What's In a Name?: Renaming Libraries Do Not Diminish Their Influence

I haven't been posting much, still reacquainting myself with the world away from England, but I wanted to share a great article that my roommate from Oxford wrote.

So many libraries have been closed over the years due to budget cuts and declining use, but it seems that plans like Mayor Tony Mack's prove the necessity of such institutions. The functions of his new centers are exactly those of a library. So what warrants usurping their influence?

Despite the growth of the digital age, and despite the cynicism towards "antiquated" systems, there will always be a need for libraries. Libraries are actually on the forefront of growing technologies despite popular belief. Besides providing new technology for those who may not have access, the library aims to teach how to use technology, and how to use it efficiently and effectively. They are the true "centers for learning."

I highly suggest reading the full article to get a better sense of what the situation is. Thanks to my roommate for doing a wonderful job bringing this to the public's attention.

Trenton Mayor Tony Mack reopens Briggs Branch Library as Mayor's Learning Center

National Poetry Month: Poetry in Motion

It's hard not to think of poetry as a dying art form. As much as it should be included seamlessly with our curriculum, it has become necessary to separate it and treat it as its own entity. Special units where you do a week long crash course on poetry in the classroom do not do the genre justice.

While having a month dedicated to poetry may seem like its perpetuating the same idea, that it's separate from other literature, I think it is important that we separate it in celebration. April is National Poetry Month, and one of my favorite literary events of the year. I think each year I come upon something even more creative and original.

While reading through some articles this year I stumbled upon American Sign Language poetry. They are in the works of a documentary on "deaf poetry jams," where poetry is strictly performed using sign language.

As much as I am a word person, I love that poetry can come through strictly in motion, and that its untranslatable into vocabulary for those who don't know the meanings and connotations of sign. You still get the feeling though, especially with these teens who are so passionate about it.

Give this article a look, and check out the video. These organizations are doing some really cool things.

The Beauty of Books

So I haven't been particularly good about posting from abroad, but I hope you can forgive me with my sharing of this beautiful little vignette about a printer in England who still makes hand-bound books.





What a beautiful craft.

A Library/UK post all in one!

So my lovely friend Steph sent me a link to an article about an art/community installation in New York, repurposing phone booths into mini community libraries. While I initially was very intrigued and excited about the idea, I started to have my reservations as I thought about it more, which were only repeated in some of the comments on the project, but it's still a noble idea and something worth reading about:

John Locke's Repurposed Phone Booth Libraries

But here's where the UK comes in. I'm scanning through the comments on the article and someone attaches a similar article from the same site (Designboom) with the UK equivalent: James Econ's Phoneboox.

Why do I find this so important? Just the fact that artists and communities are even thinking about libraries shows their relevance. While these ideas may not always pan out as they do in a librarian's dreams, becoming trash receptacles rather than knowledge repositories or other various pitfalls of their designs, the fact that there are artists who understand the importance of reading, communities that try to contribute, programs that support such endeavors, proves that the library still has a place in our society. While these plans are not always realistic, they will always hold a special place in my heart.

Time's getting away from me

Wow, I know I've said it before but I'll say it again, I'm REALLY terrible at posting on here. But I guess that also means that I've been busy out and about so I guess that's a good thing. Let me attempt some brief recaps:

Bath and Stonehenge trip. Wow. I have to be honest, I didn't think I would enjoy those places quite as much as I did. Stonehenge felt like a spiritual experience. As much as it was the history and the place, I think it was the day itself. The morning was beautiful blue skies and sunshine, but at this point the sky started to fill with grey, and sun was streaking through the breaks in clouds illuminating the structure. It was stunning. I took pictures, but there's really nothing that can capture the feeling. Then it was off to Bath, and just the level of preservation there was unbelievable. The whole day I was thinking about my Latin and Greek Mythology professor, the pictures he showed me from his trip, how excited he would have been for me. I wish he was still at TCNJ, he was really an inspiration to me in my academic life.

James Vincent McMorrow at the O2Academy was absolutely phenomenal. I'm so glad I went. Beforehand Em and I went to this really kitschy place called Atomic Burger which was good, and then I stayed for the show. The opener, Rob Bravery, was really great. I'm still trying to figure out what artist he sounded like but I really enjoyed his show. And James Vincent McMorrow... his voice... no words. His whole band was phenomenal. The harmonies, the fullness of the sound. Such a great concert, despite it being about 100 degrees in there and packed.

