Below is a note to be attached to those shelving units we have managed to save.

Tim Harkness was an old-fashioned craftsman with an artists’ sense for detail and the touch of an inventor. I asked him to make shelves for us, after seeing the work he did at Spencer & Marlow’s bookshop down the street. 

The project was begun in 1987, following a dozen tumultuous years on the then bustling Newbury Street in Boston. Until that time we had made do with of a hodge podge of shelves, mostly well used, which had been acquired primarily from other closing bookshops. Given rising rents, we needed better shelves as well as ones that made more efficient use of our floor space. This was a deliberate effort to upgrade ourselves from our ‘make-do’ beginnings.

The wood was selected for its qualities and the best that Tim could find, given our limited budget and the specific purpose. After several experiments, the pine boards were milled for him from air-dried stock so that they would remain stable (not warped or bowed) and the units square. Importantly, they were fashioned to be assembled, or come apart, without screws or nails or glue. 

A ‘sliding’ dovetail joint, following ancient principles of woodworking, was re-designed by Tim just for the purpose, with a special jig for the saw, allowing each shelf tenon to slip into its mortise from the rear and come flush at the fore-edge with the side boards. The side boards are 7 1/2” wide, the shelves are approximately 7 1/8” deep, leaving room for a backboard to slide in from the top on its own channel behind the shelves and lock them into place. 

The interior hight of the shelves at 9 7/8” was perfect for most octavo volumes. The height of each unit, when assembled, was determined as two parts, a shorter top at 42 7/8”, and a taller bottom at 53 7/8, which, when stacked, would be 8’ 3/4” high and a compromise to make best use of the wood and our ceiling hight. The original shop had twelve foot ceilings but we were always uncertain of our lease and the investment in the shelving was considered of great importance to our future. 

Tim fashioned the pieces in his own workshop. But after a year or so, with the time and effort that was required, the cost became greater than we could afford. Given his own high standards, Tim did not want to cheapen the effort by cutting corners so he left it after making about 30 or 40 top and bottom units. Thankfully, my brother Joseph was available to continued the process using less expensive wood with slightly shallower dimensions and simpler methods, but much the same design for the remainder of the shelving units needed. 

Sadly, Tim died not long after this from the effects of an accident. 

Through the years that followed, given several moves and various other disasters, most of our shelving from the old store had to be sold, but saving the shelves that Tim had built became something of talisman of our survival. They are a remanent of better days and times that recall all of that on sight.