Library Excavations #7: VHS R.I.P.

2017
Paper cover with staple-bound binding
Color offset and three-color Risograph
5 1/2" x 8 1/2"
32 pages
Edition of 520

Library Excavations #7 mourns and explores VHS tapes in the public library lending collection. In addition to text and photos from the collection and the discard piles, this booklet also contains reflections on the history of VHS at Chicago's Harold Washington Library Center by librarian Bob Sloane, and thoughts on the state of VHS relative to videos by artists from Abina Manning, the Director of Video Data Bank at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From the back cover:

If you still own a videocassette player and wish to borrow a Video Home System tape from the library, I would jump on that opportunity at your earliest convenience. VHS tapes are quickly vanishing from public library lending collections. This is certainly true at Chicago’s Harold Washington Library Center, where they’ve been appearing in the Secondhand Prose discard nook for some time.