The Boxes: From Whence They Came

by Sidonie Ward

LAS Library has been fortunate to acquire the amazing contents of the now extinct American College of Switzerland’s [ACS] Library. Under the direction of Head Librarian Dwight Peck, pictured here, the ACS Library collection grew to more than 50 000 books, but when ACS changed ownership in 1991, the purchase of new books all but halted. The library books remained nearly untouched for two decades until they were finally pulled from the shelves and boxed, meticulously, by Mr. Kellett and crew when ACS closed its doors in 2009. These boxes were purchased by LAS and then crammed into closets or packed into classrooms, with just enough of a path for one to squeeze their way from one side of the room to the other, and promptly forgotten about. One classroom - visible from the road outside Savoy - can attest to this as it is no longer filled with desks, chairs, and neglected homework, but is now stuffed with boxes stacked floor to ceiling blocking the windows and a good part of the door.

LAS Library now has the daunting task of sorting through the thousands of books to select those that would be an asset to have in the LAS Library collection. This process involves carefully removing the boxes from their wobbly stacks, all the while trying not to think how long it would take for someone to realize you were gone if one of the stacks fell and you were crushed under a thousand pounds of books. Once life and limb has been risked removing the boxes from their dusty resting place they are lugged upstairs and put in the back room of the library. With a satisfying crack the boxes are opened, their contents exposed to the light for the first time in years. The title of each book is examined, followed by a quick scan of the summary. The book is then placed on the shelf for addition to the library shelves, put into a 'maybe' pile, or it is placed in the pile for recycling. Choosing which books are returned to the shelve is a difficult process. It is particularly difficult to throw books away because a certain value is attached to books, and one can’t help but wonder whether maybe someday someone will want to read Cellulite and You, even though the last time anyone borrowed it from the library it was 1988. Thus it is necessary to sort relentlessly through the boxes, disposing books with archaic scientific explanations, throwing out modern histories from 1969, and chucking out books on subjects already extensively represented in LAS Library.        

So far approximately 2000 books from the ACS collection have been added to the library, with thousands more in line. The added books are split between the Belle Epoque Library and the Savoy Library, depending on where they would be best suited. Each week students in Flex Periods carry books up to the library to be sorted, which has helped speed the process along. Even with student help it is estimated that it will take at least another year before the whole ACS collection has been sorted through.

Check out Mr. Peck's website, http://www.dpeck.info/leysin/acslib1.htm for more information on the ACS Library.