How did this heartfelt message-or family photo, or dentist’s retirement announcement, or ticket to a baseball game-end up sandwiched between the pages of a book? Were these items unimportant to their owners, who used them only as a bookmark? Or were they special to someone, once? I just want to love U, and be happy.”Īn air of mystery infuses the collection. “The past is the past, so let’s not take it home with us. “Remember, I love U sweetheart,” reads one message, scrawled on a yellow Post-it note.
Over nearly a decade, “Found in a Library Book” has swelled to include some 350 objects, offering poignant glimpses into the lives of strangers. McKellar categorizes the objects, titles them and scans them to the library’s website, where they are available to curious viewers. She put out a call to nearby branches, and librarians began sending her items. “I had always collected little things I'd found in library books, and I knew other people did that too,” McKellar tells NPR’s Nell Clark. “I don't know the intricacies & difficulties of your life, I do know that you are a valuable human being,” reads the inside. Perhaps she could share her ever-growing collection of items that she had unearthed in library books. While brainstorming ways to enhance the library’s blog content, McKellar thought of a publication she enjoyed, Found Magazine, which is dedicated to everyday items discovered outside of their original context. The project began in 2013, when the Oakland Public Library in California was updating its website. Instead, as SFGate’s Tessa McLean reports, she posts images of forgotten ephemera to the library’s website, forming an endearing collection called “ Found in a Library Book.” Rarely has a visitor returned to collect one of these items-but McKellar doesn’t throw them out. In her 20 years as a librarian, Sharon McKellar has found a tantalizing assortment of objects tucked into the pages of books: notes, lists, doodles, postcards, photographs.
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