Last year a lecturer from a Scottish university, where I’d been a doctoral student, emailed me after more than a decade without contact. She explained to me that she was retiring (to Mallorca) and looking for a home for her collection of books on Gothic. Would the UAB be interested? Oh, my!, I thought, but this is wonderful news. The library kindly accepted to pay for shipping expenses and soon enough they even staged an exhibition to publicise the donation –more than 100 books. I got to keep a few which we already had. Anyone thinking of working on Gothic in Spain or nearby… come to us!!
There are a few things that puzzle me about this case, like why did this lady bring all her books to Spain rather than leave them in Scotland. But what puzzles me above all is what the gesture of giving her professional books away means in relation to our profession.
I recall a colleague who retired a few years ago dismantling his bookshelves in his Department office, even throwing in the bin some old paperbacks but, somehow, I assumed this was the tip of the iceberg and he had the main collection at home. I myself have half my books at home and half in my office, and I regularly take the ones I no longer find uses for to the library. I cannot, however, imagine myself dismantling my library for good, though I also wonder who would want all these, mostly, cheap paperbacks.
The library receives, now and then, immense book collections as bequests. Professor Francisco Rico, who retired in 2012, donated 5,237 documents… which makes me wonder about the size of his home. Professor Xavier Úcar, of the Department of Systematic and Social Pedagogy here at UAB, donated more than 700 SF works a while ago (http://cataleg.uab.cat/search*cat/a?SEARCH=(col•lecci de ciència-ficció de xavier úcar), as he happens to be an avid reader and simply cannot keep at home all he reads. The pity is that the collection remains housed in the basement… so unless you know it exists you don’t see it.
There are, then, circumstances that justify massive donations: retirement, home size and, of course, death. One of my colleagues has often told me that when she is gone she wants me to make the suitable arrangements for the library to keep her books as a special collection. Fair enough.
What puzzles me about the Scottish lady professor I mentioned at the beginning, and a couple of other cases I’ve heard about recently (also in Britain) is the firm severing of the ties with our profession. A while ago I opened a space in the Department for book crossing and it is always empty (except when I leave books there!). The few books that turn up now and then are either extremely specialised studies the owner clearly does not want, or best-selling novels mostly of a trashy kind (best given out anonymously). University teachers, it seems, are, like Prospero, very fond of their books.
Perhaps, though, I simply misunderstand retirement, possibly because I look forward to my own as a time when I will be finally able to write non-stop if I want. My main hobby is reading and, somehow, I imagine retirement as something quite similar to my current holiday time: lots of books, time to think. I keep on forgetting that research as we do it today, with all the accountability mechanisms thrown upon us by Ministries and sundry agencies, can be psychologically oppressive. And that the gesture of giving the books away may have to do with finding relief for that oppression. Yes, indeed, I can think of a few books I’d rather never see again.
Anyway, I must say that all considered I’m very happy that this lady, whom I’m not mentioning because she was not particularly interested in the library naming the collection after her, thought of me. At a time when the crisis has reduced our book-buying sprees to practically nothing, this was a gift from heaven.
Now, please, students and colleagues, enjoy these books… (tip: search the UAB catalogue, cataleg.uab.cat by ‘paraula clau’, type in ‘gothic’ and voilà…)
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