library lust

Jeff and me yesterday at dinner. Photo by Ginny.

Every year, my mom-in-law Ginny takes Jeff and me to Shawfest at Niagara-on-the-Lake. We usually do something before the play, like cycling or shopping or sightseeing. This year we decided to check out Riverbrink, home of the Samuel E. Weir collection of art, sculpture and antiques before seeing "The Importance of Seeing Earnest."

The play was wonderful. I've seen it before several times, but never fail to be impressed by the clever writing.


Stone cat in the backyard of our B&B.

The highlight of the visit for me, however, was the library in Riverbrink. As Ginny and Jeff chatted with the curator, I browsed through some of the books. One of my novels waiting for revision involves the writings of a young girl living in 19th century eastern Ontario, and I've been trying to find source documents which will help give me examples of how young people wrote back then and in that area, what they typically had for dinner, what school lessons were like, etc.

I started out browsing in the Riverbrink library just because I like libraries in general, but then got more and more excited when I realized that several books contained EXACTLY THE KIND OF HISTORICAL INFO I NEED. I finally interrupted the conversation to ask the curator if I could borrow a piece of paper (the only piece of paper I had in my purse was a mini-post-it note, which I filled up pretty quickly despite trying to write in very tiny letters).

When I explained why I was so excited, the curator got excited and started pulling out more books that were EXACTLY WHAT I NEEDED. A few looked like they might be available in the Toronto public library, but most appeared to be limited editions or rare books. I'm hoping I can track the titles down in Toronto, and the curator suggested the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library.

Sadly, we only had about 30 minutes before the building closed. It was agony to have to leave all those wonderful books behind, augh.

But I did write down all the titles, and now I'm all excited about having a valid excuse to hang out at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, which I had always been curious about when I was a student at the University of Toronto.

I'm such a library geek.


Jeff and Ginny.

June 2004 comments: Read Blatherchat | Post in Blatherchat | Livejournal comments