Subject/Object

As I feel myself closer towards having a position, (many interviews, some of them very good), I have been thinking a lot more about the practical side of being an academic librarian. Public service, of course. As well, the kind of training that seems to be suggested by library writers more in the past: having a general knowledge founded on wide reading.

I noted that in the last two days I have learned two things which could later help me offer service doing research. The context of the first instance is this book review I have to write for Library Journal on the life of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Now, not being an English major, Hopkins is enough of an outside character in literature that I haven’t heard of him. So I was required to get some books out of the library and read about his life and work so I can evaluating the biography. And another piece of knowledge learned, much of his life story can be explained by the influence of the Oxford Movement, also called the Tractarian Movement. This I had not heard of either. So now I have the beginnings of knowledge and a vocabulary for this area, and can being to speak with readers on this topic.

The second case was the theory that women’s liberation, education, and empowerment contributes to the health of her and her children, and ultimately their IQ, contributing to the Flynn Effect or climbing IQs. This I learned from reading a review of two books on birth control in the New York Review of Books. I had known about the Flynn Effect, but now I know it has a name.

In an interview last week, I had a little bit of an intimate moment, where I told an anecdote about how when I was young I used to read the encyclopedia almost exclusively. To go into more depth here, I remember that I would read volumes and articles out of order, without any systematic approach. But over the years in my parents house I must have read all of the articles which were interesting to me. I can remember enjoying history, politics and war, anthropology and archaeology, linguistics and particularly historical language development. I don’t know if I read about philosophy as it is practiced by the academicians, but I do remember reading about Justice, Freedom, Democracy and other articles of that kind.

Preparing for the interview, thinking about my passion, that memory strongly affected me. I kind of felt at peace with where I was going and what I was spending my intellectual effort on. The more of the most important works in each area I can read, the better I will be able to serve. What kind of special gift is that, on top of everything else?

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