Idle musings of a bookseller

We were in the library briefly yesterday, and I was looking over the new arrivals, as is my wont, and ran across this:

To be sure, it is tempting to think of liberty as us against the world, which the notion of negative freedom allows us to do. If the barriers are the only problem, then all must be right with us. That makes us feel good. We think that we would be free if not for a world outside that does us wrong. But is the removal of something in the world really enough to liberate us? Is it not as important, perhaps even more important, to add things?

If we want to be free, we will have to affirm, not just deny. Sometimes we will have to destroy, but more often we will need to create. Most often we will need to adapt both the world and ourselves, on the basis of what we know and value.… Virtue is an inseparable part of freedom.—Timothy Snyder, On Freedom, xiii

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Yep, "Virtue is an inseparable part of freedom." We seem to be forgetting that in our nation right now, where money is the be-all and end-all of value. But, as every empire has discovered, it isn't enough.
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Nonetheless, we should not make the mistake of thinking that the underlying principles are any more prescriptive than the laws themselves. Walter Kaiser, for example, proposes what he calls a principalizing model of hermeneutics, wherein a particular command is analyzed for its underlying (moral) principle, which is then extrapolated into a timeless moral truth, which can then be applied specifically to any given circumstance. The methodology of this approach is flawed.— The Lost World of the Israelite Conquest, 93

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They then go on for four or so pages explaining why. I'm not going to summarize those here. If you are really interested, I suggest either buying the book (the link above goes directly to the publisher and I don't get a commission) or checking it out of your local library (if they don't have it, you can use interlibrary loan).

I'm not sure how convinced I am by their arguments. Maybe that's why I'm not going to summarize them?
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"Our great public libraries and their counterparts in schools, prisons, colleges and hospitals are founded on a powerful idea--the idea of equality and democracy, of universal empowerment for working people.... A modern library is the Common Room at the heart of its community, supporting learning, health and well-being, helping people get online, use Council services. It brings people together of all ages and faiths, helps overcome loneliness and social isolation in every town, city and village the length and breadth of our nation.... How a civilized nation treats its libraries is a barometer of how it values its citizens."—Nick Poole, CEO of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals

We moved to Red Wing, MN back in December. One of the joys of this new location is a much larger library. Of course, being interested in obscure stuff, I still live on Interlibrary Loan, but being closer to a large metro area means time in transit for those loans is a lot less : ) Anyway, all that to say, the library recently (or I just recently noticed it) put up this poster:

Apparently somebody suggested that libraries are vanity building projects. And a librarian took the time to respond. The whole thing is worth a read (even though it is longish), but this paragraph jumped out at me:

It will simply not be enough for our colleges to crank out graduates described by one of my colleagues as “drones with smartphones.” We need our librarians to work alongside faculty in helping our students climb the ladder of digital literacy to information fluency, and from there, to equip them with the cognitive grounding in critical thinking so important for taking those deep dives into knowing and understanding. Unless further advances produce e-reading devices that can more fully engage the human brain’s perceptual and cognitive subsystems, solid research evidence compels the conclusion that we must provide our students with a substantial exposure to printed texts. (emphasis original)

Ohhh!! Book lust! Just ran across this in a book I'm editing:

Sievers' Law and the History of Semivowel Syllabicity in Indo-European and Ancient Greek
P. J. Barber
Oxford Classical Monographs
Hardcover
Published: 28 January 2014
464 Pages
ISBN: 9780199680504

This book is an investigation of how semivowels were realised in Indo-European and in early Greek. More specifically, it examines the extent to which Indo-European *i and *y were independent phonemes, in what respects their alternation was predictable, and how this situation changed as Indo-European developed into Greek.

Here's the link: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/sievers-law-and-the-history-of-semivowel-syllabicity-in-indo-european-and-ancient-greek-9780199680504?cc=us&lang=en&#

But the price...OUCH! $185.00! Oxford, why do you do this? Interlibrary loan! Closest place is Duluth, at least according to WorldCat. I wonder if that library does ILL? Update: Nope. According to MNLink, it doesn't exist for ILL : ( Guess I'll have to talk to the librarians...

