Jul 22, 2017
When a bookmark tumbles out of an old book pristine and unwrinkled, it is like a gasp of breath from another century.
Don Borchert, Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library
seen from Thailand
seen from Germany
seen from Netherlands
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from China
seen from United States
seen from Canada
When a bookmark tumbles out of an old book pristine and unwrinkled, it is like a gasp of breath from another century.
Don Borchert, Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library
It is the Pandora's box dilemma. Knowing how limitless the Internet is, who would not want to look around a little?
Don Borchert, Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library
...He had stared into Pandora’s box too long, too intently, and it was no longer possible to close it. He didn’t want it closed.
Nonfiction is so much more tragic, engrossing, and hilarious than anything else that could be invented.
Don Borchert, Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library
Because there is a belief that once you begin to open books, you will become a better person. It is Pandora's box, but in a good way. You are inching toward the promised land, page by page.
Don Borchert
One of the more exciting donations to our library in recent history [...] filled the bookdrop to the brim. All of the titles were remarkably similar: Storage and the Usage of Plastic Explosives, A Common Sense Guide to Piano Wire and the Garrotte, Changing Your Appearance Without Surgery, Fifty Guaranteed Death Blows, and The Many Forms of Anthrax. Juanita went through the pile with a clenched jaw and wondered if we should send the books to the Friends or have them dusted for prints by the FBI.
Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library ~by Don Borchert
I don't understand people who will pay $10 to sit in a movie theater for two hours but hesitate to pay a 25-cent fine for a book that is overdue one day. I don not understand people who will lustily throw $40,000 at the shiny red automobile of their choice, but well up with tears and become outraged when they are asked to pay $5 for a damaged videotape. Either they are fucked up and their priorities are fucked up or I am fucked up and my priorities are fucked up. Because I am me, I think it is them.
Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library ~by Don Borchert
Library Science, a degree as arcane as alchemy or predicting the future by reading the entrails of a recently slaughtered lamb.
Free For All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library ~by Don Borchert
“The library knows that it is a temporary fix. We have a stamp for the inside front cover: BROKEN SPINE NOTED. It is like a bracelet worn by a diabetic. When you return the book with this message stamped inside, we know you're not the one responsible for this horrible thing. It was some other bastard before you. The book has a preexisting condition.”
- Don Borchert