看见Williams学院图书馆所弄的极有创意的Orientation很是欣赏。(翻译在此)
联想到近日翻看的两本书都对图书馆所拥有的历史沧桑感倍加推崇:由Matthew Battles写的“Library——an unquiet history”一书当然应该如此,作者把图书馆的书进书出比作受到读者需求这种重力吸引的潮汐,也像是一个会呼吸有生命的存在物,书进书出就好比那匀静的吐纳呼吸,这些比喻很是不错。(But the library—especially one so vast—is no mere cabinet of curiosities; it’s a world, complete and uncompletable, and it is filled with secrets. Like a world, it has its changes and its seasons, which belie the permanence that ordered ranks of books imply. Tugged by the gravity of readers’ desires, books flow in and out of the library like the tides. The people who shelve the books in Widener talk about the library’s breathing—at the start of the term, the stacks exhale books in great swirling clouds; at end of term, the library inhales, and the books fly back. So the library is a body, too, the pages of books pressed together like organs in the darkness. p.5)。
该书作者Matthew Battles是Harvard大学Houghton图书馆的古籍馆员(rare-books librarian),而正是Harvard大学图书馆的一层浪漫伤感的故事引发了另一为来自台湾的哈佛女才子的一番抒情。
三联书店出的童元方“水流花静”一书中有一篇“泰坦尼克号上的真故事——怀德纳图书馆与哈佛大学”,优美的笔调记述了Widener图书馆令人感慨的历史,其中不乏对于图书馆这种地方的敬畏之情:“翌日好像刚从梦境出来,已站在怀德纳图书馆(Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library)的崇阶之下了。仰望铁铸雕花的大门,敬畏之心陡然而生。”
应该说这是两本值得一读的书!