A Book’s Purpose

A new idea that was posed particularly in the Benjamin reading “Unpacking My Library” was the relationship and purpose books serve to collectors. Benjamin asserts that for the “real collector… ownership is the most intimate relationship that one can have with inanimate objects” (67). This is interesting because it suggests that the physicality of books is what gives a book value, rendering ebooks pointless. To collectors, what owning a book means is very different to others who view books as the knowledge within their covers, rather than the actual book itself. The idea that books serve a different purpose than knowledge is new in its own right, as to the collector, owning a large number of books is “pleasurable.” Rather than the knowledge within the books being the pleasurable purpose, the act of the book existing to be owned in the first place is what is considered the book’s purpose. In fact many of these collectors do no0t even read the books, something called “non-reading” (62). What owning a book means to collectors is far different from most others who also own/read books.

Within this reading is also the new idea that the knowledge the book communicates to the reader as being the book itself rather than its content. A collector will take note of “the period, the region, the craftsmanship, the former ownership” which all “adds up to a magic encyclopedia” (60). The actual way the book is made is indicative of both the time in which it is made and the status of the previous owner. This makes the physical book a purveyor of different knowledge than the information stored in its pages. This raises the question of how a book’s purpose changes in relation to its history. What makes a good book to collect? What does this say about the collector’s definition of what a book is, or what the book’s purpose is?