What would you like me to blog about? Are my research updates boring you?
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What would you like me to blog about? Are my research updates boring you?
Well, I’m not bored… (but I might be biased).
More about special collections! (And do you find the BL staff a particularly morose bunch, or is that just me?)
Emerging from the lurk to let you know that I wouldn’t mind reading about your special collections adventures. But I’d understand if the desire has passed.
And I haven’t been bored by your research commentary. Interested, actually.
Not at all boring. Keep them coming!
Research can sometimes be such a lonely and isolating experience, not to mention strange. As someone who has just started to get to grips with this process, it is always interesting – even inspiring – to hear other people share their experiences in the archive.
Have you read Dust by Carolyn Steedman?
Boring? Nooooooo. Carry on as before, I’m getting plenty of vicarious enjoyment so far.
If you come across any particularly virulent marginalia, though, be sure to blog that.
actually, since I’m in the middle of teaching summer school (which has been totally kicking my ass) I’ve been vicariously enjoying your research, since I’m not doing any of my own right now.
Glad to know people are still reading. Thanks for chiming in.
I have not found the BL staff to be particularly morose (at least, not in the Humanities 1 room); they’re a fairly young crowd, in fact, and somewhat prone to smile if you crack a joke.
Since I have run into friends here, it doesn’t feel as isolated as previous research trips have, though most of the time it’s just me and a book. My back is killing me, today, which I suppose means I’ve been appropriately diligent at staying in my seat, hunched over my materials. Probably need to correct my posture.
I have not come across any marginalia at all, unfortunately. I think for the most part, major libraries want clean copies of their materials (unless they were owned by famous people) and the evangelical material I research is unlikely to have been owned by anyone famous (I suspect). The Methodist Archives in Manchester (where I’ll be soon) are better for that sort of thing.
And, no, I have read Steedman’s Dust, although I’ve seen it around. It looks interesting. Is it any good?
Maybe it’s something about the MSS room then; and maybe also that I’ve only ever been there for a day or two at a time and not had time to get to know them. In fact, your Humanities 1 people sound quite like the folks in the PRO Map Room on the top floor, where the atmosphere is (I gather) rather different from the main reading room downstairs which is all very anonymous and automated.
_Dust_ is a fantastic book (I blogged about it the other day).
Well, I enjoyed it. But I have to declare a bias as my supervisor is one of the general editors of the series and is acknowledged as giving her the idea for the book!
That said, the piece called ”Something she called a fever’: Michelet, Derrida and Dust’ is a great favourite of mine and the quality of her writing is outstanding (not to be universally expected of we historians, unfortunately).
It’s definitely worth a look.
I like the research stuff. Keep it up.