(Oakland) Family photos, concert tickets, poems and shopping lists… an American librarian has collected temporary bookmarks forgotten in borrowed books over the years, a kaleidoscope of unknown lives now on display for the general public.
Posted yesterday at 10:00 am
The set “here, tells the story of our city’s residents in a different, unexpected and connected way to the library,” says Sharon McKellar, who opened the show at her public establishment in Oakland, near San Francisco, California. .
She kept warm all the things she found in the books she had collected over the years. “I think I can do something that really interests me and spark other people’s curiosity,” she explains.
Between bookmarks made by children and photos taken at Christmas, there are letters written but never finished, words of love, thank you postcards – “I got your check”, can we read behind an example?Alice in Wonderland.
Many fragments of the lives of anonymous borrowers.
Some letters or cards, sent or not, “feel really personal,” Sharon McKellar, head of collections for teenagers, told AFP.
“There are words and cards that seem incomplete and I really want to know the rest,” laughed the librarian.
Cooking recipe
About ten years ago M.me McKellar began collecting, then started a blog on the subject before the public library, equipped with a new website, gave him an opportunity to showcase his collection.
She then made categories: short words, art, photos, cards and letters, bookmarks, lists, DIY items, made by children, etc.
Incomplete categorization: Where should we place the interview the grandson conducted with his grandmother, asking how she immigrated from Vietnam decades ago?
Where appropriate, this roast beef recipe says “Behave Better! » Before the ingredient list?
Letters of self-reflection, emotive poems… “It really feels like inner thoughts,” notes Sharon McKellar, who is “trying to talk to themselves during a difficult time, to re-inspire”.
The librarian devotes part of the exhibition to temporary bookmarks – a Prévert-style list in which readers recognize themselves: a concert ticket, a Euro 2012 football sticker, a phone card, a receipt for the purchase of wiper blades, a boarding pass at the airport.
Sharon McKellar’s favorite remains the annotated version: “So I just wanted to say it’s crazy, whatever Newt is doing, he’s so adorable or so hot! ! ! »
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