Stephanie L. Gross, MSLIS

My post about why I no longer collect books demonstrated once again the significant cultural differences between the two nations I know best, namely the U.S. and Germany (still have a way to go with Canada). Describing my own relationship to the book, using my work in library gift processing as a central formative illustration, created barely a ripple on the western shore of the Atlantic. From conversations with readers over here, it is clear that nothing I wrote upset anyone terribly. Not so from the German side. A notoriously dyspeptic German blogger flamed me, slapping the book burner label on me, even going so far as to wish that there might be a special hell for such heretical librarians. More thoughtful German readers wrote with varying degrees of support or disagreement, but my description of mass book disposal clearly touched a sensitized German nerve. For those who kann…