(no subject)

[gwynhefar]

One of the dangers of working in a major research library is that you actually find yourself loosing that awe that comes with old books. I've become snobbish -- the book I was working on today was *only* published in 1881. That's nothing. Yesterday I worked on one published in 1830.

Comments

[desperance.livejournal.com]

I do all my research in the Lit & Phil (http://www.litandphil.org.uk) - and yup, many of the books I use are nineteenth-century editions. My favourite book-borrowing experience, though, was when I needed an Esperanto dictionary. You can buy them, of course, but I thought I'd check the Lit & Phil first; and yes, they had one. They had the original one, published by the man who invented Esperanto, back in 1909 or thereabouts. Catalogue said I'd find it up in the gallery, so up the winding iron stairs I went, and along the perilous flooring, and yup, there it was, still with its original date-stamp label - with absolutely no date-stamps in it. In nearly a hundred years, I was the very first person to borrow that book; and yet, there it still was, waiting for me. When they buy a book for the permanent collection, they do mean permanent...