SPINAL STENOSIS

Using a second hand scanner donated to the cause by a stranger I have been scanning spines on this overcast and cool day• The feel of books/ the scent of books/ evoke memories• Memories flood back/ the book in my hands tingles• A patina of dust and tobacco smoke sticks to the pads of my fingers• A fine dust lingers in my nostrils. A smell I have known for most of my life• And loved•

I know these books intimately. Some of them have been with me since I was a callow youth - like the ones in the picture here• A nice little run of Faber paperbacks/ humble bindings that hold precious work/ from the late 1960s• Faded and scuffed now they sit with the same pride on their shelf as they did when first I bought them with precious pennies in the days before ISBNs and the decimal pound•

I keep them because I shall re-read them at my leisure• I show the spines because they are the face I see most often/// that I am most intimately familiar with• The spines even show the wear and tear and love that these fine volumes have received• And yet, they are/ in some odd way and like myself/ orphans• For they have no ISBN and without an ISBN a book scarcely exist these days• Search engines for books and book sites prefer/ or offer exclusively/ ISBN access• And that is a shame• Many books are extant from pre-ISBN days but they seem to slip further and further from public gaze• Hence my reference to orphans• Many of my beloved volumes are orphans destined to invisibility•

Will/ one day/ pre-WWW and pre-ISBN/ or LCC or any other coding structure/ artefacts simply disappear from view? I hope not• I would not wish to become an antiquarian guardian for 20th century artefacts. These things are contemporaneous with me• Am I destined to become an antique in my own lifetime as opposed to a legend in my own lifetime?