The Final Full Day

It was, again, pretty full today. The day began with the ceremonial banging of delivery lorries outside of the window, but the thing that keeps me from complaining is the fact that the banging always begins just about when I should be getting up, anyway.

So, post shower and a quick stroll, a couple people and I had an interview with the Librarian the the John Johnson Collection, which is a huge collection of ephemera. It's a ton of really interesting stuff that libraries feel should be collected, but which don't fit into the traditional categories. So, the result is that there are beautifully mounted and selected examples of everything from menus to 13th century indulgences to playbills to ticket stubs to football pool notices... Several million such things, actually. The collection is in the midst of a digitization project, but it will be quite some time before they even put a dent in what they have. Although it seems sort of random, this kind of material is much beloved by anthropologists and sociologists and historians for providing a really unique window into the past. Nifty.

John Johnson, I should mention, also had a really cool attitude about collecting stuff, which was basically the idea that ephemera should be collected largely by chance; to let history decide what was important, but not stress about getting one's hands on everything.

Afterwards, we had a seminar about school libraries in the UK (not really my cup of tea, but interesting, nonetheless) and then a "speed-dating" series of QA sessions with a bunch of working university librarians. This, combined with a lecture about how librarianship works in terms of certification, education, and the job-acquisition process, provided a really solid, multi-dimensional, picture of what it is like to train for, look for, interview for, get, and keep a job as a librarian in this country. Although I do sort of smack my forehead for my lack of a second or third language, it was pretty encouraging (not so much in an, "I want a job in the UK" sense, as in an, "I can do this stuff" way).

Then, there was a reception (just what are we receiving so frequently?), followed by a late lecture with Antony Brewerton, who is somewhat of a rock-star librarian who's specialty is making libraries sexy and trendy. He seemed cool enough, and I "get" the idea of libraries as brands and the importance of marketing, but I think I was too tired to appreciate the presentation all that much.

So, then came late dinner (my first quail eggs) and some sit-around chat with the librarians and a nice French scholar. One more shower later, and it's bedtime again. Madness.

I also sneaked a little bit of work on my paper in.

Tomorrow, I should have some chill time to catch up on my journalin' (and maybe blog a bit), as well as do some final touristy stuff. I have my hotel reservation for London for Saturday and Sunday nights, and then it's home on Monday. Time flies and all that.