1866 letter of application for a post at the British Museum Library. The applicant was unsuccessful.

I have to state that Philology, both Comparative and special, has been my favourite pursuit during the whole of my life, and that I possess a general acquaintance with the languages and literature of the Aryan and Syro-Arabic classes – not indeed to say that I am familiar with all or nearly all of these, but that I possess that general lexical & structural knowledge which makes the intimate knowledge only a matter of a little application. With several I have a more intimate acquaintance as with the Romance tongues, Italian, French, Catalan, Spanish, Latin & in a less degree Portuguese, Vaudois, Provençal & various dialects. In the Teutonic branch, I am tolerably familiar with Dutch (having at my place of business correspondence to read in Dutch, German, French & occasionally other languages), Flemish, German and Danish. In Anglo-Saxon and Moeso-Gothic my studies have been much closer, I having prepared some works for puublication upon those languages. I know a little of the Celtic, and am at present engaged with the Sclavonic, having obtained a useful knowledge of Russian. In the Persian, Achaemenian Cuneiform, & Sanscrit branches, I know for the purposes of Comparative Philology. I have sufficient knowledge of Hebrew & Syriac to read at sight the Old Testament and Peshito; to a less degree I know Aramaic Arabic, Coptic and Phenecian to the point where it was left by Gesenius.

The unsuccessful applicant was named James Murray. About a decade later he commenced a career, in which he achieved some little share of distintion, as head of the OED.

Of course we don't know the job description, but they may have needed other types of skills. Also, a letter like this could have been a bit overwhelming to the person who is responsible for hiring him!

Murray was also without a PhD at that point. And, if I remember the story correctly, there was no job description, it was rather a cold call situation.

And yet . . . this is very interesting. Where do you find stuff like this?

Where do you find stuff like this?

In books. In this case, Murray's biography Caught in the Web of Words written by his granddaughter. It's a quarter of a century old now, but the guy who wrote The Professor and the Madman (also about Murray) also wrote another book about Murray and the OED, called The Meaning of Everything: The Story of the Oxford English Dictionary.

Oh yea, books! This is why I love this board - all you folks read BOOKS! Most of the people I work with read books, but most of the people I work for, i.e., the customers/patrons/visitors do not. Sigh.

but most of the people I work for, i.e., the customers/patrons/visitors do not. Sigh.

They just trying to get in out of that Ohian weather? Or what? Why are they in liberries if'n they don't read books? Checking out videos and CDs?

Most of my customers come into the building to use the computers. Some just come in to cruise for chicks.

Well - I just learned a valuable lesson! Never underestimate people! Right after I originally posted this, my next 3 customers all wanted . . . you guessed it . . . BOOKS! Sniff, sniff - what a beautiful moment.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Caterwauller,

but most of the people I work for, i.e., the customers/patrons/visitors do not. Sigh.

Now, this is a tiny criticism for libraries, but you know what I think one problem is? I think libraries play into the general public's lack of book reading. I hate to see libraries having huge collections of DVDs, video and audiotapes (unless we are talking books on tape). Even large collections of computers annoy me. Some of our area libraries have more videos, etc., than they do books. I think libraries are for books!

However, I realize that you have to provide what the public wants.

Oh, but Kalleh - you are of the privileged class. You have access to computers all the time. Many of the people I serve have no access to computers at work or home. My library helps to bridge that gap a little.

By the same token, what makes a video so much less the business of the library than, say, a good bodice-ripper or trashy dime novel? My library's mission is to "promote reading and guide learning in the pursuit of information, knowledge and wisdom." We strive to promote literate behaviors, but we also provide some venues of entertainment. I would venture to say that even this scholarly assembly of word folks are using this board as entertainment rather than a directed pursuit of knowledge needed for their work or education.

That said, I understand what you're saying about DVDs and Videos and CDs in the library. Don't think that this discussion isn't happening at every public library in the country, maybe in the world. We each need to find a way to strike a balance between promoting literate behaviors and providing outlets for relaxation. We also need to be the providers of bridges out of poverty, and that nearly always involves providing computers.

My computer's on the fritz right now, so if it weren't for the library's computers, I wouldn't be posting this.

