Reading this on Michael Stephens’ Tame The Web: Libraries and Technology blog:

Lazereow Lecture: Does Print Still Matter?

Dominican University Graduate School of Library and Information Science Presents The 2007 ISI® Samuel Lazerow Memorial Lecture Program, Does Print Still Matter? By Brian Kenney, editor-in-chief of School Library Journal

Thursday, April 19th, 2007 at 6:00 p.m. Dominican University 7900 West Division Fine Arts Building Eloise Martin Recital Hall Reception immediately following

Major media companies—some blatantly, others more subversively—are attempting to shift their print products entirely online. Virtual communities (such as MySpace® and Second Life®) have emerged as major social networks. Visual content (found in Flickr™ and YouTube™) is accessible in new ways, serving as both rich databases and as means for communication. This lecture will consider how print—and especially books—fit into this rapidly changing information ecology, with special attention to the lives of young people.

As editor-in-chief of School Library Journal, Brian Kenney believes he has the best job in the world in that he spends most of his time reading, writing, and talking about books, technology, kids, and learning. And he gets to meet some of the most fascinating people in the country: librarians…

Reminded me of this quote:

From Matthew Battles, Library: An Unquiet History (New York: Norton & Co., 2003):

What we face is not the loss of books but the loss of a world. As in Alexandria after Aristotle’s time, or the universities and monasteries of the early Renaissance, or the cluttered-up research libraries of the nineteenth century, the Word shifts again in its modes, tending more and more to dwell in pixels and bit instead of paper and ink. It seems to disappear thereby, as it must have for the ancient Peripatetics, who considered writing a spectral shibboleth of living speech; or the princely collectors of manuscripts in the Renaissance, who saw the newly recovered world of antiquity endangered by the brute force of the press; or the lovers of handmade books in the early nineteenth century, to whom the penny dreadful represented the final dilution of the power of literature. And yet, the very fact that the library has endured these cycles seems to offer hope. In its custody of books and the words they contain, the library has confronted and tamed technology, the forces of change, and the power of princes time and time again.

So what do you think? Is there indeed more at stake than just the loss of librarian job security? What about cultural preservation? Will research skills even be necessary in ten years? What impact will the loss of traditional libraries have on the intellectual development of our kids? our students? our faculty? our churches?

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I periodically pull books off the shelves here at the library and provide random quotes. With Passover approaching, I thought perhaps a page from an Ashkenazi Haggadah would be an appropriate fit for the sacred. And as for the profane, just what does “Mencken-ish” mean, anyway?

The Sacred:

Frame 39a from The Ashkenazi Haggadah, a Hebrew manuscript of the mid-15th Century from the collections of the British Library, written and illuminated by Joel Ben Simeon called Feibusch Ashkenazi, with a commentary attributed to Eleazar ben Judah of Worms; London: Abradale Press.

The translation: The breath of every living thing shall bless your name, O Lord, our God; and the spirit of all flesh shall glorify and exalt the remembrance of you, our king, continually. For ever and ever you are God, and apart from you we have no king who redeems and saves. You deliver, protect, sustain, and bestow compassion on us at all times of trouble and distress; we have no king but you. He is God of the first and of the last, God of all creatures, Lord of all generations, magnified with every kind of praise, who conducts his world with love and his creatures with mercy…

The Profane:

I can’t decide which entry I find more odd. From the Personals of the Saturday Review of Literature, March 17 1951, p50.

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A man once told me that in 1959 he picked up a magazine off the table to read and suddenly realized that he should invest his extra time in study of Scripture rather than other “superfluous” literature . He claims not to have read anything else since, and that I should reconsider how I invest my time. Let me also say that this man is one of the godliest and most biblically knowledgeable men I have ever met. But let me also say that I do not share his conviction.

According to Megan Williams’sThe Monk and the Book: Jerome and the Making of Christian Scholarship, the early church fathers Origen and Jerome had vastly different approaches to the relationship of literary scholarship to “sacred studies.” She provides the following anecdote from Eusebius’s Ecclesiastical History concerning Origen’s abandonment of his library when he devoted himself to sacred studies:

Deeming the teaching of grammar discordant with training in divine learning, without hesitation he ceased to engage in grammatical studies, which he now held to be unprofitable and opposed to holy erudition. Then, having come to the conclusion that he ought not to depend on the support of others, he gave away all of the books of ancient literature that he possessed, though formerly he had fondly cherished them, and was content to receive four obols a day from the man who purchased them. (Eusebius, Hist. eccles. 6.8-9; cited in Williams, 133).

