Using a flashlight, he examined piles of rotted boxes; the remains of coal bins; dusty stacks of yellowed newspapers.

Farther away, receding into twilight, are tall, dusty stacks of books.

The art historian Robert Farris Thompson has been known to browse through Mr. French's dusty, overgrown stacks.

Mr. Gietzen absorbed the news in his dimly lighted basement, surrounded by dusty stacks of anti-abortion literature, news releases and petitions.

For the most part, these scholars burrow through dusty stacks in quest of information about past performance styles or evidence of how acknowledged masterworks came to be.

But these days, instead of looking inward to its dusty stacks of 150,000 books, the society is reaching outside its walls for inspiration, to the varied people of Brooklyn.

If the scientists discover pie-size, dusty stacks of grooved vinyl platters, they will have stumbled on a lost record store.

Kahnweiler remembers seeing dusty stacks of canvases in Picasso's studio and African sculptures of majestic severity.

There was a flat-topped desk in the center covered with open books, surrounded by dusty stacks of books and cartons of items, many of which they couldn't identify.

I'm the sort of person you might find in the dusty stacks of a library.