The Dead Book Files

I was alone in catacombs that held row upon row of untouched, dust-covered sarcophagi. Although the building was alive with activity at multiple computer stations down below, seven floors up in the central library tower, it felt like I’d reached an abandoned outpost at the end of the world. 

The smell hit me as soon as the elevator door opened. Not exactly of a mausoleum, but of rooms uninhabited for a long, long time. Hints of dust and mold tinged my nostrils. A staff member with a book cart rolled by. The cart was empty. After she left, I was alone—I could feel it. The metal cubicles I remembered as “carrels” were still there, but now empty. I could see the filament-thin layers of dust colonizing on the grey metal desktops under the glare of the fluorescent lights. It seemed like I was in the wrong place—like this floor was not meant to be used anymore.

I admit that I’d travelled up there for an obscure reference for an academic paper, but when I found it, it felt as if it had been untouched by human hands for 50 years, at least. It smelled like I was opening a coffin instead of a book. It was like lifting a small dead body out of the grave.

The book I sought housed the collected 1964 television interviews with French philosopher Michel Foucault. It was already several times removed from how the words were originally written. At the time, the interviews were broadcast and sparked interest all over the world. In them, Foucault, then considered one of the world’s most brilliant and original thinkers, discussed the ethics of sexual pleasure candidly and for the record. His statements on the relationship between sexuality and pleasure from these long-ago interviews are still quoted widely, but chapter and page are no longer included in references. I sought the cites—the full cites. The source. On the page.

But now I realized how utterly old-world they were—these books. Who ever went upstairs anymore? Not even to study in the metal-cube carrels, like I once did. But that was last century, not this one. 

The man back down at the reference desk told me, no, I could not check this book out, but I could scan the pages I wanted, no problem, and then email them to myself, all in the library copy room.

I hesitated at such a task, and he looked me over and I could see his look of pity.

“If you really want,” he said, “you can make paper copies.”

“No-no-no,” I said. “Email is good.”

But I became uneasy as I made my way back through the warren of narrow hallways leading to the tiny, windowless copy room. This room was nothing more than an afterthought to the mainstream and mainline search-and-send computers in the much larger rooms closer to the reference desk. Among the hundreds of students at the library that night, I was the only one in the copy room for the many long minutes it took me to open, scan, assemble and email myself the pages I needed.

I lifted the copier cover and opened the book, smelling its old life as I resolutely flipped it over and pushed it down. I lowered the lid and pushed even harder to spread the pages apart for a good scan. Then I heard a loud crack and quickly lifted the lid again. The book had split in two.

I walked shakily back down the hallways to the reference desk, leaving behind the evidence, cracked and open on the copier glass, in my shame not wanting to disturb the crime scene.

“I-I just wanted to let you know,” I said, “that in order to get the whole pages scanned, I had to really push down hard on the book.”

I could still hear the cracking sound as I’d pushed down with all my weight on top of the book and the scanner cover.

And then the full confession spilled out of me.

“The book split in two,” I whispered, not able to meet his eyes with my own.

“Oh, we don’t care what you do with the book,” he said.

I looked on as he flipped his hand dismissively, as if clearing away the dust from an ancient civilization.

I returned to the crime scene and finished off the deed in the eerie light penetrating those broken pages through my fingers. When I was done, I returned to the desk and meekly laid the closed, wrecked book on the counter. I turned quickly to go, abandoning it to its fate. And then before I left the room, I saw the email pop up on my phone with my auto-numbered PDF file.

When I left the building, I clutched the two actual books I was able to check out like two precious artifacts from an ancient world.

After I got home, I opened my email and opened the file. And then the first thing I I did was print it out. It’s still my automatic response—just so I can hold it in my hand.

Books were a physical presence when I was young. I would turn every page in anticipation of the next. A book was a thing that was mine—all mine. It was private, 3and I kept it hidden away in my room. I can still remember from when I was eight and in the third grade the intricate drawing of the leaves on the walls on the cover of The Secret Garden, and I remember to this day each hand-drawn illustration inside. 

I’ve kept that book all these years and hope to pass it down to my grandchildren, but technology is catching up with me. I know these pages, too, text and illustrations, will be scanned and available for download at Google Books, cross-referenced and indexed by keyword by the time they’re old enough to read them. You’ll soon be able to do a word search across these files, and everything else published on earth.

Paper books—even if their contents are as vibrant and visceral as sexuality—are creatures primarily of last century, not this one. Google Books has digitized more than 40 million books worldwide, and is on its way to digitizing every book on earth.

Foucault’s book may be among the last in that number; that is, if it doesn’t fall to dust before it gets scanned. Foucault’s interviews were recorded and then transcribed and then printed and bound and shipped and shelved, and now may be swept under the digital leviathan that’s barreling through.

Some day, I know, possibly in my lifetime, every single book on earth can be brought up on my phone.

But even this, at least, I can still hold in my hand.