Shelf Life: The Stories of Four Local Physical Media Collectors
The analog artifacts of books, games, comics, and records
The modern world offers many ways to absorb media with the touch of a screen, giving access to ideas and art to people who may not have been exposed to them otherwise. Someone could easily read Hemingway on the same day as listening to Beethoven or Billie Eilish, while ending the day playing a video game featuring their favorite comic book character without having to own anything more than a phone or television. However, there is something about owning a piece of what you love, being able to physically touch it, and look at what you love. We spoke with four people who told us why it's so important to keep those things close by and why it's great to be able to revisit what makes you happy time and time again.
Polaroid photos taken by Jessica Hunter
Vicky Wittuck, book collector
Book collector Vicky Wittuck started her collection 27 years ago when she joined a book club with seven other women, aptly titled "Seven Novel Friends." Over time she has amassed around 800 books in her collection and is in a total of five book clubs, including one run by a 14-year-old and his mother, an online club with readers from all over the world, the Erie Reader Book Club, and (her latest addition) at Mercy Hilltop Center for Seniors. Wittuck says she reads about 80 to 100 books a year, but that still isn't enough for her. "I am almost 70 years old and it is sad I know I will never live long enough to read all the books I want to read." She says that each year she focuses on a different genre – last year she concentrated on banned books and this year she is reading classics. Vicky feels there is something special about having a physical piece of literature in your hands. "I love to hold and read a book. It is like a piece of art on a page. Books always provide you a choice – that is why I collect so many different types of books."
She is an eclectic reader who fell in love with the written word at a young age. When she was young some of the first books she collected were the juvenile mystery collections by Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, along with anything Winnie the Pooh. These days her collection spans many different genres and are kept throughout her house on various "stacks" and shelves, including a shelf of her favorite books that she hopes to save for her children and grandchildren to enjoy and read someday. "I always tell my kids and grandkids that reading makes you smart and wise. I do have a small library at my house for my 8-year-old granddaughter Jaelyn." She rarely buys brand-new books and prefers to purchase them used from Werner Books, but will go to any book sale she becomes aware of. Outside of books, she has also managed to amass a number of Christmas ornaments, specifically Santas and angels.
Joe Czarnecki, retro video game collector
From the arcade to your living room, video games have had a relatively short history compared to other forms of entertainment – however, they have become ubiquitous. In the fast paced world of first-person gaming, collector Joe Czarnecki (40 Under 40 Class of 2025) has made his home a shrine to old-school gaming consoles. Growing up in the '90s, Czarnecki started with a Sega Genesis, then delved into the world of PlayStation games, and today he has collected about 17 consoles, 250 games, a dozen peripherals, and some strategy guides. "Growing up I remember the OG Nintendo and Game Boy games, then I really took to the Sega Genesis probably when I was like 7 or 8 years old because of its edgier, more mature games. I thought Mortal Kombat was the coolest game ever when it came out," says Czarnecki. Gaming isn't something that he feels is an isolated practice. "I enjoy the memories and physically owning something that can be shared with others, plus the couch co-op gaming experience that comes with two players or more."
For Czarnecki, retro games are more than just nostalgia – it's a passion and a way to preserve what he holds dear. As the market changes how people experience gaming with digital ownership, Czarnecki believes that the only way to own something is to have a physical copy, something that you are able to hold, lend, resell, or even stream online as a content creator due to fair use. "Sony announced that the PS6 is not going to have any physical games. GTA6 will also not be physical – these models of business are anti-consumer, offering essentially a rental license. You can say it has less of a carbon footprint, but the data centers used to stream your games will be worse," said Czarnecki. "The future of consoles in gaming is for them to be an overpriced streaming box that has no use when the servers eventually go offline – meaning the only way to continue to use a product you bought and are supposed to 'own' is to modify it."
Cole Schenley, comic book collector
Long before Marvel became a household name and conventions ruled the entertainment world Cole Schenley began collecting comic books with the help of his father, who was a co-owner of a collectibles business in New Jersey, selling sports cards and comics. "As the story goes, a babysitter let me play with comics (I would have been a year or so old at this point) and I ripped the comics up." Right around 10 years old, Schenley began buying Archie Comics and was given a bag of superhero comics – that gift led him to characters like Batman, Superman, and Spider-Man. He continued to casually shop at local comic book stores, eventually working locally at Books Galore for many years – but Schenley didn't become a serious collector until he was in college in the early 2000s. Schenley's love of comics was sparked both by his love of the written word and for the art, "I grew up being a voracious reader, and I've always loved art in its myriad of forms, whether that was drawings, paintings, photography, or film." He continues, "The mix of words and pictures captivated me from a young age, and as I grew older I became fascinated with the alchemy that went into making and then reproducing the pages of a comic book."
Schenley is your friendly neighborhood comic collector and over the years he has managed to accumulate about 6,000 individual comics, along with a large book and graphic novel collection, storing his comics largely in comic book boxes or on shelves. Schenley explains why he believes people collect comics: "People have a variety of reasons for collecting. Some do it in hopes of eventually making money on the collectibility aspect of the hobby, some people enjoy following the adventures of particular characters, and some people obsess over particular artists' styles and want to see their latest work."
Melissa Sullivan, record collector
Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously wrote: "Without music, life would be a mistake," in his 1889 book Twilight of the Idols. This quote rings true for all music fans and especially to local record collector Melissa Sullivan, who has been collecting records since she was 5 years old when she received hand-me-down copies of Beatles records from her father to add to her children's albums she played on a Mickey Mouse suitcase record player. The floodgates opened and she was then gifted records like David Bowie's ChangesOneBowie and The Beatles' Yellow Submarine as Christmas presents. The first record she bought with her own money was Roxy Music's Stranded when she was in fifth grade. To this day the exact number of records in her collection is unknown, but Sullivan says that it's definitely larger than your average collection. As with every collector, the hint at what's missing can have an addictive aspect to it. "I started, back in the early '80s, a ritual of going to the mall every weekend to play arcade games and buy a record. It was always so exciting to bring it home and listen to it for the first time. I have vivid recollections of when and where I acquired almost every album in my collection," says Sullivan. Like many record collectors she started as a completist, but has since downsized and feels she no longer needs nor wants to own albums. For posterity's sake, she only keeps those things she truly enjoys or has some sort of "historical" significance to her, stating, "These days I think about the possibility of my collection being absorbed by my daughters."
The passion for record collecting has influenced Sullivan's life in so many ways: her first job was at Musicland in the mall when she was in high school in the late '80s, she worked in two different record stores when she moved to Chicago in the '90s and was cast as a bartender in the film High Fidelity about record store clerks in 2000. She continues to share her love of record collecting with some internet friends, "I currently belong to a small group of record collectors from all over the country and overseas online. It started as strictly a buy/sell environment, but it has morphed into a community of friends."
What drives people to collect physical things is part nostalgia and part preservation – without collectors we wouldn't have a physical catalog, a wealth of knowledge and art, that can be passed down to generations. It's our passion, it's the thing we would dedicate most of our time to if we didn't have to work "regular" jobs to feed our collections. It's what we obsess about when we have a free moment in our heads, and what we turn to when we have a free moment in time.
Erie Reader contributing writer Larry Wheaton has been collecting records since he first bought Pearl Jam's Vs. in 1993. He has scoured countless thrift store bins, yard sales, and estate sales, stopping at record stores in every city he's visited and buying at least one memento from each of them, and acquiring a collection in the thousands with a life cycle that grows until space runs out, then it's time to downsize and release those once loved gems back into the wild. He can be reached at wheaton1138@gmail.com
