an old lady

My task this week has been deletions. I sit in my cubicle in the Technical Services division of the library and pluck a book from a loaded cart. I zap the barcode under the frog scanner on my desk. I hit "D" for delete. Twice. So the computer knows I'm serious. If it's the last copy of the book I suppress the record so if you look up the title in the publicly accessible catalog there's no evidence the library ever owned it. (But if we get a new copy somewhere down the line the book can be reinstated without having to create a catalog record from scratch.)

I don't choose what goes. Librarians do that. Many of the books are falling apart. Some are just fine. Many are old and irrelevant. Some I'd keep anyway. Do I succumb to my reluctance to see treasures being thrown away? There's a stack on my desk of those I can't yet bear to toss. Or was that five stacks?

From Conversations: Portraits of Age by Virginia Bonnici, (1985), pub Exposition Press of Florida:

"Her given name is Emma but she prefers 'Em.' ... ninety-some years ... 'There are dark and gloomy days but poetry will satisfy you.'

She recalls the years she taught in a country school and eating biscuits and jam, wearing boots to her hips and the rattlesnake and the horse -- stories enough for a lifetime. She doesn't want to write them down though."