Rooms, corridors, bookcases, shelves,
filing cards and computerized catalogues assume that the subjects on which our
thoughts dwell are actual entities, and through this assumption a certain book
may be lent a particular tone and value. Filed under Fiction Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels is a humorous novel
of adventure; under Sociology, a satirical study of England in the eighteenth
century; under Children’s Literature, an entertaining fable about dwarfs and
giants and talking horses; under Fantasy a precursor of science fiction; under
Travel, an imaginary voyage; under Classics, a part of the Western literary
canon. Categories are exclusive; reading is not—or should not be. Whatever
classifications have been chosen, every library tyrannizes the act of reading,
and forces the reader—the curious reader, the alert reader—to rescue the books
from the category to which it has been condemned.
