This week in 511 we took a visit to the special collections in Bird Library. For part of it we were lectured by Professor Kenneth Lavender about Special Collections, what they had in Bird Library and what he does for them. It definitely seemed really cool, especially with the historical documents and books he showed us. I cannot lie that I got some nerdy enjoyment in being that close to books from almost the beginning of written language to the 20^th century. Is that enjoyment enough to entice me to go in that direction? Immediate reaction was that it didn’t feel like enough, but now that I have given it a week my thoughts are just as muddled as they were before.

            The second part of the class we met the people in charge of preservation and they taught us about what they do to fix books and other print materials that are brought in to them, including special collections books. It is definitely a cool job to have, though personally I feel like my hands are too shaky for the special collections side of preservation. It is definitely an aspect of librarianship that interests me though. Being from a State and town whose main industry is paper making it was definitely interesting to hear about the history of paper making and how we have been doing it “less right” than the Japanese have for centuries.