Why I want a library in my home

Some people I talk to cannot understand why I would want to eventually build a library in my own home.  I own no Victorian estate, after all.  So why would I want to fill a room with a bunch of books, especially fiction novels, that will be read only once.  I have two reasons.

Most people I talk to who can't understand my desire to own a personal library do not reread books.  To them it would be a big room full of useless paper.  I do reread the books that I invest the money in to buy (with one caveat that I will address in a moment).  Until I came to graduate school, there was a set of five or six novels that I read every year, along with the new books I might try out.  Now, when I have no time for reading, I still find myself occasionally stealing time to relax with one of my favorite stories though I know the plot and even some of the text by heart.

I don't read these books to be surprised.  I read these books for the same reason you might call up your mother, sister, or friend even though you spoke with them three days ago and there cannot be that much that has happened in the between time.  You make that call because talking with the person is comforting and you know that the person will understand what you are feeling and feel similarly were they in your situation.  In the same vein, I reread these novels because it is comforting and because the characters in those novels espouse virtues that I want in my own life.  I am reminded that there is honor, and friendship, and justice, and love in this life, even when my own life seems chaotic and unbearable.  I read of men and women overcoming problems of society, environment, or malice to gain peace, love, and success in their lives.  And in a small part I come away feeling that I can overcome my problems as well, especially when they are small compared to some.  (Read "The Count of Monte Cristo" if you want to hear about overcoming some really terrible occurrences in life.)

The second argument I often hear against maintaining a personal library is that the information in books will never change and that if you ever wanted to find the information, or reread the story, you could just find it at your local library or on the internet.  I recognize that the information in the nonfiction or the stories in the novels will never change.  It is, believe it or not, one of the charms of static media like books.  I know that I will always have a good book to read.  I don't have to worry about content creeping in that I don't want to read in a book or the morals of the characters drifting with the society around me.  But more than that is the very real danger that information is being destroyed, quietly and more effectively than any book burning ever managed.  You see, this argument has one major flaw in it and that is the very dynamic nature of both the internet and public libraries.

Most people I talk to have this vague notion that libraries retain their collections indefinitely, but a little thought will tell you that this is not possible.  A library encompasses a finite volume, so if a library wants to make new material available, it has to either build on more library (an expensive and often impossible proposition) or it must get rid of part of its collection.  Usually the oldest and least circulated books go first, which would suggest that the books being discarded contain information that is either of no value or that is better obtained from some other source.  Unfortunately, the most worn books also get discarded, books which are worn because of their popularity.  And since books go out-of-print, this guarantees that a book can be popular and yet become unavailable.  Even when the book remains in print, if it is too old a library might not replace it in favor of newer material.  There are more than a few books that I have looked for in my local library and have been unable to find.

Now there are some books I have spent money on and yet have never read.  And this is because I saw information in those books that would be valuable in the future and yet might be so obscure that it would be unlikely to be reprinted elsewhere or published on some internet site.  The internet, marvelous though it may be for collaboration and up-to-the-minute information, has its own limits on the amount of information it is possible to find there.  There is a hard limit on the hard drive space available on servers and personal computers, and though that limit is increasing so is the amount of information there is to maintain.  Even if there were enough space to contain all the information, there has to be someone to write it into a webpage and it costs money and energy to keep a webpage going. Consequently, the only information that stays published either is of very current interest or belongs to someone's pet project.  I have tried to acquire books that contained the type of interesting and useful information that might still be useful but is too obscure to be widely available in other locations.  Or they are books on subjects that I wouldn't even know how to formulate the queries that would produce the information I found in my books.

I'm not really looking to make converts here.  I'm presenting my reasoning for wanting an extensive personal library in my home.  It took me six years to convince my wife of the potential worth a personal library could have.  I expect there are some people who I will never convince and I can't really worry about them.