Midwestern Intern
May 18th, 2025
I started an internship this week in a special collections department of a local university. On my first day I held the oldest book in the collection, a nearly 1,000 year old manuscript (I was close to tears) and a massive Nuremburg Chronicles incunabula that easily weighed 25 pounds, and I had to hoist this onto the top shelf. I am taking on rare book cataloging, which is very much a dream come true for me, but I have never cataloged books before. I have some background in accessioning art objects and historical objects, and I assumed it would be very similar.
I began the internship shredding rare books.
Certainly not what I anticipated from a library that collects rare, signed, first-edition, books and manuscripts. Unfortunately, this particular set of books was damaged, already digitized, and was in no way applicable to the library's collection policy. I posted this image of a shredded book on Facebook and I had many responses saying the book was being wasted and that this was unethical. What they didn't know is that these books were offered to a large network of book sellers, was for sale in the semesterly book sale for 25 cents, and still no one wanted it. Well not the entire book.
We engaged in a shredding party with all the other special collections staff, we spent easily a few hours slicing these intricate scientific plates. After the prints we wanted to hoard for ourselves had been dissected, we hand shredded the remainding pages to recycle. I cannot properly convey the satisfaction that came with ripping these buttery, old pages like it was nothing. I was told that the older the paper, the more satisfying the shred. I could have easily spent all day tearing these copies to pieces, were it not for my allergies. Book dust velcroed to every inch of my clothing until my eyes were so puffy and watery I couldn't see straight. Totally worth it.