Williams then goes on to describe how Jerome’s writings, including his biblical commentaries, are laden with every evidence of the use of a vast personal library:

For every page of Jerome’s commentaries implies a library. The citations of multiple versions of the Bible, the historical information taken from Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews, the explanations of Hebrew names drawn from the Jewish and Christian onomastic literature, and especially the lengthy interpretations translated and paraphrased from a variety of Christian commentators–all of this material came from books that Jerome must have had on hand as he worked. Many of Jerome’s other works, too, can be shown to rely very closely on his sources, including both Christian and non-Christian writings. (Williams, 134).

I understand that people may often be led to different convictions determined by the avoidance of past sins and idolatries (see Paul’s advice concerning meat sacrificed to idols in 1 Corinthians), but I’m with Jerome on this one. Besides, I’m a theological librarian.

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All: thanks for your patience with me as I have slowly returned to the world of the upright from my recent … unpleasantness. I am still in something of a Nyquil haze, but the time to get up and be doing has arrived. I return with a quote from Longfellow’s Psalm of Life:

Let us then be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

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I’ve been battling influenza and pneumonia, and have therefore not be vertical enough to post anything in recent days. I think I’ve turned a corner, however, and should be back within a few days. If you pray for me, pray for my wife as well — she’s battling a stomach bug, caring for me, and our two small attention-hungry kids.

In my attempt to push through the fog that is prescription cough syrup, I’ve been trying to work crossword puzzles and read. I came across this anonymously written poem today and for reasons which need no explanation it resonated with my present state of mind, though perhaps with a bit of hyperbole.

Death

O death, rock me asleep,
Bring me to quiet rest,
Let pass my weary guiltless ghost
Out of my careful breast.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.

My pains who can express?
Alas, they are so strong;
My dolour will not suffer strength
My life for to prolong.
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.

Alone in prison strong
I wait my destiny.
Woe worth this cruel hap that I
Should taste this misery!
Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;
Let thy sound my death tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.

Farewell, my pleasures past,
Welcome, my present pain!
I feel my torments so increase
That life cannot remain.
Cease now, thou passing bell;
Rung is my doleful knell;
For the sound of my death doth tell.
Death doth draw nigh;
There is no remedy.

I read somewhere recently that optimism may be naive, but pessimism is atheistic. Given how frail this sickness has made me feel, I’m quite content to be naive. See you in a few days.

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From Oxford University’s current online exhibit of Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows and their famous Bodleian Library:

In the Spring of 1907, Kenneth Grahame and his wife travelled to Cornwall for a long holiday. Their seven year old son Alastair, or ‘Mouse’, agreed to remain with his nanny, Miss Stott – but only if his father continued to tell him bedtime stories by post.

His father agreed and over the next few months sent Alastair fifteen letters recounting the reckless adventures of Mr Toad and the attempts of his long-suffering friends, Mole, Rat and Badger, to rescue him from his various scrapes and teach him how to behave properly. The descriptions of the river and surrounding landscape draw upon Grahame’s own fond childhood memories of the countryside around the Thames.

The early letters to Alastair begin and end affectionately, combining real news with the story of Mr Toad. However, following Alastair’s demand to be called ‘Michael Robinson’ instead of his real name (which he decided he did not like), the letters abandon their chatty tone and simply tell the story, ending in each case, ‘to be continued’.

The letters were carefully preserved by Miss Stott and given to Elspeth, who persuaded her husband that they would make a wonderful book. Grahame followed her advice, developing his narrative and publishing it in 1908 as The Wind in the Willows.

The original letters were given to the Bodleian Library by Elspeth Grahame in 1943, and can be read here.

Here is letter number 7 (click for a larger view):

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I had some time between classes this evening, and so went to the library to spend it. I found this poem and thought, “that’s true–but only when talking about Truth and True Beauty.” On what level is Emily Dickenson correct, and where is she wrong? Is it a question of epistemology? Can we know beauty without Truth? Is one just the aesthetic outcome of the other? I’m not comfortable with philosophy, so someone help me out here.

I died for Beauty–but was scarce
Adjusted in the Tomb
When One who died for Truth, was lain
In an adjoining Room–

He questioned softly “Why I failed”?
“For Beauty”, I replied–
“And I–for Truth–Themself are One–
We Brethren, are”, He said–

and so, as Kinsmen, met a Night–
We talked between the Rooms–
Until the Moss had reached our lips–
And covered up–our names–

The Norton Anthology of Poetry, Shorter Edition. Arthur M. Eastman, ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., Inc., 1970.

