I'm a Liar Too

What can I say?  It happens to the best of us.  I think I wrote down that I was going to try a weekly/biweekly blog, but its been about a month since my last post.

It's week 8 and depite the online factor I feel almost exactly the same as last fall in undergrad.  I do what I have to do, I read the materials I believe are the most important, and though I am not the biggest participator, I attend and listen. 

The thing is that this semester is different than other semesters.  For once, I am actually pursuing my hobbies.  I am mass producing handmade greeting/holiday cards in order to sell at a couple of craft shows, so that is my nighttime activity.  I am taking a "class" on Ukrainain embroidery, so I try to put a little time into embroidering and designing every day.  And then, of course, I am in a long distance relationship- its hard, but I can't help it!

In short, I'm genuinely busy.

It's the LEEP weekend, and I am having a lot of fun.  The Rare Books and Special Collection day was especially AWESOME.  We were able to looks (and sometimes even touch) some of the objects in the collections.  Here are some of my highlights:

- manuscript with a doodle of a bird on the margin (I guess a Medieval reader got bored?)
- one of the first engineering books ever created
- a book of encyclopedia plates which had directions for everything, including building your own boat
-gloriously old and beautiful maps
-Irish political cartoons that make no sense to me, but must've made sense back in the times of the Land Acts
- a book with beautiful hand painted pictures of homes and cover of inlaid leather.
- "So Long, Hot-Metal Men" by Henry Morris: a book of his own typesettings, from Bird and Bull Press
- letters from Joseph Conrad to H. G. Wells, showing his creative process in writing books
- the manuscript for "The Time Traveler"
- story boards from Citizen Kane

and the motherload of motherloads: the Book of Genesis, from a Gutenburg Bible.  The amount of text lines increase thoughout the book, which makes people assume that this might've been from one of the earlier prints of the Bible....wow

As for today, the 501 presentations in Preservation were so enlightening.  There were four different preservationists/conservators talking about the different materials they deal with: general collection, special collection, a/v equipment, digital files, and musical instruments.  I learned about how they fix 100 year old horns, backup files, freeze/bake cassette tapes, and how they decide to chuck a book into the dumpster.  I had no idea that these librarians had disaster plans, and how they accept their imperfect environments and work with them.  I have a growing interest in digitization, so it was really cool to hear about all of these different problems conservators have trying to fix and/or put these objects on the internet.

This weekend is really turning out great.  My group for the 501 project is filled with wonderful people, its great to see everyone from 14.1, and meet people from 14.2.  It's been fun  :D  I can't go to the dinner, but I am virtually saying "hi" to everyone!