Family photos, concert tickets, poems and shopping lists... An American librarian has for years collected makeshift bookmarks forgotten in borrowed books, a kaleidoscope of unknown lives now on display to the general public.
This set
"tells the story of the inhabitants of here, of our city in a different, unexpected way and linked to the library",
enthuses Sharon McKellar, at the origin of the exhibition in her public establishment of Oakland, near San Francisco, California.
For years, she has kept all the objects found in the books she collects warm.
“I wanted to share something that was really interesting to me and that I think might pique the curiosity of others,”
she explains.
Between bookmarks made by children and photos taken at Christmas, there are letters written but never finished, words of love, postcards of thanks -
"I have received your check",
can we read on the back of an illustration from
Alice in Wonderland
.
So many fragments of the lives of anonymous borrowers.
Some of the letters or cards, sent or not,
"seem really personal",
reports Sharon McKellar, head of collections for teenagers, to AFP.
"There are words and cards that seem unfinished - and I really want to know the rest,"
laughs the librarian.
Little words, photos, lists...
About ten years ago, Sharon McKellar began her collection, then launched a blog on the subject before the public library, equipped with a new website, offered her a chance to display her collection.
She then made categories: small words, art, photos, cards and letters, bookmarks, lists, DIY objects, made by children...
"I wanted to share something that was really interesting to me and that I think might pique the curiosity of others,"
says Sharon McKellar.
BRITTANY HOSEA-SMALL / AFP
An imperfect classification: where then to put an interview conducted by a grandson with his grandmother, asking her how she emigrated from Vietnam decades earlier?
Where to fit, too, this roast beef recipe on which is noted
“Behave better!”
just before the ingredient list?
Letters of self-reflection, emotionally charged verses...
"It really feels like inner thoughts,"
notes Sharon McKellar, as
if "they are trying to talk to themselves, during a difficult moment , to remotivate themselves”
.
The librarian has dedicated part of the exhibition to makeshift bookmarks - a list à la Prévert where readers will recognize themselves: a concert ticket, a sticker from the 2012 Euro de foot, a phone card, a receipt purchase of wiper blades, a boarding pass collected at the airport.
Sharon McKellar's favorite remains an annotated version:
"So I just wanted to say I think it's crazy, whatever Newt is doing, he's either super adorable or so hot!!!"