The agony of being 5 hours from the nearest research library. But the setting more than makes up for it! After all, with ILL (if I'm willing to wait for a week) I get the best of both worlds.

I'm in the process of sending this BookNews e-mail. Thought those of you not subscribed would like to know, too. And why aren't you subscribed? : )

October is Theological Libraries month and Eisenbrauns wants your theological library to celebrate by saving cash. We're offering all theological libraries a one-time chance to save 30% on everything we have in stock. Yes, everything in stock! All the library needs to do to take advantage of the sale is put ATLA in the purchase order field when they order from our web site. The discount will be applied by our customer service reps before the order ships. Remember though, this is for libraries only. Let your favorite theological librarian know!

A week or three ago, we were in the Grand Marais Public Library, picking up an interlibrary loan book or two or three or...well, you get the idea, when I got to talking to the head librarian. One of the things we discussed was the Internet comic, Unshelved. It's a comic about public libraries and the experiences of the staff. Fun stuff.

Steve, the head librarian, started talking about some of his more bizarred experiences. The one that stood out the most was the time a person came into the library, pulled out a bag and began making a salad. Yep, making a salad. Not just eating one, but actually constructing one. With Italian Dressing, no less! Not a thick dressing that would stay on the salad when tossed, but a oily, splattery Italian one.

Well, needless to say, eating in the library is against the rules! So, Steve walked over and told them they weren't allowed to do it. They acted surprised, after all, isn't that what a library is for?

I thought the story would make a good Unshelved episode and told Steve to submit it. He said that he wouldn't, but gave me permission to do so. So I did.

Guess what? They liked it and today, they published a strip with a salad making patron. Go look at it and think of Grand Marais : )

I love books—hardback, paperback, yes, even e-books. I love the ease of carrying a large number of books that the e-book option gives me. I read them on my iPad, my MacBook, and my desktop computer. I read them as iBooks, Kindle books, Nook books, PDFs, Google books, even CBD's e-reader. I still prefer physical books, and I prefer PDFs in e-books.

But I've been running into a problem lately. I depend heavily on interlibrary loan (ILL) for lots of the books I read. I don't want to purchase books that I will only read once and never refer to again. And our local library isn't likely to purchase things like Pardee's The Ugaritic Texts and the Origins of West-Semitic Literary Composition or Rowe's Acts commentary World Upside Down! After all, we only have 1500 residents and maybe 3 people would even consider reading them. Not a wise use of library funds. So I use interlibrary loan.

But lately I've been running into a problem: e-books. Specifically, academic e-books. One of the big benefits of e-books, so they say, is that they can be accessed anywhere, that the Internet is leveling the economic barriers to a good education. Well, kind of. There is no doubt that some of the offerings through places like iTunes U are great. I've listened to some of the lectures from places like Yale; good stuff.

But have you ever tried to access an electronic book (EBSCO or ebrary) from a computer that is not located on campus? Have you ever succeeded if you aren't a current student/faculty member? Probably not.

That's a problem. If it were a physical book, I could request it via ILL and have it in a couple of weeks. Not so with an electronic one. For example, I recently tried to request a copy of Bloomsbury [formerly Continuum] Companion to Historical Linguistics via ILL. There are three copies available in Minnesota—two via the U of Minnesota and one in a library consortium. Not bad for an esoteric book like that...

So I tried to request it via ILL on the Internet. No success. So I went into the library to ask them to request it (they know me quite well...). This was about a month ago. I received the book yesterday. From the University of Oklahoma! A quick look at Worldcat shows that there are only 32 libraries with the physical book! Granted, that was a quick look; I'm sure I could uncover more if I looked more carefully...but the point remains the same: how can an independent scholar get a copy? The tendency, especially in linguistics and other more "esoteric" subjects, is toward e-books.

I understand the logic. Space is expensive and limited in a library. It makes sense to use that space on books that will be accessed by more than a handful of people. But what about access for those who aren't the privileged few? What about access for those of us who are 2.5 hours from an academic library and 5 hours from a really good one?

Just an
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