Steven Heller Chronicles the Dismantling of His 50-Year Design Library

Design critic and author Steven Heller has written a first-person account in PRINT Magazine's Daily Heller column about divesting himself of a personal design research library amassed over five decades. The collection, built between the ages of 17 and 65, comprised more than 6,000 books, journals, portfolios and documents, with major holdings in New York City (350 lineal feet) and a second library in upstate New York (400-plus lineal feet of built-in shelving) in the wilds of New England. This year, Heller decided that maintaining a second house had become too difficult and stressful, prompting the deaccession. After abandoning a plan for a pop-up design bookstore in a neighboring town, he chose to keep the collection together rather than sell it piecemeal, offering it lock, stock and barrel to a buyer who would pack and transport it to a place where it could serve as a research body for students and professionals. Two trucks hauled away 6,840 pounds of material. Heller described the process as like pulling out his heart by the aorta, and he sat in the library listening as the books came down around him. He avoided the living room, upstairs closets and office until the next day, when he saw only emptiness. Although he had resolved to keep nothing, he salvaged a single volume at the last minute and brought it back to the city. A second installment, titled Objects and Artifacts, is forthcoming.