A text post on a tumblr blog feels transgressive. I just wanted to point out that I o lament that most of the books I post on here are older books. I don’t want to reinforce the idea that the library is only a place for olde books. Obviously the library owns, in the fact the majority of our collection consists of, new books, but items that appeal to me visually tend to be items designed during the 1950s-70s. I joke with my coworkers that the design of titles on the current NYT bestsellers list is really the absence of design, and that there is an inverse relationship between the originality of a book’s cover and the length of time on the list.

Humor and irony is a factor on this blog. Some items I choose because they are over-the-top corny, or cringe-worthy bad. These titles were often the popular titles of the decades mentioned above. At the time they were produced, did contemporaries think their design as boring and generic as I find the bookcovers of popular fiction today?

I want to share the visual treasure which passes through my hands as a consequence of the day to day aspects of my job. I hope people enjoy seeing it, but I want even more for people to come to the library and check out new books!