Interesting On A Number Of Levels

Patricia Storms at Book Lust has some interesting posts on a gallery exhibit entitled Shelf Portrait. An artist displayed the books she'd collected over 30 years--and then gave them away.

Here's Patricia's post about trying to get into the show. And another link with pictures of the exhibit.

My question: Did people take their books with them, thus wrecking the exhibit for the people who came later? How did that work?