Masthead Logo Digital Commons @ Georgia Law

Articles, Chapters and Online Publications Alexander Campbell King Law

4-1-2019 My Own Private Library: A Peek Inside the Personal Library of a Rachel S. Evans University of Georgia , [email protected]

Repository Citation Evans, R. (2019). My Own Private Library: A Peek Inside the Personal Library of a Librarian. Georgia Library Quarterly, 56(2). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol56/iss2/8

This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Alexander Campbell King Law Library at Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles, Chapters and Online Publications by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Georgia Law. Please share how you have benefited from this access For more information, please contact [email protected]. Georgia Library Quarterly Volume 56 Article 8 Issue 2 Spring 2019

4-1-2019 My Own Private Library: A Peek Inside the Personal Library of a Librarian Rachel Evans University of Georgia Law Library, [email protected]

Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq Part of the Library and Information Science Commons

Recommended Citation Evans, R. (2019). My Own Private Library: A Peek Inside the Personal Library of a Librarian. Georgia Library Quarterly, 56(2). Retrieved from https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol56/iss2/8

This Columns is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Georgia Library Quarterly by an authorized editor of DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Evans: My Own Private Library

Before I get started I must give credit where various ways depending on format. Our credit is due. I have been so very lucky that I collection is split into a few different categories ended up marrying someone who not only loves including fiction, nonfiction, anthologies, and collecting and organizing media as much as I do, narrative illustration. The fiction section is by but also someone who had a very sizable far the largest and is sorted alphabetically by collection long before I met him. My husband, author and then chronologically by original Grant, started our current collection in 1994 release date of the title. when he purchased his first CD (which we still have on our shelves today). I must admit my Nonfiction, Anthologies & Narrative own book collection as a child was limited to my Illustration favorite series, including The American Girls and The Wizard of Oz. In Our nonfiction high school and section is further split college I began by subject including collecting textbooks supernatural, new and other subject- age and health, specific anthologies, philosophy, which have morphed counterculture, into my professional music, art, and film. book collection that I My favorite recent keep at work. When acquisition in this we married in 2008, niche of our our joint collection collection is The became influenced Occult Book by John largely by our shared Michael Greer. Not backgrounds in only is it a beautiful music, art, and film. hardcover, embossed gold-flaked edition, but it is laid out with each Acquiring & Organizing historical entry summarizing major moments in western culture’s hidden and forbidden Grant is my own personal acquisitions knowledge—an excellent reference book with department! He regularly weeds our collection lovely illustrations, packed with sources for of items (especially music) that we no longer delving further into any of the subjects or have a use for, takes the proceeds of resale individuals mentioned throughout. Our items to purchase new media, and makes more anthologies section includes horror and science room on the shelves. Even with this very fiction, and our narrative illustration section is consistent method of collection review and largely made up of graphic novels and comic management, we still have a sizable amount collections. including more than 1,000 CDs and vinyl records, more than 1,000 cassette tapes, more Fiction Books than 300 VHS tapes, around 500 DVDs and Blu- rays, more than 400 adult books, and more than When it comes to purchasing books (and any 600 children’s books. We organize each in media really), we tend to be completists of our

Published by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 2019 1 Georgia Library Quarterly, Vol. 56, Iss. 2 [2019], Art. 8

favorite authors and aim to purchase and read outset I thought I would almost always prefer all we can that is available. Some of our largest the book. While I did prefer the book to the film author collections include works by: William S. in some cases, such as Georges Bernanos’s Burroughs, Yasunari Kawabata, Karl Ove Mouchette, which offered a much deeper look Knausgård, Yukio Mishima, Alan Moore, Kurt into the young girl’s psyche than Robert Vonnegut, and Haruki Murakami. One of my Bresson’s film by the same name, there were favorite books in the collection was recently some books that were nearly identical to the published in small science fiction press film adaptations, like Jerzy Kosiński’s Being Spaceboy Books called Subterranean. Not only There, Alfred Döblin’s Berlin Alexanderplatz, did the themes of human connection in an and Daphne du Maurier’s Don't Look Now. Still, increasingly technological world resonate with what surprised me was that some films were so me, but I was amazed that the one and only different and improved upon the novels friend I made in virtual library school while drastically well. For example, Elevator to the getting my master’s Gallows directed by degree was the Louis Malle was author, Sarah based on a novel by Colombo. The book is Noël Calef, whose extremely ambitious English translated and basically has title is Frantic. The everything in it that I film was far more love. An off-the-grid effective than the tech-terrorist cult is book, and the two keeping the were very different, protagonist’s including the girlfriend captive. As relationship between mysteries are the main characters. untangled by a misfit Another example was gang that includes Joan Lindsay’s Picnic companion robots, at Hanging Rock, we meet all sorts of wild, deep, and dark whose director Peter Weir may not have characters amidst references to 90s culture in a changed the story, but the cinematography not-so-distant surveillance state future. added to the atmosphere and mystery of this Needless to say, I bought two more copies after strange turn of the century horror. finishing the book to give as a gift and to loan out to colleagues. My personal signed copy will Movies remain a gem in our collection forever. Our DVD and Blu-rays are shelved together in Pairing and Comparing Novels and Films two large sections. The larger glass door movie cabinet contains more than 200 Criterion In 2018 I set out to increase the number of Collection films. These are organized books I would read by limiting the reading list to alphabetically by title. We also have a smaller books that were the basis for films I had seen, number of special, director-specific box sets. or could see. After reading many, many novels The remainder of the movie collection is split (most of which I had seen the movie first) I between DVDs and Blu-rays on one shelf and quickly realized how effective it was to compare VHS on another, also organized alphabetically the two, helping me to pay far more attention by title. With movies, as with books, we aim to to the details of the books and be able to better collect all we can of any given director’s remember and discuss them later. From the filmography. Some directors we have many

