For all of us here at the Butterflies & Aliens Library, the year known to some as 2022 started out way busier than we expected, and so our beloved library has not gotten the care and attention we would otherwise love to give it. In the digital world, lack of attention is what often gets a website “deaccessioned” or “weeded” from the world wide web, so fear not, loyal patrons, we are here and will continue to share about all the bookish things.

Ironically, in our equally beloved world of physical books, a lack of attention, of a certain kind, is actually better for a book’s longevity. Wear and tear is one of the ten agents of deterioration that conservators actively fight against in preservation work, otherwise known as “physical forces.”

Case in point, one of the latest additions to the Butterflies & Aliens collection, a copy of Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, formerly of the Los Angeles Public Library collection.

I had recommended this book to my sister, who then had to put in a hold request for it at the LAPL. The fact that the waitlist was so long was, to her, an additional indication that the book was probably a good one. But when she finally made it to the top of the list and picked it up, she got another sign.

“So you know how you recommended ‘Mistborn’?” she texted, then sent this photo…

She went on to say “I told the librarian that I actually had even more reverence for this book now… something about such a dog-eared copy *from the library* gave me a sense of awe.”

My immediate reaction was admittedly not entirely appropriate… I asked her how she’d feel about “losing” the book because I wanted it, down to its LAPL-issued rubber band. Then I calmed down a bit and asked her to find out if they’d be open to accepting a fresh new replacement copy in its place.

As it turned out, win win for everyone – the Los Angeles Public Library got a donation towards a new copy and the Butterflies & Aliens Library acquired a fascinating new artifact for its Book as Object Collection.

When it arrived and I put it down next to my existing copy, once again I was reminded of just how much the physicality of the book impacts my own reading. Not only did I now have a magic portal to the world that Brandon Sanderson created in the words of his book, but I also had the direct traces of innumerable fellow travellers to that same world. In other words, I was no longer travelling alone.

And this copy of Mistborn was now its own story, loved to pieces but saved from being loved to death, retired from circulation but full of extra life, its original story wrapped in a tale of its own travels… with a rubber band.

Happy Reading!

– Winston