What Do Libraries Do With Old Books Novels & Stories

Her desk was surrounded by an unlikely collection of cacti. She noticed me looking. “We have to keep it dry in here,” she explained. “Any moisture damages the newsprint.” Long tables stretched across the room, covered in newspapers. One person clipped articles into neat piles. Another read through them, circling names and phrases. A third sorted the cuttings into files. “We have bound volumes going back a hundred and fifty years,” the librarian said. “The cuttings don’t last that long. Eventually they crumble.” “I thought everything would be digitised by now,” I said.

“How may I help you?” “I’m looking for several things on the events over the years. I’m looking for the facts. It’s my job to write the official information about the history of the estate and its people. So, I want to get the facts. This way the town and the Estate have matching explanations and no one feels like the villain.” “Oh, we’ll, in that case.” The librarian looked a little flustered. “We were forced to hide these books because people kept vandalizing them or outright stealing them.”

The smell of old paper and dust filled my lungs. Somewhere, a clock ticked. Steady. Echoing. With a sigh, I walked towards the left section of the library. I might as well get over this. Minutes stretched with me browsing through countless old books, blowing dust off their covers. Some titles were faded beyond recognition. Others in languages I couldn't read. My fingers trailed across cracked spines. Leather. Cloth. Paper brittle with age. And eventually, I grew tired of searching and started organising some out of place books.

"You are the 'Rot' in the library. You must be 'Excised' so that the Great Record can remain pure." Audrey stood on the bridge of her half-faded ship, her eyes burning with a silver-and-gold fire. "The library is 'Dead', Librarian. A book that is never read is just a stack of paper. A world that never changes is just a tomb. We didn't come to excise you. We came to 'Open-the-Windows'."

I shook at that and had the strength to speak. “I'm fine,” I told him firmly. “Give me a few minutes to put my clothes out to dry and I'll give you a tour of the warehouse. Then I'll show you the section you'll be working in and the categorization of the books, as well as the library's recognition and fingering program.” Archer frowned for a moment. “Okay,” he said and I nodded. I grabbed a bag and stuffed the wet shirt in it, then carried it over to the drying room, a place the curators used to restore books. It had fans and lights that would dry my shirt quickly.

It seriously looked like they were struggling to get free. "All of them?" Mike asked. "As they are written, yes. Much like the magic that brings us our food, these books simply vanish. It is my job to read them before finding them a permanent home here, properly catalogued." "Wait." Mike set his sandwich down. "Is that what all those boxes in the garage were?" "Yes. Those were books I hadn't gotten to yet, and Emily was kind enough to store them for me. It seems like there's been a sudden rush on the number of books published lately and I..." Sofia's eye squinted. "What do you mean, were?"

She nodded and disappeared into the labyrinth of bookshelves. Minutes turned into what felt like hours as I anxiously awaited her return. My heart raced with anticipation, mingled with a hint of doubt. What if there was nothing here? What if the answers I sought had vanished into the mists of time? Finally, the librarian reappeared, carrying a weathered box filled with old newspaper clippings and yellowed police reports. She placed it on the table in front of me, cautioning, "These records are quite old and delicate, handle them with care."

A hush falls over the library, punctuated only by the occasional turn of a page or cough from one of the other patrons lost in their own literary adventures. Stacking the books carefully, I ran my fingers across the spines, feeling the pull of each one, wondering which secrets they held within their faded pages. Picking up the first volume, I opened the cover and was immediately welcomed by it's old and fading writings. Hours later, as many pages had been flipped, I felt my eyes slowly giving up to the dangerous dreamland it wants to bathe through. Yet, focused on my goal, I trudged on to open one another. The clock's pendulum ticked ominously in the background, counting the seconds as they