Great story, TC. Brings back memories of how we get off on the career we follow and one of the half-dozen fears I have, this one being that libraries you and I knew will go the way of hobby shops, book stores, and other niche means to get caught up in something magical. My career in research (behaviors and attitudes of gifted college stu…
Great story, TC. Brings back memories of how we get off on the career we follow and one of the half-dozen fears I have, this one being that libraries you and I knew will go the way of hobby shops, book stores, and other niche means to get caught up in something magical. My career in research (behaviors and attitudes of gifted college students and the remainder in disability and rehabilitation research) and policy started in the open-stacks at the University of Illinois when I was working on my doctoral dissertation. As an aural learner, I didn't learn to read until my senior year in college, bought my first book when I was admitted to graduate school, and learned to read for comprehension as I was writing my proposal for dissertation research. To my amazement, there was so much more available and worth reading than listening to others who I considered smart or well educated. In my college days, one looked up a reference in a card catalogue, submitted your the to a librarian, and if it was in, checked it out for anywhere between a couple of hours and maybe 3-5 days. To my amazement, graduate students were allowed to go into the library stacks, pick out, and most important for me, read anything and everything one might find in the nearness of the Dewey Decimal System reference number of the book or journal I went to get. To my professors amazement, I came to be learned and able because I stood or sat on the floors of the libraries, thumbing through and gathering stuff somewhat related with greater depth than were I to only rely upon books and research that fit with current thought on my research. I read, thought about, and began the downward spiral that involves buying books by the yard, rather than with a keen sense of what must be read. I remain positively proud to have been confused by what I once knew when faced with related ideas and links to theory and fiction and can't stop learning now from reading and writing in this 8th decade. So, onto my fear. Universities digitalized their collections and while inter-library loan is an amazing opportunity, now, I still find myself standing (or sitting on the floor) at my local library or in the stacks at the university where I retired, thumbing and reading stuff I didn't know. Soon, I fear, the cost of having chairs and tables and having to check out and in books will go the way of the local bookstore and the Borders of my adult world. Another aural learner will miss the opportunity to thumb through and absorb seemingly unrelated writing and get somewhere they would never have expected in their head or in their career.
Wow. what a great post. I didn't have the reading deficiency, but I definitely educated myself during the 12 years of Publick Misedumacation in the stacks every other Saturday at the Denver Public Library, wandering around and reading whatever interested me in science fiction, history, aviation, etc.
Wow, a good friend that I thought was just uninterested in reading/school, turned out to have a serious learning disability with a horrific birth history. He was very bright, reading just not his thing. Could take apart and reassemble anything with a motor. Since school was not hard for me, I had no clue til I worked at high school and met others with different strengths and weaknesses
as somebody who considered himself a sort of social outcast, I spent every moment in the local public libraries I possibly could. when I'd read everything I wanted to read in the kids' section, I sought (and of course received) "permission" to take out books from the "adult" section, where I discovered the Reference section and historical novels in the fiction aisles.
the magic in a library, of course, isn't so much in finding the title you've searched out in the card catalog, but in the discoveries you make among the other books close-by.
now that libraries tend to have fewer and fewer physical books, I fear that this is an experience people just won't have. I feel sorry for them. and I have no idea what the final result is going to be, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna SUCK.
my best friend is an accomplished linguist and when I complain to him about the abominations I see and hear perpetrated on some of my favorite English words, he nods sagely and says "languages always change." my answer, which has become standard, is "yeah, and a lot of the time, they DEVOLVE." he doesn't disagree, and one piece of proof is that whenever someone on television uses the "I should have went" construction (increasingly common), we cringe in perfect simultaneity.
I have some real respect for John McWhorter (who is nothing like as "Conservative" as he's portrayed as being), but I saw him recently talk about how Shakespeare should be performed in everyday English if most people are going to find the plays amusing; his other option is that people PREPARE for seeing a play by Shakespeare. obviously, the latter point of view is correct. but what's the big fucking deal? so...you PREPARE. I've taken to watching a lot of Shakespeare on tv with closed captions, and I think it's probably the best way. but why is this considered so undesirable, this need to prepare? I don't get it. or, if I do, I prefer not to dwell on it.
so yeah, I get all of it.
and my social outcast status was the result of a stammer which itself is just the flagship symptom of my own neurodiversity. I can't skate either. that I learned to ride a bicycle still amazes me.
