Selecting a book can be a difficult task for some students, while an easier one for others. Books serve many purposes: a safe escape from the real world, decorations on a shelf, lessons, places you can’t visit, knowledge, emotions, and new doors you never knew existed. I have recently learned that they can also create a connection to the people who have once held them before me. Although students seem to be more interested in books that are trending, a book from the back room of the media center has finally been borrowed.
“This book has not been checked out since 2012,” Tracy Olaveson, the CHS media clerk said.
I found the fact that this specific book has not been read in CHS for thirteen years to be very intriguing. When seniors graduate, their names no longer show up in the school’s system at the Media Center. However, in older books such as “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” the names of students are kept in a card attached to the inside back cover: this is an old-fashioned method to keep track of students who have checked books out. The names and circulation dates are written on a tiny piece of lined paper inserted in a little pocket. Some dates go all the way back to 1992.
“You get to see a piece of history. I mean, this is how we used to take books out of the library at school. Our teachers would have a stamp, they'd put the due date, and then they'd sign your name. Then they would take this and put it in a card file. When you return the book, they would put it back in here for the next person to take it. Like, isn't that crazy?” Olaveson said.
Looking at the specific names written on that piece of paper is what makes this book even more special. How would students back then interpret this book differently from students today? What was the reason they picked up Sherlock Holmes, and how did it compare to mine? The two students who wrote their names legibly on that piece of paper include Tom Brennan and Hillary Smith. These are just a few of the questions I longed to ask them. After all, a detective is needed to find these students, who are now middle-aged.
So, I officially entered the detective mindset by putting on my detective glasses and began my extensive research on the students who picked up this detective book. Like Sherlock Holmes once said, “The game is afoot.” I ventured back to the side room, and went through multiple yearbooks. When I stumbled upon the one published in 1996, I caught a familiar name: Hillary Smith. However, something was definitely not right; the date was off by three years! On the piece of paper, she checked this book out on March 30, 1993. Considering that above her name was her senior photo, I confidently deduced that she must have been a freshman when she picked it up. I learned that she was a part of the Washington Show Choir and a bass player.
My deductions were rather elementary, for I haven’t found her email or contact information. I must admit, I am more of a Watson than a Sherlock Holmes. However, it was fun to see how the styles of hair, clothing, and even writing had changed in the yearbook; that was what gave me so much pleasure. Yet, behind all of the differences, I noticed that today’s CHS students and the ones who attended years ago all love a good detective story. One small piece of paper has opened my mind to the older Chelsea community in ways I would have never thought.
Looking back in time was definitely an amusing experience, but when books such as Sherlock Holmes are no longer borrowed, they go into a separate room in the Media Center. So many books are getting taken off the shelves and being replaced by new ones.
“Everybody knows Sherlock Holmes, right? But if it's not moving then it goes back there because there's only so much space we have up here. They haven't been signed out in a number of years. And so then all of these will be first donated for free books, and then, if they're not taken by the students or whoever comes in, then they'll be donated to faith in action, donated to another local charity….I don't ever want to see them thrown out. I'm just glad someone is now able to enjoy it, it's like a newfound object. You get to see how I took a book out, years ago,” Olaveson said.
The reasons why students are not picking out certain books is not always clear; they vary from person to person. However, we are noticing that online platforms play a huge role in giving students book ideas. This may be the reason why older books are not being checked out as often.
“Through social media, you get a lot of ideas about what books are relevant right now. So students are seeing that, so they're coming in and asking for the books that they see on Tiktok or the books that they see on Instagram,” Olaveson said.
The new generations are used to seeing a lot of things online now. We get most of our information on the internet. Even though students ten years ago didn’t just use libraries for their main source of information, the use of libraries is diminishing over the years (for better or for worse).
“When I was writing my papers at university, I would have to go to the library, [and] take out an encyclopedia. I'd have to photocopy the pages I needed, [and] photocopy the page of the information from the book that you needed to make a bibliography, and then take it home with me,” Olaveson said.
I believe that libraries are unexpected and curious places. The media center here at CHS is more than just a quiet place to work; it’s a place where discoveries are made. Behind the stories books tell on their pages, lie the stories of the people who read them. I am very glad I was able to find this book, and more importantly, that I checked the back cover.