Beautiful. But is it True?

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Who said this, and of what is he speaking? Hint: it’s not Minneapolis.

The word fell upon my ear with peculiar and indescribable charm, like the gentle murmur of a low fountain stealing forth in the midst of roses, or the soft, sweet accents of an angel’s whisper in the bright, joyous dream of sleeping innocence… ‘Twas the name for which my soul had panted for years, as the hart [sic] panteth for the water-brooks. But where was _____?…

Nevertheless, I was confident it existed somewhere, and this its discovery would constitute the crowning glory of the present century, if not of all modern times. I knew it was bound to exist the very nature of things; that the symmetry and perfection of our planetary system would be incomplete without it; that the elements of material nature would long since have resolved themselves back into original chaos if there had been such a hiatus in creation as would have resulted from the leaving out _____. In fact, sir, I was overwhelmed with the conviction that _____ not only existed somewhere, but that wherever it was, it was a great and glorious place. I was convinced that the greatest calamity that ever befell the benighted nations of hte ancient world was in their having passed away without a knowledge of the actual existence of _____; that their fabled Atlantis, never seen save byt he hallowed vision of inspired poesy, was, in fact, but another name for _____…

I stumbled across this while looking for something to read to my kids at bedtime. I chose something else for them, but had to do something with this. Your guesses?

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Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre. Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights. Their sister Anne Brontë wrote this:

A Word To The Calvinists

by Anne Brontë

You may rejoice to think yourselves secure,

You may be grateful for the gift divine,

That grace unsought which made your black hearts pure

And fits your earthborn souls in Heaven to shine.

But is it sweet to look around and view

Thousands excluded from that happiness,

Which they deserve at least as much as you,

Their faults not greater nor their virtues less?

And wherefore should you love your God the more

Because to you alone his smiles are given,

Because He chose to pass the many o’er

And only bring the favoured few to Heaven?

And wherefore should your hearts more grateful prove

Because for all the Saviour did not die?

Is yours the God of justice and of love

And are your bosoms warm with charity?

Say does your heart expand to all mankind

And would you ever to your neighbour do,

– The weak, the strong, the enlightened and the blind -
­
As you would have your neighbour do to you?

And, when you, looking on your fellow men

Behold them doomed to endless misery,

How can you talk of joy and rapture then?

May God withhold such cruel joy from me!

That none deserve eternal bliss I know:

Unmerited the grace in mercy given,

But none shall sink to everlasting woe

That have not well deserved the wrath of Heaven.

And, O! there lives within my heart

A hope long nursed by me,

(And should its cheering ray depart

How dark my soul would be)

That as in Adam all have died

In Christ shall all men live

And ever round his throne abide

Eternal praise to give;

That even the wicked shall at last

Be fitted for the skies

And when their dreadful doom is past

To life and light arise.

I ask not how remote the day

Nor what the sinner’s woe

Before their dross is purged away,

Enough for me to know

That when the cup of wrath is drained,

The metal purified,

They’ll cling to what they once disdained,

And live by Him that died.

Comments are now open.

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Compare this, by R. Albert Mohler:

The Scripture does not even envision married couples who choose not to have children. The shocking reality is that some Christians have bought into this lifestyle and claim childlessness as a legitimate option. The rise of modern contraceptives has made this technologically possible. But the fact remains that though childlessness may be made possible by the contraceptive revolution, it remains a form of rebellion against God’s design and order. (R. Albert Mohler, Jr., “Deliberate Childlessness: Moral Rebellion With a New Face,” 07 June 2005)

With this, by David Benatar:

The central idea of this book is that coming into existence is always a serious harm… I shall argue that one implication of the view that coming into existence is always a serious harm is that we should not have children. Some anti-natalist positions are founded on either a dislike of children or on the interests of adults who have greater freedom and resources if they do not have and rear children. My anti-natalist view is different. It arises, not from a dislike of children, but instead from a concern to avoid the suffering of potential children and the adults they would become, even if not having those children runs counter to the interests of those who would have them. [David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: the Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006) 1, 8]

Conflicting worldviews indeed. A conflict which begs the question of not just recognition of biblical authority, but also of what calamities have befallen Mr. Benatar. Perhaps none. But it does make one wonder…

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