This bookshelf is in my living room, holding most of my rug books.
I started a Hali subscription around 1990 with volume 50, and have a stack of Oriental Rug Review papers and magazines, too. Turkotek is responsible for most of my utilization of these books - when a topic is posted I often grab the most closely related book or two and rifle through the pages. I picked up the Jenny Housego Tribal Rugs book in Fairbanks, Alaska, on June 9th, 1993. (I use the receipt as a bookmark.) When I asked Jim Burns to autograph my copy of his book Antique Rugs of Kurdistan, he mentioned that an author's signature could increase the value of a book as much as 10%. So I asked him to sign it twice....
The book Caucasian Carpets on the lower, right shelf, has a chunk out of the slipcover - and the book. My former dog decided to take a bite out of it one day. Former dog.
The bookshelf was made by a local cabinet maker in the first half of the 20th century for my grandparents. When I was at the Istanbul ICOC I was tempted to buy the two-volume edition of Turkish rugs, but it wouldn't fit in my luggage - which turned out to be a good thing because at Heathrow they would only let each passenger bring one carry-on through security. So I had to cram two bags of stuff into one. I would have had to carry the books on top of my head.
And there are a few books I would still like to add to the library.
Patrick Weiler