Tinman

Puttin' on the Fritz . . .
isn't that the song that they sang at the end of the _Young Frankenstein_ movie?

You can find a wav file here.

Puttin' on the Ritz was an old Irving Berlin song.

I love watching how the threads here evolve.

so if it weren't for the library's computers, I wouldn't be posting this.


Yes, yes, Tinman, I agree that there should be some public computers in libraries. I remember when I was in a very small city in southern Georgia for a few days, AOL had no number for that city, and my only access was at the library. I truly appreciated that, as did the local people.

Yet some of the libraries around here have more and more computers, DVDs, videos, and fewer and fewer books. That's all. I don't think they should take every computer out of the library, but I also don't think the computers should take over the library.

I can't pass up the opportunity to share one of my favorite passages about libraries by author and former schoolteacher John Gatto:

quote:

---

One way to see the difference between school books and real books like Moby Dick is to examine the different procedures which separate librarians who are the custodians of real books from schoolteachers who are the custodians of school books.

To begin with, libraries are usually comfortable, clean and quiet. They are orderly places where you can read instead of just pretending to read. People of all ages are found working there together, not just a pack of age-segregated kids. For some reason libraries are never age-segregated nor do they presume to segregate readers by questionable tests of ability any more than farms or forests or oceans do.

The librarian doesn't tell me what to read, doesn't tell me what sequence of reading I have to follow, doesn't grade my reading. The librarian trusts me to have a worthwhile purpose of my own. I appreciate that and trust the library in return because it trusts me.

Some other significant differences between libraries and schools are these: The librarian lets me ask my own questions and helps me when I want help, not when she decides I need it. If I feel like reading all day long, that's okay with the librarian who doesn't compel me to stop reading at intervals by ringing a bell in my ear. The library keeps its nose out of my home, too. It doesn't send letters to my mother reporting on my library behavior, it doesn't make recommendations or issue orders how I should use my time at home.

The library doesn't play favorites, it's a very democratic place as seems proper in a democracy. If the books I want are available I get them even if that democratic decision deprives someone even more gifted and talented than I am of the books.

The library never humiliates me by posting ranked lists of good readers for all to see; it presumes that good reading is its own reward and doesn't need to be held up as an object lesson to bad readers. One of the strangest differences between library and school is that you almost never see a kid behaving badly in a library even though bad kids have the same access to libraries as good ones do.

The library never makes predictions about my future based on my past reading habits, nor does it imply dishonestly that things will be rosy if I read sanitary prose and thorns if I read Barbara Cartland. It tolerates eccentric reading habits because it realizes free men and women are often very eccentric.

Finally, the library has real books, not school books. I know the Moby Dick I find in the library won't have questions at the end of the chapters or be scientifically bowdlerized. Library books are not written by collective pens or selected by committees for passing elaborate inoffensive standards. Real books conform only to the private curriculum of each author not to the invisible curriculum of a corporate bureaucracy.

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This message has been edited. Last edited by: neveu,

What I like about libraries is that you can find an interesting book purely by chance. I remember when I was about nine and was confined to bed because of some illness or other. I was at the time crazy about railways and my mother exchanged my library books, bringing home a book called The Blue Train. Imagine my horror to find it was about ballet!

However, since I was bored I read the book, and learned quite a bit about a subject I hardly knew existed. It would be nice to say that it started a life-long interest in the subject; in fact I have never been to a ballet in my life. Still, life's not like the novels, is it?

This anti-modern library thread is all just so very wrong. I've been going to libraries since I was a small kid. Libraries have two important resources: books and people. Early on I got friendly with the reference librarian at my hometown library, and she helped immensely by showing me how to use the card catalog, the index of periodicals, and other reference materials. Of course, it was still a blast to wander through the incredibly small number of shelves and just browse the collection. But what I discovered is that no library is complete, but that most libraries cooperate with one another. (I could get books on inter-library loan.) By the time I could drive, I was a card-carrying member of several other larger libraries: the main county library in the county where I lived and several neighboring counties. Then I discovered the local junior college and the local university libraries. All of them had (and still have) lots of books, but as the libraries got bigger and as time passed, they also acquired a lot of non-books, too, or perhaps I just started to notice them more. I remember looking at some rare book in the microfilm room of the local university library. The librarian in charge was happy somebody was using his part of the library and confided with me that he actually had more "books" than the main collection. After two years of junior college, I made it to UC Berkeley, where even the departments had libraries of their own. In the main library, Doe, there was even an office with a very special collection: the Mark Twain collection. Not many books, but mainly MSS and correspondence that his widow donated to the Bancroft library which now had its own apparatus to take care of it and make it available to scholars.

