All Unwanted Books Go to Heaven

dom_spokojnej_ksiazki_23.jpg, default, House of Peaceful Books, photo: courtesy of Piotr Kogut, All Unwanted Books Go to Heaven

#language & literature

Dozens of books are published each day in Poland. What happens to them when there’s no more room for them all on household bookshelves or in library annexes? Here are a few of the ways in which we can ensure that books won’t end up in the garbage heap.

Jorge Luis Borges called a library a universe with an indefinite number of six-sided galleries, an infinite number of stories, and all the books in the world. In 1981, Umberto Eco recalled this description during his lecture On the Library, which he delivered in Milan. Eco actually had his own substantial, labyrinthine book collection comprised of over 30,000 volumes. After his death in 2016, the writer’s family wanted to contribute the private collection to the University of Bologna, where Eco had lectured for many years, and the remaining antique volumes (roughly 1200 of them) were to be sold to the public library in Milan, where the author lived. The Italian government, however, blocked the division of the valuable collection. The dispute was finally resolved in early February 2021; the books became the property of the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, which placed the antique volumes in the Milan library and the private collection of books and archives was entrusted to the university for a period of ninety years. Would anyone have taken an interest in these books were there not so many of them or had they not belonged to a famous author?

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Umberto Eco in his apartment in Milan, photo: Vandeville Eric / PAP

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In Poland, over three times as many books are published today as were published thirty years ago. In 2019 alone, an average of 99 new titles were published daily. Thanks to computerisation, the process of producing copies of books or reprints of publications is far quicker than ever before. Many authors choose to publish at their own cost. Books continue to appear, though the rate of reading continues to be low (according to National Library estimates, only 39 percent of Poles said they had read at least a single book). What happens to the old books when they have to make way for newer ones? What do you do with books that no longer fit on home shelves or that have been abandoned by their owners?

The rest(less) home for retired books

‘People don’t know what to do with books that their parents left them. They don’t know what to do with books when they redo their home interiors’, says Piotr Kogut. ‘Once upon a time, in homes – especially those of the intelligentsia – there was always a display case or a library containing books for display and for reading. The newest trends make no allowance for such things. Only a few books remain in the home and they are those either most useful on a daily basis or those that are special favourites. People don’t know what to do with the rest’, he adds.

A few years ago, the Kogut family was looking for a place where they could conduct workshops, especially theatrical or declamatory. They settled on a plain barn which had to be appropriately adapted. The idea occurred to them to line its entire six-metre side wall with books. And that’s how, in 2017, the Rest Home for Books came to be in Rżuchów, a village in the Świętokrzyskie Province. ‘We’re from those generations for which the possession of books was considered an ennobling feature and one that brought pleasure to their owner’, the owner and curator of the place insists. That was the first reason for creating such a unique cultural centre.

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House of Peaceful Books, photo: courtesy of Piotr Kogut

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What was the second? ‘Very prosaic. At the time, we had just bought a flat in which the previous owner had left a collection of books that he’d inherited from his parents. We didn’t know what to do with them. Everything just sort of came together at the same time’, Kogut explains.

The Rest Home for Books is heaven for bibliophiles. It has everything: from belle lettres to popular fiction; children’s literature; cookbooks; travel guides; mysteries; handbooks; scientific publications; and poetry. You can come, take part in film shows, concerts, or theatrical workshops, chat amongst the towering bookshelves, pull down something to read, and find virtually any publication you desire. ‘There are spots five or six metres up that are effectively unreachable. You need to position a scaffold beneath them in order to get to them. On the other hand, the books lower down are in constant use. People who come here can poke around amongst the books and flip through their pages, looking for something that will interest them that they can take home’, Kogut relates.

As would befit the president of the association that runs the Rest Home for Books, Kogut has a special place for his own selected books.‘I wouldn’t want to give away the books from that shelf. I might loan them out on the condition that they return’, he acknowledges and immediately points out that the so-called ‘president’s shelf’ has grown to include a second, third, and fourth shelf. There are thus now a number of shelves on which the favourite volumes of the president and his wife are stored.

‘Despite the name the Rest Home for Books, the books don’t really rest so much’, the owner adds.

Don’t discard books

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The Second Life of a Book is a cashless exchange of new and used books, Kraków, photo: Beata Zawrzel / Reporter / East News

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The Koguts decided that they would accept all books, regardless of whether they are damaged, old, or address sensitive topics. The Rest Home for Books in Rżuchów is a last lifeline for many people who have book collections that they don’t want. ‘Most often, they’re local folks, because they figure it’s easier to come to us and turn over their books. But there are also people from other parts of Poland who badly want to avoid throwing books in the trash, burning them, or getting rid of them in some other way, so they pay to post them to us or bring them to us personally, while taking the time to visit our centre’, Kogut says.

