Comments on: Treasure hunt in the stacks

By: Maureen

Maureen — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 20:35:02 +0000

Even better—buying a book in Robert Braidwood’s personal library, with his signature inside. For $1. Thank you, Regenstein book sale! (Dr. Braidwood is said to be the inspiration for the U of C’s most famous fictional alumnus, Indiana Jones)

By: Keith N

Keith N — Sat, 08 Nov 2003 00:07:51 +0000

There used to be a card with Kurt Godel’s signature on it, in an OCT of Aristotle’s On the Soul or some such up in the Firestone stacks. Small, neat, ink.

By: Thlayli

Thlayli — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 17:30:37 +0000

Brooke Shields would be a real coup, as I expect she didn’t leave a whole lot of autographs in the stacks.

By: Paul

Paul — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 13:36:47 +0000

I once found an ex-Vanderbilt copy of William Empson’s Poems borrowed by Randall Jarrell in September 1937, just about the time Jarrell and Robert Lowell chucked Vandy for Kenyon College. Interestingly, not long after, (according to Pritchard’s bio of Jarrell), John Crowe Ransom would complain to Allen Tate that too much Empson was ruining Jarrell’s poetry. Pritchard writes:

“But a month later, [Spring ‘38] again writing to Tate, [Ransom] returned to the subject of this “this very strange boy” whose career prospects looked dubious. Jarrell’s poetry, said Ransom, was almost ruined by attempting to put William Empson’s doctrine of ambiguity into practice, while ‘as a teacher he’s extremely animated when he is interested, and spares no pains, and gets pretty good results; but the other day he asked me if I ever got bored, and intimated that this was rather his stock condition teaching Freshman. A man of his age and ill prospects has no business getting bored by his job.’”

I photocopied the card and passed a few around as a sort of keepsake for all of us bored by jobs we can’t afford to be bored by.

By: Chris Bertram

Chris Bertram — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 12:47:14 +0000

Halbwachs is known to me as the author/editor of a wonderful combined commentary on and edition of Rousseau’s Du Contrat Social (very useful to me when writing my own book) and highly recommended.

By: B. Coulmont

B. Coulmont — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 11:05:48 +0000

In Paris, at the Ecole normale supérieure, it is still possible to find borrowing cards of books taken by people who forgot to bring them back or died (for example Paul Nizan or Cavailles). I’ve put Halbwachs and Merleau-Ponty… but I’m afraid those names aren’t well known in the US.

By: James

James — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 10:49:27 +0000

Stephanie – I’m keen to read your father’s Phd. Please could you post the details?

By: eszter

eszter — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 03:42:58 +0000

Searching for traces of old encounters in books is fine, but a little selfish, don’t you think? Tim – I don’t understand how “searching for” something like this can be selfish. Removing something like this may be selfish, but searching for it? I always have my digital camera with me, that’s my tool for collecting interesting things I encounter. Stephanie – that’s a neat story about the $50 bill. Arthur – that’s an interesting idea, it would probably be another library, but it’s worth looking into.

By: praktike

praktike — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:16:54 +0000

how about dean cain?

By: arthur

arthur — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:15:45 +0000

The coolest signature would be Albert Einstein. I’d bet he would have read anything that came out from one of his physicist buddies in the 40’s, especialy if it were in German, and that will take you to a small set of books in one section of the library.

By: mel

mel — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 00:03:56 +0000

What was the book that Rawls and Viner checked out from Kieran’s post?

By: Stefanie Murray

Stefanie Murray — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 23:00:05 +0000

Our friend’s dad put a $50 bill in the bound copy of his dissertation in the library stacks. Every so often he goes back to check it…so far, the money’s still there. Puts a new twist on the ‘treasure hunt’ theme. :)

By: tim

tim — Thu, 06 Nov 2003 21:37:32 +0000

Searching for traces of old encounters in books is fine, but a little selfish, don’t you think? You should leave something for the next generation of scholars and would-be scholars. I have a copy book where I have kept passages from novels that have struck me as apt or as interesting prose. As I was finishing up my Ph.D. in one of the sciences at one of the other Ivies, I typed them up, printed them out, cut them into strips, and slipped them into all the bound copies of journals that I had pulled to check references. Putting them in journals rather than books was probably a poor choice, as they seem destined to disappear soonest (in favor of more economical electronic copy), but the thought of some serious grad student stumbling across Kundera or Dostoevsky so far out of context was irresistable. I only wish I had started the project sooner….