In elementary school, I spent many lost afternoons hiding in the library nook reading while settled deeply into a green vinyl beanbag chair surrounded by the scent of musty paper.

The first rite of passage upon learning how to write one’s name was to inscribe it on a library check-out card promising the book’s safe journey and return. I remember reading the list of names that had come before me and cradling the feeling that I was a part of this book’s history and its shared, communal experience. In the curly-Q handwritten names and long-expired room assignments were revelations of transgression: repeat customers devouring the book well beyond its deadline.

This act of declaration is dissolving fast as cards are removed permanently and nameless, facelessly scannable bar codes take their place.

The Japanese term “ wabi-sabi” is described as the art of finding beauty in imperfection and of accepting the natural cycle of growth, decay and death. Wabi-sabi is underplayed and modest, the kind of undeclared beauty that waits patiently to be discovered. It’s found in time-worn faces of expired library books that have traveled through many hands, and across county lines until they have reached their final resting place at ex-library warehouses where safe harbors are found in Costco-sized rows of “discards” and “withdrawns” rising within inches of the ceiling.

The volumes documented in “Expired” serve as specimens akin to post-mortem photography in the Victorian Era, when family members only received the honor of documentation upon their demise. Each picture serves as an homage, calling out palpable echoes etched into the pages by a margin-scrawled note, a yellowed coffee splatter or sticky peanut butter and jelly fingerprints. It’s easy to feel a sense of abuse and loss, but they say much more. They show the evidence of everyone that has touched them, because they were well read, and often well loved. They were not left on shelves, untouched.

Now they have a new life, as portraits of the unique shared experience found only in a library book. We must take time to celebrate the swiftly disappearing—the unique communal experience offered by library books. It’s one that is quickly being replaced by downloads, finger screen-swipes and plastic newness. If you listen carefully you can hear the aching poetry calling from tattered pages that carry the burden of their years with dignity and grace.

— Kerry Mansfield