A Commonplace Book

During one trip to SIBL [the Science, Industry and Business Library of the New York Public Library], I accessed the online OED and looked up the word "obsolete." The entry demonstrated a circular use of the word from a book called Philosophical Enquiry. This vaguely titled book claims "Of things obsolete, the names become obsolete also."

During one trip to SIBL [the Science, Industry and Business Library of the New York Public Library], I accessed the online OED and looked up the word "obsolete." The entry demonstrated a circular use of the word from a book called Philosophical Enquiry. This vaguely titled book claims "Of things obsolete, the names become obsolete also."

The New York Public Library is currently in the process of selling off the SIBL property and (re)moving most of the collection off site to New Jersey. The library claims the books are rarely consulted; during my visits I only ever encountered one other reader requesting much anything from the closed stacks. He was there every day. Clearly mentally ill, he would peer at me with hostile suspicion while we waited for books to appear from the dumbwaiter. We were not the only readers requesting books at SIBL, but no one else seemed to be browsing the closed stacks via the catalog, unlike in the Rose [he New York Public Library Rose Reading Room] where this seemed more common.

The books in the Reanimation Library cover many subjects, but I suspect that if it found itself absorbed into the NYPL system, most of the books would end up at SIBL, rather than the Humanities Library on 5th Avenue. Which is to say they'd end up buried deeper into the archive, further out of view, both in thing and name.