I agree 109% but I know two people who do the “I have went” thing (they were never on television, can’t imagine) and they are not ignoramuses. One skipped eighth grade years ago because she was so smart, the other was just so blatantly learning disabled. One loved school and learning, the other not so much. Still I cringe but dare not do more. As to Shakespeare being performed in everyday English, spare me. I prefer not to be so “amused.” Just requires more than a nanosecond second of attention…
Great story, TC. Brings back memories of how we get off on the career we follow and one of the half-dozen fears I have, this one being that libraries you and I knew will go the way of hobby shops, book stores, and other niche means to get caught up in something magical. My career in research (behaviors and attitudes of gifted college students and the remainder in disability and rehabilitation research) and policy started in the open-stacks at the University of Illinois when I was working on my doctoral dissertation. As an aural learner, I didn't learn to read until my senior year in college, bought my first book when I was admitted to graduate school, and learned to read for comprehension as I was writing my proposal for dissertation research. To my amazement, there was so much more available and worth reading than listening to others who I considered smart or well educated. In my college days, one looked up a reference in a card catalogue, submitted your the to a librarian, and if it was in, checked it out for anywhere between a couple of hours and maybe 3-5 days. To my amazement, graduate students were allowed to go into the library stacks, pick out, and most important for me, read anything and everything one might find in the nearness of the Dewey Decimal System reference number of the book or journal I went to get. To my professors amazement, I came to be learned and able because I stood or sat on the floors of the libraries, thumbing through and gathering stuff somewhat related with greater depth than were I to only rely upon books and research that fit with current thought on my research. I read, thought about, and began the downward spiral that involves buying books by the yard, rather than with a keen sense of what must be read. I remain positively proud to have been confused by what I once knew when faced with related ideas and links to theory and fiction and can't stop learning now from reading and writing in this 8th decade. So, onto my fear. Universities digitalized their collections and while inter-library loan is an amazing opportunity, now, I still find myself standing (or sitting on the floor) at my local library or in the stacks at the university where I retired, thumbing and reading stuff I didn't know. Soon, I fear, the cost of having chairs and tables and having to check out and in books will go the way of the local bookstore and the Borders of my adult world. Another aural learner will miss the opportunity to thumb through and absorb seemingly unrelated writing and get somewhere they would never have expected in their head or in their career.
Wow. what a great post. I didn't have the reading deficiency, but I definitely educated myself during the 12 years of Publick Misedumacation in the stacks every other Saturday at the Denver Public Library, wandering around and reading whatever interested me in science fiction, history, aviation, etc.
Addendum. I didn't know I couldn't read, because I knew or could recognize the answers and seemed sorta smart. We were fortunate.
Wow, a good friend that I thought was just uninterested in reading/school, turned out to have a serious learning disability with a horrific birth history. He was very bright, reading just not his thing. Could take apart and reassemble anything with a motor. Since school was not hard for me, I had no clue til I worked at high school and met others with different strengths and weaknesses
we were.
as somebody who considered himself a sort of social outcast, I spent every moment in the local public libraries I possibly could. when I'd read everything I wanted to read in the kids' section, I sought (and of course received) "permission" to take out books from the "adult" section, where I discovered the Reference section and historical novels in the fiction aisles.
the magic in a library, of course, isn't so much in finding the title you've searched out in the card catalog, but in the discoveries you make among the other books close-by.
now that libraries tend to have fewer and fewer physical books, I fear that this is an experience people just won't have. I feel sorry for them. and I have no idea what the final result is going to be, but I'm pretty sure it's gonna SUCK.
my best friend is an accomplished linguist and when I complain to him about the abominations I see and hear perpetrated on some of my favorite English words, he nods sagely and says "languages always change." my answer, which has become standard, is "yeah, and a lot of the time, they DEVOLVE." he doesn't disagree, and one piece of proof is that whenever someone on television uses the "I should have went" construction (increasingly common), we cringe in perfect simultaneity.
I have some real respect for John McWhorter (who is nothing like as "Conservative" as he's portrayed as being), but I saw him recently talk about how Shakespeare should be performed in everyday English if most people are going to find the plays amusing; his other option is that people PREPARE for seeing a play by Shakespeare. obviously, the latter point of view is correct. but what's the big fucking deal? so...you PREPARE. I've taken to watching a lot of Shakespeare on tv with closed captions, and I think it's probably the best way. but why is this considered so undesirable, this need to prepare? I don't get it. or, if I do, I prefer not to dwell on it.
so yeah, I get all of it.
and my social outcast status was the result of a stammer which itself is just the flagship symptom of my own neurodiversity. I can't skate either. that I learned to ride a bicycle still amazes me.
I agree 109% but I know two people who do the “I have went” thing (they were never on television, can’t imagine) and they are not ignoramuses. One skipped eighth grade years ago because she was so smart, the other was just so blatantly learning disabled. One loved school and learning, the other not so much. Still I cringe but dare not do more. As to Shakespeare being performed in everyday English, spare me. I prefer not to be so “amused.” Just requires more than a nanosecond second of attention…
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Damn the lot and louts.
Thank you for sharing, Fred. And how amazing what you accomplished…
You are kind.
She is kind but truthful
she is indeed.