Posts filed under 'Personal Miscellany'
When I spotted the Hello Kitty posters while walking through Harvard Yard today, I knew that they could only mean trouble. I avoided reading them for this reason. Sadly, my attempts at avoidance were futile…Cynthia Rockwell just revealed the awful truth on her weblog, and now, I am faced with a real dilemma. Conference on kawaii culture versus conference on blogging–which should I choose?
HPAIR and the Reischauer Institute for Japanese Studies are sponsoring a one day conference on kawaii culture tomorrow, April 17. This was the type of conference that I wanted Harvard to hold five years ago when I was a full-time graduate student in East Asian studies and everyone laughed at me (and generally, failed to take me seriously) because of my research interests. Things change, I guess.
(Hmmm…I checked with Hello Kitty at Sanrio’s fortune corner, hoping to get more guidance on this dilemma. Kitty was vague in her characteristic way: “Lacking motivation? Get up early and exercise! Go jogging or do some stretches.” And, apparently, my lucky item this month is a glass craft kit…the one craft kit that I do not own…)
April 16th, 2004
I woke briefly last night with the strangest series of thoughts. I emerged from a dream desperately wanting to change my weblog tagline to a MARC21 field: 504 |a Includes bibliographical references. Then, I thought that it was too bad that I did not have a real index, so that I could use the phrase “Includes bibliographical references and index”. I had just started composing a 510 field with an appropriate citation format from Standard Citation Forms for Published Bibliographies and Catalogs Used in Rare Book Cataloging when I drifted back to sleep.Two solid weeks of creating records for 16th century Belgian imprints is clearly having an effect on my brain. Fortunately, I have not perfected the practice of sleep-blogging…at least, not yet.
April 2nd, 2004
Shortly after moving to Cambridge, one of my first excursions around town was a bookstore tour. During that excursion, I picked up two free guides: a map of used bookstores in downtown Boston and the Back Bay and a bookstore guide by the Cambridge Office of Tourism. Being the hopeless ephemera collector (and general paper packrat) that I am, I still have those guides…but looking at them now I realize that they are almost useless. Most of the places on those guides, including the place where I picked them up, have moved, have closed, or are on the verge of closing.Earlier this year, there was the news about Grolier Book Shop and its financial troubles. Although, in hopes of saving enough money to rent an apartment like a real adult, I have stopped buying books, I decided to break my spending ban. Recently, I used some of my vacation hours to spend time at Grolier, browsing the walls of poetry books and visiting with the clearly dispirited shopkeeper. I bought three books that day–not much help to a failing bookstore, I know, but the best I could do.
Last night, I learned that Avenue Victor Hugo is closing [via Lis Riba and Desultor]. It was painful to read the closing announcement on the store’s website. John Usher’s “Twelve Reasons for Death of Small and Independent Bookstores” was particularly painful to read because it is true.
When I first visited Cambridge as a prospective graduate student, I hated Cambridge and Harvard; I knew that would most likely be miserable, lonely, and unhappy here. But, then I heard (or perhaps, read) that Cambridge had more bookstores per capita than any other place, and I had a change of heart (since being miserable and lonely with a good book is not so bad).
Now, several years later, I feel betrayed. The Cambridge/Boston area may have more than its share of bookstores, but if the bookstores are just the ones with bright, shiny, candy-colored books, pre-packaged marketing, and salespeople who rely on databases rather than knowledge and experience, how meaningful is that?
A few links to help you find (and support) independent bookstores:
March 20th, 2004
When I read this story earlier on LIS News, it did not click to me that this was happening at my little brother’s elementary school. Then, my mom asked me if I had heard about it. Sad news, indeed…but not representative of all people from my neighborhood.
March 19th, 2004
Browsing through Harvard library staff newsletters from the 1940s and 1950s, I came across this little bit of staff humor yesterday: “No-school report, by Radio // ‘No school all schools all day / In Harvard–the town not the college;’ / For weather cannot stay / The Harvardman in search of knowledge.”It was without any attribution in the February 1948 issue of The Library Scene (issued by the Harvard Library Club). I am assuming it was (or perhaps, is) well-known local humor. Does anybody know the source of this? I am terribly curious about it, so please comment if you do.
At any rate, it was oddly apropos for this week. Although, after six years of calling the “snow line” in vain and slogging through ice and snow to get to school and/or work, I have given up on ever having a snow day, I still get needlessly excited when I see the Harvard [Public Schools] listing on the school closing list.
March 18th, 2004
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