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Today’s book:
I catalogued a beauty from 1578: The historie of man, sucked from the sappe of the most approved anathomistes [anatomies], in this present age, compiled in most compendious fourme, and now published in English, for the utilitie of all godly chirurgians [surgeons]…
and a former owner had carefully written on the first blank page:
S. A. Jones, M.D. 1869. When I purchased this book the Librarian of Congress said it was the only copy in the U.S. known to him, and on that account desired to obtain it for the Library of Congress. I kept it on my own shelves from lack of patriotism. S.A.J.
Hm. Lack of patriotism. Hm. He wrote that right after a bloody war. Hmmm…
26 July 2006, 7:00am
Freewrite
Today I got paid finally from the university – quite a bit less than what I hoped. And I’m reading Class by Paul Fussell, which has me feeling frustrated and stuck in whatever status I have right now, especially after getting a measly paycheck for 4 weeks of work.
I’m worried about school. I’m worried about maintaining the relationship with Lori while also performing in school at the level I want. As far as this whole school thing goes, I feel like I’m just showing up, wide-eyed and clueless, expecting to just take a couple classes and leave with a degree. I have vague ideas in my head of trying to get two degrees – take Library and Linguistics classes, yet still get done in two years, and have all the knowledge I need to go straight into a professional high-paying job. oh, and even though I’ll be taking classes all summer in order to get done in a miraculous two years, I also have expectations of doing incredibly prestigious internships during those months. Throughout all this activity that I’m unprepared for, Lori will still know that I love her and we’ll still spend lots of time together. And somehow I’ll impress someone so much that I’ll be offered a fellowship in a phd program that just happens to be at or near the school that gives Lori a full-ride to her phd degree. And we’ll have so much money by then, that we’ll be able to hire people to load and unload the moving truck for us, and our moving expenses will be paid, to boot. La la la la la…
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Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
Waiting for a couple neighbors to cross the road. The picture that’s missing here is a few seconds later when they came around and peered in Lori’s window.
Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
A book from 1500 something bound in the manuscript page of an even older book. The older book looked much more interesting – colored letters and an older tongue. Could it be that the electronic files we’re keeping will hold no interest for future generations, but the files we’ve deleted will be the ones they really want?
They are sitting snugly on my digital camera, which is waiting for its soul-mate – the camera-computer cord – to unearth itself from one of any number of cardboard boxes.
Actually, I think I know where to find it, I just have to remove all the stuff on top of it. And I didn’t want just crappy, low-res, cell-phone photos so I used the camera… stay tuned!
Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
This delightful book had 17th century scribbling all over it. In at least three places I found variations of this little rambling: “John Siser is my name and with my hand and pen I wish all the same and if my pen (pow’r?) it had borne better… But for having no more ink in my pen… John Siser his book 1677.”
John then goes on to practice writing the letters “J” and “S” several times. I did a quick Google search on him and found a baptism record for one John Siser of Burrough Green, Cambridgeshire dated 3 June 1643. Even if that were the year he’d been born (though he could have been born a few years earlier) John would have been 34 years old in 1677. Which makes the whole thing even funnier to me. A 34-yr-old man writing his name over and over in an old mathematics book?
But then it gets better. This was the honest-to-God printed title of a little pamphlet I cataloged yesterday:
An approved answer to the partiall and vnlikt of Lord Digbies speech to the bill of attainder of the Earle of Strafford.
Which was first torne in pieces and afterwards disgracefully burnt by the hang-man in Smithfield, Cheapside, Westminster, upon Fryday being the 15 day of July, 1641…
written by a worthy gentleman.from a six-page tract by Thomas Wentworth Strafford, 1593-1641
I worry about Mr. Strafford, first having his bill “torne in pieces and disgracefully burnt” and then mysteriously dying in the same year…? What in the world happened to the poor man? Or maybe he had it coming, I don’t know. I cataloged all sorts of little pamphlets yesterday just like this – all written in England during the 1600s. All of them seemed to be responses to someone else’s pamphlet. To my modern interpretation, they all seemed to be polite only in the tongue-in-cheek sense while indignantly rebuking whatever that other pamphlet writer had said. Can you imagine what these characters would have done with all the communication styles, tools, methods available today? Oh, the hilarity!
Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
I snapped this photo in silent stealth mode while working in the Rare Books library today. If you can make out the spine of the book, you’ll see a great example of “printed waste binding” (when the printers used paper from old books to bind up the new ones) – isn’t that cool?! This book was from 1529 – one of the oldest I’ve worked with so far.
I’ve seen fellow bloggers Repressed Librarian (1, 2, 3, 4) and New Kid (1, 2, 3) have lots of fun with this meme, and I know I want to take pictures, but I’m not sure where to start so I am inviting you, readers near and far, to request photos of things you might like to see from my new locale. If you check out the example links above, you’ll see requests like favorite view, favorite mug, favorite spot, typical breakfast, worst shoes, and so on. Only now, during the summer will I be able to have fun with blog posts like this so pretty please give me some ideas! I will strive to fulfiill all requests to the best of my abilities and modesty. Leave your requests as comments to this post and I’ll start snapping the pics. 
A few different things to fill you all in on; first of all, the hospital visit for Lori turned out to be not as serious as we feared, though she will be on painkillers and antibiotics for a few days. There are so many aspects of that hospital visit that scare me in other ways… having to say we’re sisters in order to see her, not being able to hold her hand and comfort her while the nurses were around, not being able to say “I love you, it’ll all be okay” and so on. And seeing all those senior citizen couples who thought nothing of getting up together when one of them was called… well, we all take different things for granted.
The new house/rental is working out great. In fact, the landlady left us a wonderful surprise – stargazer lillies, bath soaps, and a scented candle were all waiting for us in the bathroom when we moved in. Plus a nice little card reading “just a note to say ‘hi.’” Most of our earthly possessions are sitting in their boxes out in the garage. We were trying to return the rental truck quickly, and we didn’t want to be surrounded by cardboard in the house, so we unloaded everything into the garage, thinking we would just unpack from there. We did unpack the essentials like kitchen stuff and clothes, which now leaves us wondering just how much we need all that other junk out there… books, CDs, old papers, photos, etc. Well, the problem is really not having any furniture to put that stuff on/in. Anyway…
In addition to the Ag Library (and thanks to one very helpful fellow student called Brandy!), I’m now working part-time at the Rare Books & Manuscripts library for the summer. About seven of us are cataloging old, old books that have never had a decent record in the library system. Beautiful ancient old books. I’ll have to try to take a picture for you all. On top of that, I’ll have another job for the school year, too. Can you guess where? The Modern Languages and Linguistics library!!! Dream come true for Sara! Working with the German librarian to update their website! How cool is that! The Ag library job is going well – I might get the chance to revamp their website. As a preview, I turned this and this into this. Everyone there seemed to like it, so now we just have to figure out what to do with the website as a whole.
We’re off to get food. Have a great weekend folks!
Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
This courtyard in front is the undergrad library, built underground so as not to cast shade on the cornfield that was behind me when I took this photo. The four chimneys belong to the Main Library, where I’m about to go right now and catalog beautiful old books.
Originally uploaded by Librarienne.
This isn’t the picture I want to be sending right now. I’d rather send a pic of our new place, or the fireflies in our backyard, or the book from 1598 that I catalogued @ work this morning. But I’m in a hospital waiting to find out why Lori’s having sharp pains. I’m super worried about her.
