A library moment

I am going to miss Middleton Library when I leave this campus job in May. I've told people for years my favorite perk of working on campus was the library and they all thought I was crazy.

It was the first place I was excited about when I started college in 1987. The same copy of the Susan Sontag Artaud anthology is on the shelf with the same stain from where I spilled my first cappucino on it, nursing my malleable adulthood in the terrible cafe they had on the second floor of the Union.



I still like the sturdy, academic glow of bound journals. I always wondered if anyone ever looks at these or do they sit there like batteries, waiting to be hooked up to the right flashlight.



I love this view from the fourth floor. I wish there was a zip line from here to the tip of whatever that tower is atop the architecture building.



On my way out, I saw one of my former students on his laptop in the fourth floor lobby. I was amazed. Most students only know the library as having computer labs and never even venture past the second floor. Which is okay; it is the way of things.

That said, I made an Intro to Mass Media assignment once where students had to check out a book and submit a photo outside of the library with themselves and the book. Many of them captioned the photo with "Last time I'm ever doing this!"

I checked out an Artaud book like old times, Harry Crews' FLORIDA FRENZY where he called the South "the hookworm and rickets belt" and Denis Johnson's RESUSCITATION OF A HANGED MAN. Hopefully this spate of activity will keep them afloat a little longer.