Home Library Guide Offers Tips On Upkeep

Saving too many books is like having too many kittens, says Pat Wagner.You don’t know what to do with them, can’t keep track of them or take care of them all.

Eventually, you have to give some of them away.

Wagner, who co-owns a research and educational services business in Denver, wrote “The Bloomsbury Review Booklover’s Guide,” subtitled “A Collection of Tips, Techniques, Anecdotes, Controversies & Suggestions for the Home Library.” She’s sometimes asked to talk about the care and weeding of the home library, as she did a few months ago for the Pikes Peak Library District.

Published in 1996 by the Bloomsbury Review, a Denver literary publication for which she’s a contributing editor, the book has both helped and upset readers, she says.

It was inspired partly by her own lifelong love affair with books and reading, and partly by her realization that a book not used is a book going to waste.

“People who love books tend to buy too many, keep too many, store too many … you shouldn’t have more books than you can display.”

Heresy! Book-lovers balk at such talk.

“I know, I know. There was a time when it was the most painful thing in the world for me (to get rid of books), but now it’s OK,” she says. “In fact, I just got rid of a hundred. If I buy three books, I get rid of three books.”

She’s seen many collections ruined by improper storing conditions. That’s what happened to a friend who had books stored in what he thought was a dry basement for 10 years, she said. When unpacked, most of them were moldy and had to be thrown out.

“He was shocked,” she recalls.

It only takes 48 hours of 70-degree heat and 70-percent humidity to get mold growing, Wagner says.

“It’ll keep growing for a long time even after the humidity goes away,” she adds.

But how can we get rid of our old college textbooks, for which we paid a hefty part of our meager student funds?

Many people have old science, biology and chemistry books that are out of date, she says. Up-to-date information is available on all those subjects.

“It’s different if something has real sentimental value,” she concedes. In fact, she just sent her father’s old geography book, from the 1920s, to be refurbished by a professional bookbinder.

Even books stored on bookshelves are at risk, she says. For one thing, they should be kept out of direct sunlight. A book’s biggest enemy is UV rays, she says.

Set books vertically on shelves close together, but leave enough give in the shelf so you can get your fingers around the sides of the book to pull it out.

Don’t lay books across the tops of vertically stacked books. And if books are tall, she says in her book, stack them horizontally on a shelf - but no more than half a dozen high.

And dust them regularly.

”(Dust) gets in and actually, over the years, becomes part of the page and destroys the fibers of the paper … and can leave a permanent stain. It also serves as a breeding ground for bugs. They say, ‘Oooh, I can make a home here, and raise kids.’ Even bugs that don’t actually eat the books can lay eggs and cause all kinds of damage.”

Of all the suggestions Wagner makes in her books, the one about culling collections most upsets readers, she says.

“I think it’s the loss of all that knowledge” that worries them, she says.

Weeding your library should start with what has obsolete information and what you’re no longer interested in.

“There was a time … I collected those small community cookbooks,” she says but eventually lost interest in them and found she never used them. She put them in a rummage sale and a buyer came along who was delighted to find more for her own collection.

Or, donate the books to a charity event or to an organization like Goodwill or Salvation Army.

If you have books that may be of value but you no longer want, take them to a rare book dealer, she suggests.

“They’ll buy it for one-tenth to half the price they’ll sell it for. If you think it’s more valuable than what they’re offering, check it out on the Internet, she suggests. Access www.interlock.com, which has the values of four million books online.

Wagner wasn’t always so ruthless about weeding her collection. Books and reading are essential to her life, she says.

“We were at a dinner party a few weeks ago and everyone was talking about their dream vacation. They were saying stuff like ‘Cancun’ or ‘Hawaii.’ When it came my turn, I said, ‘My couch, a pile of books, some food, my cat and my husband nearby.”’

In fact, her idea of an ideal date is when she and husband Leif Smith go to the Tattered Cover bookstore in Denver, buy a bunch of books, go out to dinner and look at them, then go home and sit on the couch and read together.

“We don’t have a TV. We don’t have a microwave or dishwasher. We live modestly. But we have books. And we both make time to read every day.”

Despite this love of books, she still advocates serious weeding every few months.

“Don’t try to tackle it all at once. Do it a shelf at a time, when you have the time,” she advises. “It’ll be such a relief when you’re done.”

Still, she admits she lives in a house full of books - and cats. But none of them are in storage.