Many people collect books. Sometimes, they collect a lot of books. Maybe, they collect too many books, and they have no place to place them. They sit in boxes, or they sit on top of shelves and on top of other books.
Either way, a library of books shows what type of collector you are. It also shows your literary status, as it were. Books of your your favourite authors of your favourite genres adorn the walls of your apartment or house, ready to read at any time, or to view as decoration. Fantastic.
But what about the writer living in that house or apartment building. Specifically, what about you? After all, anything you create, no matter how rubbish or embarrassing, is still your work, and even if you just write to express yourself and to yourself, it may be of some benefit to place your works alongside your favourites.
Interested? Read on.
The Personal Library As a Concept
I have load of old books that I like, right down to some ancient Archie Sonic The Hedgehog comics that I had kept since I was a kid back in the early nineties. They were, unfortunately, not well kept. Some have covers missing, but I still have them, probably for sentimental value more than anything. I have random other books, a bit of manga, and many of J.R.R. Tolkien’s books on Middle-Earth. These are all great things to me, and some of these books I think about often. They sometimes serve as inspiration or a reminder. I also have a first-print book that is over a hundred and ten years old, and in good nick.
To me, a library not only serves as a reminder of who I am, but a mental reminder of what can be accomplished, and, if I made an effort, a reminder of what I could accomplish.
A personal library, in my mind, is a set of physical materials written by you or others that you have collected and not generally meant for general public consumption, apart from the general stuff. This private library contains papers, documents, books, letters, revisions of old manuscripts, maybe even figurines or other trinkets that you would find in a typical library.
Why Create a Personal Library?
If you enjoy writing, eventually sharing your works or just keeping it to yourself, who is to say that those materials are any less equal or valuable than all those books you bought over the years? If you think about all the time and energy that gone into those manuscripts, short stories, poems, whatever, it tends to strike a chord with its author, and those materials are placed on a shelf dedicated to all the other things they worked on or collected. The material in question becomes sentimentally important. It shows glimpses—snapshots, if you will—of the stages of their literary career. For some, I’d argue that those things are more important than the published result, no matter how significant the event is in your career.
For instance, I make physical printouts of every story from The Severis Tales that I upload is printed off and put into a binder, complete with headers, page numbers, and dates. A table of contents is placed at the front, and is archived on a shelf. I do this because I want to have a physical record of all the work that I have done, especially with TST. Years down the road, I may be lost for thought, or may be looking for an idea, or I’m just needing to revisit some old friends. I will pull out that dusty binder, and flick back on the several instalments i created that chronicled this fictitious fantasy family over the course of real time. I will look back on those early texts, and think to myself, “Oh my god, I cannot believe I wrote this piece of crap. It’s embarrassing!” That kind of thing to me is a source of mental strength, and sends me a helpful reminder of how far I’ve come since those early days, especially if the official texts have been lost. They are treasures, they are priceless to me.
Every notebook I wrote in with my fountain pens, every scrap of paper that I jotted down something, I’ve stored somewhere, either in an archive binder, or in a place easily accessible for me. They are like personal letters. They are keepsakes. Some of these I put on my shelf, others I do have stored away. Good for guests to see your work.
A More Important Reason for the Personal Library: Being Remembered
So, creating a personal library is good for the heart and the soul, serves as a reminder of how far you’ve come, and can be an excellent topic of conversation among family and friends and guests who are interested. That’s grand and all, but there is a far better reason than all of those to have a personal library: the fear of being forgotten.
I’d imagine that many people—not just hobbyists or the casual storyteller—have loads of material that has never seen daylight, either due to the lackluster content, or because it was not meant to be published for others to see in the first place. A goldmine of iterature that they created, straight from their minds and imaginations. However, some of that material sneaks through and becomes a bestseller.
Now imagine that person passes on and sees what happens to the post-life. They would be spinning in their grave when they find out that no one remembers them other than being a bestselling author for one or two books. What about all that literary wealth? None of it makes it. Perhaps, maybe the Internet Archive team might have snapshotted your material you posted online; but, potentially, all the stuff you done may be destroyed, with no one realizing the significance. The realization sinks in: all what you were, and all that you have created, will most certainly be lost and forgotten.
The personal library, then, is a means of passing on a legacy of literary materials to someone else—a close friend, another author, a family member, etc. Archiving all your works ensures that, after your pass on, someone will inherit your private works, those drafts of manuscripts, or that one big novel you never got to publish. Someone will have that legacy, who themselves may be inspired to continue your work or become something big themselves. When its time, in turn, they will pass on your legacy (and theirs) to someone else.
The personal library is a means to connect with your past and draw strength. The personal library means you will never be forgotten, and your legacy and career will last years beyond your livable life. I hope that one day, when I’m too old or near death’s door to continue on or remember my career, someone else will inherit my own private library, so that the name and legacy of Patrick Rivers continues for several more several generations.
If you are serious about keeping a record of all your literary efforts and milestones, then archive everything, and show them to your family and guests. Everyone will remember you for what you were, and not just by name.