Libraries

Being in the library is part of my job. I teach students how to use libraries and how to use what they find there. I order things we need. I lament things we don't have. Every once in a great while, I have time all to myself to actually use a good library for my own purposes. Saturday, I spent three heavenly hours in the CCM library. I was finishing up my Oxford Bibliography (motet article), and there were a few things I just had to see. But while I was there, I found so many things in the stacks that begged to be taken off the shelves and examined. I complied. I must have loaded my table three times in the short time I was there. When I finished a stack, I'd move it to the table next door and it would vanish. I used some old friends that I haven't had access to for a long time (Ludwig's Repertorium organorum recentioris for instance). Every time I have a day or half day there, I remember what it feels like to work so fluidly--to have a thought and be able to immediately follow it, resolve it, and move to the next one. To discover new sources and where they lead. To be able to pluck a score from the shelf and understand a piece of music on the spot.

This is the problem with having to rely on interlibrary loan, 24-hour retrieval, and UBORROW. It's not fluid. Ideas are jammed up for days and weeks. When the materials arrive, the moment has passed, and sometimes the idea has just withered. And I understand why it takes so long to finish most of my projects.

But this is just reality. My main purpose in writing about my day is simply to celebrate those wonderful few hours where everything is at hand and that wonderful access makes all the juices flow. It's one way of being fully alive, and I am grateful for those times.