NU Libraries has employed many students and graduates throughout the years. Please share your memories of working in the Library, no matter what year you graduated, by posting a comment under this post.
As a recent graduate myself, I’ll start: I highly enjoyed the visit of Patrick Tracey, who came to give a Meet the Author talk in April of 2009. His book Stalking Irish Madness is an unsettling account of his family’s long history of schizophrenia, which in turn relates to the prevalence of mental illness all over the country of Ireland. His talk– like his book– was partly autobiographical and partly journalistic. There was something powerful about listening to this world-weary looking guy, with a monotone sort of voice that still managed to convey compassion, while looking out the window at the sun setting over the smokestack at a nearby building, blowing fumes into the air…
As minute and eccentric as it may seem, that is a very special memory of mine from working at the library.
Please see our notice in the recent Library Supporters newsletter as well.
My very first memory of visiting Snell Library was interviewing ten years ago. There was a big snow storm and I trekked in. Unbeknownst to me was that campus was closed because of the Nor’easter. No one could reach me because I was couch surfing at a friend’s place and had no phone (poor grad student). Luckily Associate Dean for User Services Lesley Milner was there to greet me. We chatted and went for pizza. I came back and the rest is history!!!
One of my strongest library memories is the talk given by professor William Miles on his book “My African Horse Problem.” This was a very interesting talk chiefly because he provided powerpoint slides and combined with a sort of costume-performance routine. Sounds kind of silly, but it was very fun to videotape, which is exactly what I was doing that evening. I remember looking through the viewfinder on the videocamera while it was trained on the screen displaying the powerpoint slides. I panned back to Professor Miles and suddenly he’s changed in to an African tribal costume. That was unexpected. And funny.
I spent a lot of time in Dodge Library as an undergraduate, camped out in a big easy chair overlooking the quad. As a commuter Dodge became my “dorm!” Did most of my studying, research, and writing there. Spent a lot of time in the music section’s listening room when I was taking a lot of Shakespeare. Helped to hear the plays as I was reading them. It is clear to me that my early days in Dodge and my co-op at the MIT Humanities Library launched me on a path!
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