This article about the Montana Last Copy Fiction Depository makes me want to go to Billings and sneak into the basement of the library. This is the place where they send last copies of fiction that no one wants to check out. You know, those books that we LOVE to read. The article even mentions Elizabeth von Arnim’s Elizabeth and her German Garden.
Like most great things in the world, this one might disappear.
hogglestock 
Fascinating, but also so sad. . . I'd love to be locked in here overnight!
I wonder if some of my ILL requests will come from here? And if they do get checked out, do they go back into circulation?
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I forgot about Trixie Belden! I read a lot of those . . .
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This is just like The Cemetery of Forgotten Books from The Shadow of the Wind.
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Interesting article. Thanks for linking to it. I've mixed feelings. On the one hand, I love places like that. Stacks and stacks of old books would qualify as paradise for me personally. On the other hand, with 70,000 books and only 446 check-outs per year, I can see why the library would consider closing it.
It seems to me that they ought to be able to divide the collection up and keep most of it available through inter-library loans. I get most of my library books that way.
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I've got the same question as Karen- if someone manages to check one out, does it get re-circulated? I would hope so.
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It's nice to know they are there – long life to them! I have most of those Trixie Beldens sitting on my own shelves from my childhood. :)
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It made me think of The Cemetery of Forgotten Books from The Shadow of the Wind too.
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I love the thought of this but am shaking my head at the lazy librarians who just unloaded here rather than honoring the original intent of the project. You lose access to a book and you lose access to a piece of your history, a collective consciousness. This basement needs an aggressive sorting.
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I originally wrote a long and thoughtful response regarding the difficulties that libraries face regarding outdated materials, but Google was telling me that my cookie functionality was disabled (which isn't true), and it was lost.
Instead, here is an hilarious antidote to the the article in your link: Awful Library Books
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Can we hold the next 24 hour readathon here? ;)
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What a wonderful idea.
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