I love libraries and librarians. I was going to write “good librarians”, but after using libraries my entire life, I can’t remember a bad experience with a librarian. (I find that statement to be quite incredulous, even to myself, understanding the bell curve of human behavior and performance in any profession.) I am almost always impressed with their helpfulness and ability to navigate the labyrinths of a library and other sources of stored knowledge.
UW-Madison Law Librarian Bonnie Schucha’s WisBlawg, http://www.law.wisc.edu/blogs/wisblawg/ has interesting information regarding Wisconsin law, including recent articles by UW-Madison law professors.
State Law Librarian Jane Colwin and her staff at the Wisconsin State Law Library are impressive. Their service to patrons rivals the best of the best, in both the public and private sector. Find them at: http://wilawlibrary.gov/ .
My love of librarians, I am sure, is primed by my nostalgia for the times I spent exploring new worlds, not available to me on the farm, in a quiet carrel among the musty stacks in the Memorial Union Library and other similar libraries. My thanks to all the librarians who have helped me over the years.
“There were nights in the library when I would look at the footnotes in some heroically constructed tome, and know that the spirit of the rigorous scholar who had written it must know its regret, for each footnote is a step onto deeper meaning, which terrifies the order of progression of the scholar’s logic, until there is no point in experience, nor any word, from which one cannot set out to explore the totality of the All, if indeed there be an All and not an expanding mystery.” Norman Mailer, The Deer Park
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