The Value of Aesthetics

This last week we had a pretty lively discussion about what to do with artifacts in a library. It got heated. I mean, in a librarian way. It never got worse than in England.

A part of the discussion that ruffled a few feathers had to do with aesthetics. Prof. Lankes made the rather sober point that a lot of these old books do not contain information we "need" anymore: their value comes from pure aesthetics. His point is spot on in my view. But I could see how this would offend some people. After all, we've been taught for years that aesthetics is a surface value. We've been taught critical thinking, deep and profound thoughts, and original information is the ultimate goal. Three signed copies of Alice in Wonderland? Why do we need three?

Well, I concede these old books are pure eye candy, but they should be preserved. For me, aesthetics does involve critical thinking. I'm not talking about an antiquated view of aesthetics where there's an actual objective aesthetic "value" we can assign to a piece. No, aesthetics will for the most part be a case-by-case thing. It's an intricate dance between society's and one's own values.

That takes us back to the original problem. Maybe the culture at large doesn't care that a 16th century man took the pains to paint an entire landscape along the edges of a book that can only be seen when the book is manipulated a certain way. I do. I can't base this on information value per se, unless we start to define information in an extremely fuzzy way that information is anything that interacts with our brain. No, this thing is worth saving because new knowledge and art are so unique to the human experience, yet so vital to it, that I would save all the best examples we have of it. If I fought to keep a book that was merely signed by a long dead Queen of England (and the contents were pretty useless), I wouldn't expect the public's support. But we're not running a democracy here: we're running a library. As a citizen, I don't expect my tax money to go to a library to reinforce everything I know and like: I'd want to give my money to experts that know about subjects and perspectives on books and art that I might not have seen or read before. Otherwise, what's original about a library, and why would I need to go there? I'd want to be shown something that makes me go, "Oooooooooh!"

I have seen the power of aesthetic pleasure. Some people walk into the Sistene Chapel and are never quite the same. I count my days going to museums as some of the best of my life. Can I tell you I received a lot of information those days? Not really. I have studied art in great detail, but that was separate from my raw experience in looking at the art. As a librarian, I want to preserve those things that are so close to being thrown into the dustbin of history because it's only "pretty."