This past week I set up a meeting with the librarian at New College to see some of their manuscript and original print collections. I was presently surprised that a fellow OSAP-er had a similar idea, so we got a tour from one of the library certification students into the bell tower. Amazing. Absolutely amazing. It reminded me exactly why I want to go into libraries and archives. The system here is really unlike any other, and while I know realistically it wouldn't be the best choice to do field experience here, I think I really want to consider that as an option for my master's program. Just to be around the variety of books they have I think would be so fascinating and educational. Though their system is complex and unusual, it would definitely be worth it. One of the things most fascinating about the experience, though, was the physicality of the book itself. The care that used to go into making books is fascinating. It also puts into perspective how the craft has diminished. I think I will be picking up that book on bookbinding afterall...

Next week is going to be hectic, but with all wonderful things. Sunday we have a trip to Windsor Castle, Wednesday is my SECRET KEVIN DEVINE SHOW IN LONDON WITH EM, then Saturday Em and I are back to London to see Zach Braff's play All New People. Plus I have two tutorials this week. So now I am off to read some more Shakespeare!

An Incredible Short

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is an animated short that has been nominated for an Academy Award. It is one of the most endearing and creative things I've watched in a while, I hope you enjoy it as well! (It's only 13 minutes long, I think you can handle it)

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.

A Non-England Post

I know I haven't been posting nearly enough about England to warrant posting something not about England, but this event can't fly under the radar:

World Book Night is an amazing opportunity to spread the love of books that I'm assuming you all have to others. Basically, you send in a little application about why you want to get involved, and if you are accepted they give you twenty books to give out to light or non-readers on April 23rd to promote reading. This is a wonderful wonderful cause and I am definitely signing myself up and if you're an avid reader I think you should too. We all know what it was like to read that first book that really got to us, that made us the literary lovers that we are today. Why not share that moment with someone else?

Check out their website, this is definitely a cause worth involving yourself with:

worldbooknight.org

Cheers! (I'll try to get some more Oxford posts up sometime soon, just haven't had much time or energy to do it)

I'm very bad at this posting thing

Besides my inability to keep up with this blog in general, the internet in our flat has been downright non-existent, so I apologize for anyone checking this to find that it looks just the same as they last saw it. Let me try to think of what I can tell you about...

This past Sunday the program took us on a bus trip into London for the day which consisted of a little bus tour around the city followed by a walking tour to see places like Westminster Abbey, Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, and a few other major sights. We also went to the War Rooms and Churchill Museum which was absolutely fascinating. What an amazing time warp into history, the museum did an incredible job both preserving what was left of the shelter and recreating what wasn't. You couldn't help but feel all of the history in that place. Not to mention Churchill is a fascinating man. I really enjoyed that trip.

Tuesday my first Oxford essay was due, a paper on perception, deception, and disguise in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. Tuesday was also the day of my first Oxford 'A'! Haha it's a very interesting system here. Besides the whole one on one tutorial, basically an independent study method, when you meet with your tutor the session basically consists of them reading your paper aloud to you and commenting on it as they go. So you hear the professor struggling with sentences that never managed to come together quite right, you see him approving of some ideas and flinching at others, it's a very intimidating process. But I'm one of the biggest proponents of reading your paper aloud as an editing technique, so after I got over the initial shock of the method I fell right into place, bringing up points that I liked in the research, things that struck me that maybe I didn't use, etc.

I am now preparing an essay due tomorrow on Seamus Heaney's poem "Personal Helicon" in which I'm talking about binarism. I know this is all very exciting to you, but trust me these are the highlights of my days.

Also, yesterday I emailed the Bodleian's "Ask a Librarian" service to see if I could possibly meet someone to talk about their system, maybe even go on a little tour, and I got a response from someone asking how long I would be here so they could match me up with someone to speak with, so I'll let you know if anything comes into fruition from that! My Shakespeare tutor suggested I try to get in touch with someone here when I told him my interest, and hearing him say that after I had been thinking and debating about it definitely set me into motion.

This weekend there are no travel plans, but that's okay because I'll have lots of work to do anyway. I also want to check out a few bookshops around here and hopefully take some more pictures. (Oh yea, sorry about pictures. I haven't been taking my camera out. And when I do I have been using my film camera mostly. I'll try to bring myself to take the digital camera out this weekend)

Cheers!

A Brief Recap...

Alright since I can't focus on my reading here is an attempt to do a brief recap of what I've done so far in my first week in Oxford.

