words, words, words

Another two-fer.

An article on the Google book inventory project and a complimentary article on the future of libraries (as places of worship).

Last night I stumbled across an incomplete collection of Shakespeare as commented by my amatuer-Shakespeare-scholar great aunt. They are the most elaborately commented books I have ever seen. Underlined in four different colors, in different thicknesses, lines connecting sections drawn with rulers, inserted newspaper clippings regarding performances, an index of favorite passages, references to different translations, folio versions, et al. Crazy impressive. The sad part is that she died before I was born, and I really wish i had met her. I've heard stories through the family...she was the eldest daughter to my great grandfather, and allowed to complete high school, but then told that women don't attend university. So she worked as a secretary all her life while reading feverishly in her private life. Upon retiring, she enrolled at Stockholm University and studied English Literature, then Linguistics, then Phonetics, and finally Accoustics at the Engineering College. So sad, too cool.