open stacks

All admit it - I'm lame. Or a geek. Or whatever. Yesterday I worked in a library here in the Big City with Open Stacks. Gasp. It's been a long time since I've had that particular, not-to-be-underrated luxury. My primary libraries in the UK were non-circulating request libraries, and the public library I've been hobbling along with is similiarly closed-stacks. Yet, joy of joys, I needed Journal of Pedantic Minutiae (34:1), and the public library provided me with one-day access to heaven. Not only that, I suspect there's almost nobody working in my field (well, there aren't that many of us, and my sub-field is sufficiently obscure to ensure the core of what I'm looking for is always available) at said library, because Everything was on the shelf. And hadn't been checked out in years. A 10 hour day in the stacks, happily surrounded by sloping and sliding piles of books by the end of the day. Not that I got any writing done for the upcoming paper, but damn, I feel like my brain works again. Priceless. Even better, it occurred to me to ask a friend who very generously has dragged out a master's degree in Philosophy over an ungodly amount of time while he works full time as a lawyer if I might avail myself of his student privileges. Rarely have I been so pleased to damage my back while lugging 8 large, heavy volumes back to my private den of academic iniquity through 14 degree weather. Hmm. Procrastination over, I'm back to work. But surrounded by a pleasant semi-circle of useful books...