There was this terribly sad story in the Review-Journal a couple of weekends ago about the city of North Las Vegas moving its main library into smaller digs to save some money.
A smaller library meant fewer books, which is where the sadness comes in. Nobody wants fewer books.
But wait. There’s a wrinkle here. The library, to make room, was selling some of its older books. At really, really steep discounts.
Which is why, way down in that newspaper story, you’ll see a paragraph about a College of Southern Nevada professor swooping in to rescue some books.
Who is this bookish superhero?
Why, it’s Mark Peplowski, poly sci guru.
“I thought it would be a great opportunity to get some books in a collection on history and government,” said the prof, who’s been teaching at CSN for more than three decades.
You see, Peplowski’s students must research and write about history and politics. Most of the stuff online doesn’t cut it, no matter how successful Buzzfeed becomes. Magazines and newspapers are fine and all, but they’re just not deep enough. And television’s political shows? Not exactly college material there, either.
So, books.
Peplowski figured he’d pick up a few, maybe start a special collection at CSN. He could recommend them to students, and the books would be easy to find, easy to reserve.
Which is why he snagged 1,500 of them.
Yup. One thousand five hundred books.
He’s been cataloguing those piles and piles of books, and folks are still determining where, exactly, this collection will be housed.
But housed the books will be. Eventually, Peplowski has to get them out of his garage.