I even disagree with the idea that a library must be a lending library. When I first travelled abroad, one of the first places I searched for in Rome or Copenhagen was a library. Some weren't even lending institutions, though they were happy enough to let a non-resident foreign kid wander around the stacks and ask questions. One of my happiest times was getting access to the map collection in the Royal Library in Copenhagen and looking at multiple copies of Ptolemy's Geography. Each one getting older. A nice Swedish post-doc was happy to have a little distraction from his daily routine and kept bringing me older and older copies, and even some industrial strength plastic sheets to cover pages with and trace out the maps with pencil. All because I'd asked an innocent question about old maps to the librarian in the reading room.

As for non-books, the prize goes to the Bancroft Library at UC Berkeley. Ever month they would fill a display case in the main library reading room with all kinds of fantastic objects from their collection: posters, student newspapers, hats (senior plugs from the 1880s), clothing, books, etc. The strangest library by far was a royal library with many original MSS in Sanskrit and a private court language that I stumbled across recently while in Tamil Nadu. (It was in the city of Tanjavur.) It was more like a museum of ancient MSS than a "library".

I still drop into small town libraries when I get the chance and its fun to look over their collections; see how big their linguistics collection is or what kind of computer books they have. Most libraries in the States these days seem to have computer access of some sort. What's the problem? There are all kinds of public domain books available via the good works at the Gutenburg project. You can get all kinds of bibliographical ideas from the Web. Most of my fiction reading list these days comes from a direct perusal of the Web.

Just the other day I heard Dan Ackroyd (a Canadian comic) being interviewed. He talked about how his local home town library exposed him to the blues because he'd go in to read and would end up listening to records on headphones. Hey, I though: I used to do that to. At the time, the music collection was always a bit eclectic and out of date. Just perfect learn something old. I love my local library's video / DVD collection. They have many items not available at the video stores for rental. Documentaries, foreign language films, etc.

I'm sorry for the long rant, but the complaints about the demise of "real" libraries, i.e., the ones of the ranter's youth, and their replacement with multimedia centers are just plain wrong-headed. It's like the folks who annoy me with their Chicken Little diatribes of the untimely decay and fall of the English language ...

I am humbled - and greatly heartened by your comments, neveu, arnie and jheem . . .

Just one thing in reponse to neveu's teacher. I see kids misbehaving in my public library often, mostly because they hang out with us nearly all day long.

I'm sorry for the long rant, but the complaints about the demise of "real" libraries, i.e., the ones of the ranter's youth, and their replacement with multimedia centers are just plain wrong-headed. It's like the folks who annoy me with their Chicken Little diatribes of the untimely decay and fall of the English language ...

Hmmm, I guess that "ranter" would be I. Okay, I give. Your post humbled me as well. I will definitely think about libraries differently after your post.

I seemed to also create havoc on the chat today, saying that I write in my books (not library books, CW and KHC) when I read. That apparently is not appropriate for book lovers either. Sheesh, I am getting a complex.

For the record, whenever Shu and I travel, we always check out the libraries. I think my favorite was the Chilmark Public Library in Martha's Vineyard. I loved their quote on their Web site: "Frosts are here, but it's cozy at the library. The library and staff are here for your transition into late autumn." I was also impressed that it was one of the top ten libraries in the U.S., in communities with populations under 1,000. This library also serves as the library for Menemsha School students.

Sheesh, I am getting a complex.

Oh, I doubt it, K. You have a nice hearty ego, as do we all. I just have so many nice cozy feelings about libraries and books and all. I consistently vote more money to our library even though it'll mean higher property taxes, etc.