People from all over Poland also contact Marcin and Paweł, who in late 2013 set up a Facebook fanpage called Don’t Discard Books. ‘If someone’s from Warsaw or the area, we’re able to come and pick up their books. Then, depending on what they are, we keep a few for our own collection and we auction off the majority to raise funds for charity. We help one of the Warsaw foundations and the entire amount of the sale is passed on to that foundation’, Marcin explains. If they can’t help personally, they try to direct people to an appropriate place.

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'Don't Throw Your Books' campaign, photo: www.facebook.com

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They curate the fanpage Don’t Discard Books in their spare time. When they were dealing more professionally with used books a few years ago, they decided to react somehow to the ever more frequent situation of books being tossed into the garbage heap. Unfortunately, such situations continue to occur. In February 2020, such a fate overtook the personal library of the late Eugeniusz Tyrajski (pseudonym ‘Sęk’), a fighter in the Warsaw Uprising. His entire book collection, along with his private correspondence, landed in a dumpster. Fortunately, it just took a bit of good will to inform the appropriate organisation about their liquidation (in this instance, the Memorial Foundation for Heroes of the Warsaw Uprising) and rescue them. Not all stories have the kind of happy endings we see in Colombia, where José Alberto Gutiérrez, known as the ‘Lord of the Books’, has spent over 20 years rescuing books from dumpsters and trash heaps. He began with Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina and today his collection numbers over 25,000 volumes which he gathers for children coming from poor homes.

Even if, as Tyrajski’s family saw to it, only duplicates and unnecessary publications are discarded, it can be done differently. Marcin from Don’t Discard Books suggests that the majority of urban libraries are open to receiving contributed books. Some books – especially newer publications – become part of the circulating collection, while unnecessary publications are often placed on special shelves from which readers can take items they want home with them.

Swap books like the Ossolineum

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The title pages of various editions of 'Pan Tadeusz' presented at the exhibition 'The History of the Manuscript of Pan Tadeusz' prepared by the National Institute of Ossoliński in Wrocław, photo: Maciej Kulczyński / PAP

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Surplus books are made available for the taking to interested readers at Warsaw’s Koszykowa Street Public Library. Since 2012, that book centre has maintained a Book Shelter which provides for the exchange or adoption of books that the library does not need. Each month, a catalogue is published listing titles that are available which can be reserved, read and returned, or read and kept. The same is true at other book centres.

‘The overcrowding of storage facilities is really a major problem in libraries. It’s known that they are finite spaces and their collections often become outdated over time. We also have to think about a place for new bibliographic acquisitions’, explains Dorota Jońska-Amanowicz from the National Ossolineum Collection in Wrocław. Therefore, selection is key. Selected for removal are items not meeting the library’s profile or those of which there are more copies than are necessary. Not subject to removal are: belle lettres; deposits and gifts; materials that are deemed part of the national bibliographic heritage; and materials that are part of a collection or that contain dedications and other marginal notes. ‘In view of the representative character of our library, we always retain at least one or two copies of any given edition’, says Jońska-Amanowicz.

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Collection of Henryk Sienkiewicz's manuscripts at the National Institute of Ossoliński in Wrocław, photo: Maciej Kulczyński / PAP

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What else is happening with books? ‘A list of items designated for removal is submitted to a review by the Deselection Commission at which a final decision is made about the removal of individual items from the library collection’, explains an Ossolineum employee. Holdings designated for disposal are – in line with regulations (Decision of the Minister of Culture and Art of 15th February 1973) – made available for interlibrary exchange. The Ossolineum carries out such exchanges with some fifty cooperating libraries both in Poland and abroad. ‘With an eye to making these materials available, we issue a list of titles available for exchange and circulate it amongst libraries. When we receive requests for specific books, we address them in order of their receipt. Materials that are not of interest to other libraries are made available to our readers. Placed in visible locations, they generally find people who want them’, Dorota Mączka of the Ossolineum assures us.

Workers at the Ossolineum emphasise the value of book exchange. ‘Interlibrary exchange is an invaluable source of acquiring valuable additions to our collection, because, like us, other libraries in Poland respect that principle. Thanks to that cooperation, we can expand our collection with extraordinarily interesting, valuable and rare books that can’t easily be found on the market’, they say.

Nextplease!