The OSAP program is pretty incredibly in setting you up with a good introduction to the city and school. Most of the first week was spent in lectures and on tours, everything from an introduction to British Customs and Mores, to a walking tour of Oxford, to a lecture on Architecture. All of the speakers were incredibly engaging and remarkable people. So some highlights from the orientation:

1) They broke us up into three groups and sent us off with tour guides on a walking tour of Oxford at night. Our tour guide, Laura, was an older woman who I assume is a resident of Oxford. She was just so comforting to listen to. She seemed to know just about everything about Oxford, from the history of the university, to the architecture, to the local scene. She told us a bit about places that we should definitely see while in Oxford and really made me feel more comfortable about exploring the city on my own.

2) One of our first days here we were inducted into the Bodleian Library, which is the University's major research library. It houses over 11 million volumes, most of which are stored underground as well as in a facility in a neighboring town. Besides the manuscripts and archives, any book published in Britain must send a copy to the Bodleian to be cataloged in their holdings. It's not a lending library, its strictly reference, and since many of those books are stored elsewhere you may need to put in requests for books to be drawn up for your use, but just to have that wealth of information essentially at your fingertips is remarkable. As part of the induction, we had to recite an oath drawn up at the inception of the institution. The benefactor, Bodleian, was paranoid about the destruction of the books, which is why there is no lending, as well as why originally, when there was no electricity, the library closed when the sun set (no open flames or gas lamps to risk a fire!) We performed the induction ceremony in the Convocation House, which is a beautiful meeting hall where English Parliament met during Charles II's reign. This whole place is just filled with so much history, you can't help but feel overwhelmed by it all.

3) The following day we were introduced to our individual colleges. Oxford University is broken down into somewhere around 42 individual colleges. I am assigned to New College, one of the oldest in the University. The grounds and buildings are absolutely beautiful. We had a tour of the campus as well as a tour of the library and how their library works. I will definitely be spending a lot of time there.

That weekend we had a free weekend to do as we pleased within the city. On Saturday I went to the Ashmolean Museum which is an incredibly museum of natural history. Five floors of everything from Ancient Egypt, to Rome and Greece, to Renaissance to art, and everything in between and beyond. I spent nearly four hours in there, and I probably could have spent even more, it was remarkable. I believe I'll be going back some time soon.

The next day I went to the Museum of the History of Science, which features scientific instruments throughout the ages. Though I am not a science minded person, this museum was absolutely fascinating. Just the care and detail that went into the construction of the accuracy of the instrument as well as the aesthetics of it is mind blowing. They had a special exhibit going on called "Time Travelers" which was all about the evolution of time, from the sundial to clocks to our digital interfaces now. It was absolutely phenomenal. Such an amazing place, and just down the road from where we live and where we study.

Since then, I've just been doing some reading for my tutorials and preparing for my first papers. My primary tutorial, which meets once a week for eight weeks, is on Shakespeare, and me and my tutor decided to focus on Shakespearean comedies which I am looking forward to. I feel like I haven't done much Shakespeare in general, but the comedies in particular are not often studied in the states, so I think this will be a cool perspective. So for my first paper I'm reading The Taming of the Shrew and discussing the ideas of perception and deception. Then my second tutorial meets once every other week for four weeks, and that will be on Contemporary British Literature. Since we meet less my tutor has already assigned me to read the poetry of Seamus Heaney (whom I LOVE) and to write an explication on one of his poems of my choice. The structure of the courses here is intimidating, but also incredibly exhilarating. They're basically our equivalent to independent studies, except I get to do two of them. I just hope I can handle all of the reading and work!

Errr this is a rather long post and I hate to bore you with all of these details (all at once at least) so I'll leave it at that for now and try to keep future posts shorter and more interesting. Hopefully there will be some pictures to come, too. Haven't really taken the time to take my camera out yet, but hopefully this weekend will change that (in between working on my papers, of course)

Cheers!

You may see a slight change in my title up there. Well, that's because for the next three months I will be studying at Oxford  University. A few friends and family were suggesting I maintain a blog about my experiences. At first I planned on starting an entirely new blog, but then I thought, this translates so well into my library science interests! Many people go into study abroad approaching it as a life experience: to travel, to see the world, to party. Yes, all of those things are important elements to this opportunity, but for me, this is all about the education (I say that as I push my glasses up the bridge of my nose).

That being said, for the next three months this blog is going to become a mix of my travel experiences and my academic ones, especially since there are no better libraries than the ones that I now have access to here in Oxford. I'm still going to try to keep some outside library news coming through the feed as well, but I want this to become a hub of my interests and experiences while I'm staying in England.

So hold tight! This is going to be a bumpy (and interesting) ride!

But for now, I have some Shakespeare to read. I'll try to post sometime this week with a little recap of what has happened so far on my semester abroad.