Now, writing in books! I mean! Ack!

I had trouble attending the chat so I don't know the context of the discussion but I write in my text books. My college books all contain annotations made as I'm reading or during lectures because that way I can be sure they don't get separated. I'm hopelessly disorganised and I'm forever losing notes that I've made so that if I see a quote that I want to use or have some comment that I might need later its no use at all writing it down separately because then I'm just guaranteeing that at some later time I'll be rampaging around the house like Godzilla on speed searching for the by then lost piece of paper.

I also have one copy of Alice with my own annotations but given that I own so many copies and that one was specifically for the purpose of annotation then I don't think that one counts.

I don't turn down corners though. (That was the last thing I actually saw on thechat before computer problems caused my departure.)

I don't turn down corners, of course. I do, if I own a book, write notes in it. Now, there is usually not a need to write in most of the books I read, because they are escapist trashy novels. However, when I'm reading a book that is informational or inspirational, I will not just write, but highlight and use post-its to make sure I can find those parts again.

I love making a book my own. What I love more, however, is finding a book {not in my library} where some former reader has made notes. I had a dear older woman friend years ago who was an English teacher long before I knew her (when we met, I was 20 and she was at least 80). When she was paring down her belongings to move into a nursing home she gave me a few of her poetry books. I cherish them for the margin notes she put in them. I like having her voice with me as I read Tennyson.

Now, as we talk about the ill treatment of books, I must mention my DH's (dear hubby's) tendancy to use furniture as bookmarks. He'll place his book on the floor, open, using the table leg to hold open his page, or he'll perch the book on the arm of the couch, open face down. Sigh.

Then there is my son, who will pile books in his bed and literally sleep on them like a dragon on his hoard.

I suppose I've just resigned myself to this with the realization that people loving books to this extent is more important than preserving the structural integrity of the books themselves. At work we talk about not minding if customers at my branch steal a book . . . because it's so much preferrable to them stealing movies. At least with the books we can assume they'll keep them (pawn shops don't take them).

I don't turn down corners though.
At least I don't do that! Never use furniture, either, CW (that is really funny, especially since he is married to a librarian!).

I hope my hubby doesn't mind a library story told on him. We had this favorite wonderful poetry book by Sullivan that was written at the turn of the 20th century and was full of lovely poems. We could find it no where, except in our library. We would continually check it out and return it, and we were obviously the only ones who read that book. One day, Shu rather off-handedly told the librarian how much we loved that book. He asked what happens if books disappear. She told him that you must then pay for the book. So...he said, "Well, that may be how we could buy this book." Um...well...I don't have to tell you the look he got from our friendly librarian! Needless to say, we didn't do that, but we did finally find it in a used book store. We just cherish that poetry book.

Another example of our cherished books is the 2-volume set we have by AA Milne. They are leather-bound, very old (not first editions, of course), and in fine shape. We used to sit our kids down very properly and take those "special" books off the real high shelf to read to them. We would then very carefully put them back. They were never allowed to touch those books unless we were around.

Those special books of course I would never write in.

What I love more, however, is finding a book {not in my library} where some former reader has made notes.

That's how I learned to write in books. Shu's mom would note words that she didn't know in the back of her books, and then she would look them all up and write in the definitions. I loved reading her notes, and I realized how that could really help you to learn vocabulary. So, I followed her example.

He asked what happens if books disappear. She told him that you must then pay for the book. So...he said, "Well, that may be how we could buy this book."

I have heard that same question before. I have customers who want us to call them whenever we discard particular magazines or movies or books. I always say no. I cannot keep track of all the people who want a particular book when it's worn out!

My story about the Milne books we had as kids . .. my mother made a beautiful set of finger puppets of all the Pooh characters. They are exquisite . . . Roo comes out of the pouch and Eeyore's tail is held on with a snap. I remember covering my fingers with those things and holding The House at Pooh Corner open with my feet so I could read it and act it all out.

I have a lot of autographed childrens books that I keep in our guest room, just so that my son won't take it in his head to sleep on top of them some night (they get rather rumpled when he does that), but other than that, the books we own are our friends. We encourage our son to read any of them he wishes.