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Bookcrossing action at a transfer stop in the center of Łódź, photo: Tomasz Stańczak / AG

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In Ruda Śląska, you can pick up a book from the historic train station. Bookshelves in the shape of herring were placed at Białystok bus stops. Cats and unicorns attracted the youngest readers in Sosnowiec to book booths decorated with fairy-tale characters. In Szczawno-Zdrój, book stands resemble bird feeders. There are officially over 20,000 such bookshelves in Poland. You can find their addresses on the webpage Bookcrossing Polska. The idea of bookcrossing is the liberation of books: a book that has been read is left in a public place so that the next reader can find it.

In this spirit, the mobile app Nextplease.app was created to ease the exchange, purchase, and sale of books amongst readers. The app was created by Daniel Wojciechowski and Adam Oleksiak. Where did the idea come from? ‘It was a response to a need. We read a lot, we worked together, and we exchanged books between us. We also shared between us links to web discussion groups that indicated where books might be found’, Oleksiak says. Giving books a second life fits into an ecological approach to the world by supporting responsible consumption. ‘During some gathering of friends, we came to the conclusion that, strictly speaking, there is no dedicated solution for the disposition of books that would bring together in one place all interested bibliophiles’, noted Oleksiak.

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Nextplease.app, photo: https://nextplease.app

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They started out carefully with a simplified version to test the market. The response was enormous, so they decided to develop Nextplease! more professionally. The application is free of charge and accessible on both Android and iOS platforms. To date, there have been about 20,000 downloads. ‘The community of readers and users of books is a very engaged community. We are constantly receiving feedback saying that the application is needed and that, with it, you can find some gems or common books, but cheaper. The app users have thanked us for enabling them to find schoolbooks for their kids at lower than market rates. There’s also feedback with constructive criticism. Users submit to us ideas of their own’, says Oleksiak.

He acknowledges that the original purpose of the app was only to enable book exchanges. But users called for an option for the sale of books. ‘We offered such an option and now it comprises over 90% of all transactions. We follow the wishes of our users, because this application is for them’, Oleksiak confirms. The creators are planning to expand upon the project in response to their users’ wishes. At this time, Nextplease! can only be used by residents of Poland. The organisers’ next goal is to enter the markets of other countries so that anyone interested in Polish-language literature – wherever they may live – will be able to use the app as well.

Care for me

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Scientific antiquarian bookstore in Wrocław, photo: Łukasz Giza / AG

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The creators of the Don’t Discard Books initiative mostly receive literature published from the post-war years up to the early 1990s. No one is prepared to give up rare books for free. ‘Maybe once during all the years we’ve been working did we get a book from 1920’, Marcin recalls.

Literary gems can be dug up in used bookstores. A few years ago, a copy of Józef Czapski’s The Inhuman Land containing the author’s dedication to the poet Władysław Broniewski, showed up in a used bookstore. The artist’s book was sold for 2000 złotys after it had nearly ended up in a garbage dumpster. Internet book auctions, where one can find precious items and enrich one’s home library, are also becoming much more common.

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Galicja Antiquarian Bookstore, Łobzowska Street, Kraków, photo: AG

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One can also get hold of some of the ‘residents’ of the Rest Home for Books and, at the same time, support the association’s activities. ‘It seemed to me that books would start coming in far more slowly. But it’s turned out that there’s a very great need to give them away with the conviction that they won’t be destroyed. I created a group called “A Book From Kogut”. Were it not for that, we would have expanded at a very fast pace and wouldn’t have had space for new ones’, Kogut admits. It was a bull’s eye. At first, the books presented on a Facebook ‘shelf’ called A Book From Kogut would go to interested readers for free, but the operation of a cultural centre requires steady financing. At a certain point, the idea arose to auction off the books. ‘Books are valued by people who want to have them. It’s often the case that they go to someone for just a single złoty, but others find book lovers who are ready to pay even 50 złotys. Many of those taking part in the auctions say that they’re a great literary game – attractive, even addictive. Thousands of books are finding a second reader’, Kogut says.

Funds are now being collected through the group for a monument to books. The initiator of this project says that there’s nothing of the sort in Poland or probably in the world. This would be an autothematic monument: large glass cubes filled with books. The monument would stand near the Rest Home for Books with the forest for a background. ‘This seems to me to be my next multidimensional adventure. Placing the Book Monument by the forest will be a nod to where they originated from. Encasing them in glass refers to the glass-fronted bookshelves which used to stand in every literate home’, Kogut explains.

Kogut points out one more thing: ‘There’s no such thing as an unwanted book. There’s only a book which hasn’t yet found someone who wants to read it’.

_{Originally written in Polish, translated by YR, Oct 2021}

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