LEFT INSIDE: Ukrainian Politician Patronages the CPL (not!)

Usually this feature is about items I find in books from my personal collection.  This one, however, was discovered in a library book in the Chicago Public Library (CPL).  I thought it was so bizarre I had to share it.

 

For those of you unfamiliar with the patron who supposedly too out this book here is a reminder from the omniscient source of all internet knowledge —Wikipedia. I'm simply cutting and pasting it with one bit of editing for clarification: 

 "Lutsenko is a former Minister of Internal Affairs [of the Ukraine]. He occupied this post in the two cabinets of Yulia Tymoshenko and in cabinets of Yuriy Yekhanurov, and Viktor Yanukovych. The Ministry of Internal Affairs is the Ukrainian police authority, and Lutsenko became the first civilian minister in February 2005."

Lutsenko was also imprisoned for abuse of powers. Many nations objected to this calling it wrongful imprisonment and as one more sign of the actual abuse of power by Ukrainian Prime Minister Yanukovych. You can read about it all for yourself on various websites using the names of the men as search terms. Knock yourself out.

Anyway, made me laugh to think some oddball in Chicago thought it funny to make it appear that Lutsenko was a fan of obscure murder mysteries just as all of us are. The addition of wishing future readers enjoyment of the book was doubly amusing.  The significance of the date eludes me. Any guesses?

For the record, I didn't enjoy the book.. I stopped after 25 pages and returned it to the library. It put me to sleep. Literally. I was probably just exhausted that evening from my day job which is draining me on a daily basis these days.

More on Roy Fuller, the author of the book Lutsenko supposedly took out and read, and his side career as a mystery writer next week.

LEFT INSIDE: Ann's Library Card

I was very good about keeping track of my library card when I was growing up.  Losing it would've been a very big deal and I'm sure I would've been extremely upset.  When I moved to Chicago getting a library card was as important to me as getting a phone or setting up my electricity account.  To this day I carry my library card with me in my wallet at all times. Never know when I need to make a spur of the moment visit.

Apparently Ann Felton of Lenox lost her library card sometime in May 1943.  I found it in a book I bought two or three years ago -- appropriately, an ex-library book. That's all I noted. Foolishly I forgot to copy down the title.

Our Ann was a fairly voracious reader.  Most of her books were returned within days.  Maybe she was just fickle.  I like to think she enjoyed most of what she read and couldn't get enough of books.  Though in one case it appears the librarian mixed up the spots. Remember library stamps? Taken out on May 1 and returned on April 26?  Was that the day she read H.G. Wells? I wonder how she felt when she lost her card. She must've been using it as a bookmark.

Lenox is Lenox, Massachusetts. Cliffwood Street still exists. As does the Lenox Library Association which is still housed in a historic building that has served as the library's home since 1874. Below is a photo of the reading room. Swank library!

LEFT INSIDE: Library Date Due Slips

Here's a spin-off on my post of yesterday where I discussed my shock at learning the main branch of the Chicago Public Library likes to pulp unwanted books.  Usually library discards get sold or donated and below is evidence of such books going on to live longer lives now that they have been retired from circulation.

While I tend to avoid buying ex-library copies sometimes a title is so rare or the edition unblievably scarce that I end up giving in and purchasing an ex-library copy.  Most of the time I will do this if it has a DJ and the DJ survived harmful damage unlike the books themselves which are often battered, dogeared, and have numerous food stains and other spillage showing the book's history of multiple careless borrowers.

Most of these ex-lib copies tend to be stripped of all the library tell-tale markings like old card pockets and date due slips prior to being sold. Some, however, escape this denuding process before being sold or perhaps "permanently borrowed" by new owners.

Below are scans of several date due cards for some of the ex-library books I've owned over the years. For a change you will definitely know what book these were left inside. I've marked all of them in the captions. Interesting to see how popular these books were when they were first sitting on the shelves all those decades ago.

From a copy of Death of Jezebel by Christianna Brand
(purchased at a Milwaukee used book store in 2009)

From Vintage Murder (UK edition) by Ngaio Marsh
(purchased at the Newberry Library Book Fair several years ago)

The House Party Murders by Edgar Allan Poe, Jr.
(purchased from a dealer located in British Columbia)

The Mystery of the Vanishing Books

I'm a little bit upset today. I've just learned that all my attention to the forgotten mystery writers whose books still wait to be checked out from the Chicago Public Library may be harmful to the works themselves. To my shock I just learned that the many of the books, right after I have returned them, never make it back to the shelves. They seem to be vanishing.

I think I might have mentioned that I have a habit of taking out books that have not been checked out since 1995 when the library catalog in Chicago first became digital. Often I discover that a book by A.B. Cunningham or Elisabeth Sanxay Holding or Richard Sale or William O'Farrell has not been entered into their database. This has been happening with increasing frequency since I've been trying to find more books via the Chicago Public Library rather than buying a used copy from a dealer. Lack of circulation is one of the factors that will come into play in the future of a book's life within a library system. And today I have discovered that all of the books by Amelia Reynolds Long (who I have lately discovered and whose books will soon be reviewed here) have been pulled from the shelves. But not just pulled from the shelves -- completely obliterated from the Chicago Public Library catalog system. Gone for good.

I had to find out what was happening. So I talked with one of the silky voiced librarians in the Fiction Department. She told me that the library staff regularly weed the collection. They send some poor underling to go through the shelves pulling out beaten up, "well read" books and consign them to one of two fates. Those in good condition (translation: newer books) survive and are offered for sale in the main branch's "used bookstore" which amounts to a single table in a tiny cubbyhole behind a security guard's post on the ground floor. Some store. I don't think anyone even knows it exists!

But here's the sad part. The books I like to read, the books I am always writing about here, the books by writers long gone from our world but whose words live on (translation: the old books) are often just scrapped. Sent to a recycling company with whom the library has a contract. So they are getting a little bit of cash out of killing off these old books. I'm not terribly comforted, I'm sorry to say.


Patron Saint of Libraries - St. Jerome

 I told the librarian that I was interested in two specific books and she said she could check if they had been brought down to that embarrassing closet where old library books await to be purchased for pennies. I told her not to bother. I was convinced that the two Amelia Reynolds Long books are sure to be pulp in a few days. They'll be waiting to be resurrected as a mixed content packing box or the coffee cup you'll get at Starbucks a few months from now or some other form of reincarnated paper product.

I'm wondering if I should just stop taking out the books. It's almost as if I've turned into a book hitman and I've targeted these authors' books for a fate much worse than being sent to the bindery for repairs. In any case, later tonight I will be having a little memorial service for all the books that are being taken from me (and everyone else in Chicago) and destroyed in the name of more shelf space. I may even start saying a few prayers to St. Jerome.