For the past few weeks someone (or maybe more than one person) has been leaving shells on the library shelves. The shells are beautiful, as you can see from the picture of just some of them, and quite clean. These “gifts” raise many questions. Who is doing this? Why would someone come into the library mutiple times and leave these for other people to find? Is there any significance to the placement of the shells?
So many questions. Answers are less forthcoming.
I have no idea who is bringing in these gifts. It could be any one of the thousands of people who visit the library every day. In all honesty, part of me doesn’t want to know. This isn’t vandalism and I view these mysterious shells as tokens of goodwill from someone out there. Finding out who is leaving them would take away the mystique of a secret library admirer.
I may have answered my next question: why would someone leave these beautiful objects on our shelves? If they are indeed gifts then clearly the giver likes us… or maybe I am projecting. Could it could be a performance art piece? Or maybe the person just has too many shells at home and they are anonymously donating them to the public? No, I am sticking with “they like us.”
Finally, I cannot see any logic to the placement. I have found shells in the biography section (but not near biographies of explorers), fiction (but nowhere near something like Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea), and nonfiction (but not in the Dewey number 551: Oceanography). So in my mind this rules out the performance art piece explanation.
So, dear reader, if you are the person leaving mementos of past beach vacations on our shelves, I want you to know that I am not in search of a confession. If you want reveal your identifty that is fine…but all I ask is that you return our books free of sand and salt water.
Have a great summer, everyone.