Uprooting a 76 year old Jesuit community in Halifax and moving has been for me a once in a lifetime experience, one I hope I will never have to repeat. One of the most unexpected facets of this experience has been the disposal of the library started by the Jesuits of Saint Mary’s University way back in the 40's. As the community evolved over the years, many personal books and papers of Jesuits leaving this community stayed behind in its library. Over the years, as spirituality became a major focus, many books were added, especially in the decades of renewal which followed Vatican II and more recently as we refocused under the title of Jesuit Centre of Spirituality. Often well-meaning friends on the outside disposed of their own personal libraries by leaving their books to us. This led to a few valuable additions, but most books did not fit.

How to find homes for all these books? Lists were circulated, inquiries were made, but it soon became clear that while a few sister institutions were interested, especially in contemporary spirituality, many books, though valuable in themselves, were of no interest to any one. Other libraries either had them or were not interested in assigning valuable shelf space for them.  Second hand book stores would not take them even for free. Religion and theology are not the flavour of the day, it seems quite obvious. 

At work here is a significant change of culture. Why burden yourself with a many-volumed encyclopedia when practically any information you want is readily available on the internet? (The reliability of that information is a further question.) There remain some people interested in pursuing topics in depth, but so many today, drenched in the contemporary culture, are satisfied with little bits of erudition, brief outlines and simplified presentations of complex issues. Why bother with a 400 page volume when a Google search will suffice?

This led to a lengthy process of discerning which books would stay, and which ones would be destined for recycling. But for someone of my generation, brought up to treasure books, destining a book for recycling was akin to imposing a death sentence. That comparison became even more gripping when the book had a hard cover. The cover had to be ripped out and put into the common garbage. Not only death, but death by decapitation. 

Each book embodied the often lengthy effort of a writer to research and present a topic in an interesting and accurate way. In many cases the book was recognized as a stellar scholarly contribution in its own time. It may have given signs of being treasured, with underlinings and marginal notes, and with the record of having been borrowed many times. These books had a rich life, a life which they shared with their readers, and now they were deemed useless. The evolution of our culture had passed them by.

I could not bring myself to carry out this operation with robotic efficiency. My evaluation at times was more like a browsing, especially of those books connected with Jesuits based in Halifax whom I had known and admired. Some of these books I myself had studied, books that had made a permanent impact on my human and Jesuit formation. Being realistic, I knew that I would never consult these books again given the direction of my life. And I likewise evaluated my own books and papers, often revisiting corners of my life which I had not brought to mind for many years, but often deciding that they would no longer serve me.

I found this experience of culling quite complex. It brings nostalgia for the elusive past that has given life to me and to so many others; it brings the focus of my mind on the book presently in my hand and the verdict I must reach about its fate; and it opens up reflection on a future that is uncertain because we don’t yet know the full consequences of the newer means of information gathering, storing, and disseminating that hold sway today. Dizzying speed of access is too often countered by the numbing superficiality which marks our age. Should we include this domain of information management as one in we are to be counter-cultural as part of our faith-based mission?  I certainly think so.