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol56/iss2/8 2 Evans: My Own Private Library

titles of in the collection include: Michelangelo own childhood collections but also began Antonioni, Ingmar Bergman, Michael Haneke, regularly buying new books for his future David Lynch, Yasujirō Ozu, Satyajit Ray, and collection. Luckily my mother-in-law, now a François Truffaut. One of my favorite films in retired preschool teacher, kept almost every our collection is Antonioni’s Red Desert. Like book from my husband’s childhood, in addition much of the items in our collection, the big to books from her pre-K classrooms. My son’s appeal of this film is not only the amazing bookshelves are organized into sections similar cinematography but the sound design. It to our adult shelves. Books by the same author features a disturbed woman in a highly or in the same series are kept together. Some industrialized landscape with a strong visual exceptions include his Little Golden Books, focus on architecture and audio that perfectly which often include titles from other authors or complements it—noisy, thick, and inescapable. series, and holidays. If books are related to a specific holiday, those items are shelved Music together. Books which we do not have more than one by the same As musicians, a large author in the percentage of our collection and which music collection, do not belong to especially cassette another series are tapes, were acquired sorted by subject. through trades. Just a few large Located on separate sections like this shelves based on include: cat books, format, items are monster and dragon organized, first, books, train books, alphabetically by and other animal artist and, second, books. There is also a chronologically by separate shelf for release date. Various board books, which artist compilations tend to be more are shelved separately, as are most box sets and oddly shaped than the rest. Inside each of these other special edition music releases whose sections we do not attempt alphabetical packaging defies the average shape or size. One organization yet, since he loves choosing his of my favorite items in our music collection is own books and is only three. The exception to format-wise problematic: Tristan Perich’s 8 Bit this is the as of now-complete collection of Symphony. Housed in a clear CD jewel case, the Elsewhere Editions and a few New York Review case actually contains hardware that has a play Books for children, which we keep out of reach switch and a one-eighth inch jack for plugging in a glass door bookshelf. into your playback system. Children’s Movies Children’s Books Our son’s movie collection began around the When we first learned I was pregnant in fall time we started his book collection (before he 2014, the first items we purchased for our son was born). We already had a few in our own were books (The Schinocephalic Waif, The Great collection that we knew would become his and Wheadle Tragedy, and Master Snickup's Cloak started expanding on that. His movie collection by Alexander Theroux). We continued to rapidly is the least organized of all in our total accumulate books for him from not only our collection, sorted at this time by production

Published by DigitalCommons@Kennesaw State University, 2019 3 Georgia Library Quarterly, Vol. 56, Iss. 2 [2019], Art. 8

studios. We try to keep Studio Ghibli, Pixar, and Cataloging Our Collection Classic Disney together. He loves Winnie the Pooh and Thomas the Tank Engine, so any For books, my husband uses his Goodreads movies with those two characters are all kept account to keep track of titles we own, and we together. There is also a smaller set of have a separate account for our son. For Claymation movies kept together including movies, we use both Letterboxd and IMDb to titles from Rankin/Bass, Laika, and Aardman maintain “watch lists,” which are mostly films Animation. Probably one of my favorite films in that we own. For music, Discogs is where the children’s collection is The Boxtrolls, a almost all of our music collection is cataloged, Claymation we saw in the theatre before my especially our extensive cassette tape son was born. We knew then that this would be collection. one to purchase for our home collection, and it is one of my toddler’s favorite movies to watch. Rachel Evans is Metadata Services Librarian at University of Georgia Law Library

https://digitalcommons.kennesaw.edu/glq/vol56/iss2/8 4