teacats, these are wonderful! And the story behind them makes them even more so. Thanks for sharing this. I can't wait to show this to my family and some others who I know will love this too. So beautiful.

How very special indeed! Thank you so much for sharing this. I have passed it along to a few book-loving friends. My Grannie was a librarian for years, and I know she would have loved this. :-)

Wow! Thank you for sharing this.

ML

SO very cool! What a talented artist. I just hope no rare books were destroyed to make these, but I doubt it. Thanks for sharing.

Oh my word that's wonderful!

I have such mixed feelings about it.

On the one hand, I'd love to know more about the artist, how s/he does it, how long does it take, etc.

On the other, I love that s/he is doing it anonymously and making such a fabulous gift to the libraries.

Even if I never know any more, I so enjoyed seeing them. Thank you for posting it.

You know, this has had me thinking all afternoon about giving in a meaningful way when people don't even know who is behind the gift. I can only imagine the sense of delight the artist must have when s/he leaves the creation. I wonder if s/he ever gets a chance to witness the moment of discovery. This has brought up so many questions in my mind, not the least of which is ways that I could give to others so freely without them ever knowing it was me. Could I? Would I? Would you? Hmmmm ...

What an incredibly gifted artist and what an imagination to even create such unique pieces.

I'm a tad jealous - in all my years as a librarian for the Free Library of Philadelphia the only things I ever found on the shelves were used tissues, car keys, glasses, a baby bottle, homework, candy wrappers, grocery lists etc. The worst was a dirty diaper. Certainly nothing as extravagantly wonderful as these creations.

Those are beautiful and what an awesome story! I wish I was so talented so I could leave wonderful gifts like those to cozy book stores & libraries myself.

maire cate,
I must be so naive because I was shocked and offended for you by your list of what people leave in libraries. In a million years it wouldn't occur to me to leave garbage anywhere, let alone in a library. I will choose to believe that although they were clearly ignorant, at least they were IN a library and maybe attempting to improve their simple minds.

Wouldn't it be great for any of us, not just librarians, to discover a wonderful treat like those book sculptures? Should we all make a vow to create one art piece and leave it behind somewhere for someone to discover? This is will tough, I'm not artistic, and I don't want my creation to look like something one of maire cate's patrons left behind.

hhireno - Thanks for your sympathetic response. I worked at several branches in my library system and it was eye opening to see how things varied. I worked at one the largest, regional branches for many years and seldom encountered anything more than gum or candy wrappers. But when you're dealing with the general public anything can happen. We've had drug dealers making transactions in the stacks, young lovers making out, kids dropping paper airplanes over the balcony, at least it wasn't a heavy reference volume. Sometimes we'd see a child wandering around and ask where his or her mother was and the child would tell us that Mom had gone shopping and told them to just sit in the library and wait.

The worst thing that happened at my branch luckily occurred shortly after I went on maternity leave. Some kids broke into the library and dumped the card catalog drawers into the fountain that was in the atrium. Yes I'm old enough to have worked in the early days of papyrus, parchment and card catalogs!

The library is often seen as a refuge and it wasn't unusual for homeless people to come in and sleep. Unfortunately for our regular patrons some of these individuals had significant body odor and it was rather unpleasant to even walk near them. And since we were a public building we were not allowed to ask them to leave.

I loved my job and found enormous satisfaction in helping - whether it was finding answers to reference questions or helping to locate just the right book for a young reader. Every day was different and I loved it. After leaving to raise my kids I volunteered for many years in the school library. It really was a gratifying profession.

Nice to hear from GWers who love libraries! I am a library volunteer and have always loved them. I'm really looking forward to sharing this story with the other library volunteers!

Thanks for sharing Teacats! It's really great to see someone so inspired by books.

Jennifer

awesome work and words! thx for sharing!

Another fan of libraries here. I stopped at mine just last night and would have been thrilled to discover one of those creations.

Thanks for sharing teacats!