    June 2, 2004 at 10:11 pm

    Re:Librarians do what?
    http://www.lisnews.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/27/075 2200&mode=thread&tid=35

    Like this story which Gary Price submitted
    May 27th…give us money without strings…
    we will NOT be forced to buy “yeech”…BOOKS 🙁

    whaddya think we are a LIBRARY?

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