Book a gift for the ages: Man donates 300-year-old Latin volume to library

Brought to you by one of the world's shittiest newspapers, The Olympian or The Daily Zero as we refer to it.

By Jennifer Latson

The Olympian

Dale Riepe has more books than he needs at home, so he’s been slowly shedding tomes during the past six months.
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Every week, the 87-year-old retired philosophy professor takes a few to the Olympia library, some because they’re too heavy for him to enjoy, others because he just doesn’t plan to read them again.

The Friends of the Library group takes them off his hands and puts them on its sale shelf to raise money for the library.

But the group was surprised last week when Riepe produced a 300-year-old Latin volume librarians say won’t go on the $1 table: it’s likely worth as much as $1,000.

Group members will meet with rare book dealers to find its true value, and then auction it off and spend the proceeds on library programs.

Riepe, long a benefactor of the arts — he’s been active with a half-dozen galleries and museums, the Washington State Historical Society and The Evergreen State College library — suddenly is something of a library celebrity.

‘De Rerum Natura”

The book, an edition of the poem “De Rerum Natura” (On the Nature of Things) by the Roman author Lucretius, has generated a buzz.

“We were all very excited when we got it here last week,” said librarian Cheryl Heywood, cradling the gold-embossed, calf-skin-bound volume, published in 1712. “It’s fun to touch history.” Read More...