Elizabeth Skene

On Sunday I took myself to the zoo & spend a lovely afternoon wandering around, looking at animals & feeling relaxed. The zoo was surprisingly large & pretty crowded, but I enjoyed watching all the families there. I didn’t see any other foreigners & I don’t think I attracted too much attention, so it was nice to feel inconspicuous for a while.

As always, many more pictures on my Flickr page.

My friends’ band, Natural Monuments, just came out with a few digital singles. Their first album, For Sanity’s Sake, quickly became one of my favorites & got a lot of play. It now brings back vivid memories of driving around Jackson, MI in the summer, windows down, singly loudly.

You can download the new songs for free from this website & check out some of their older stuff on their Myspace.

Here’s the press release they’ve written up:

On their first release since 2007′s For Sanity’s Sake EP, Natural Monuments have added a slight punk edge to their summery pop hooks. The drumming is still precise and quirky, but their guitars have upped the amount of chime and jangle ala R.E.M., The Feelies and The Byrds, creating a sound somewhere between classic Kinks and Slumberland Records bands

I’m lucky to have such talented friends!

Back in January, I made a challenge to myself – read 50 books in 2010. Excited, I made a Twitter account for reviews, complied a long “to read” list, began winter semester & promptly stopped reading.

Well, now that I’m here all alone in Egypt, I’ve started reading quite a bit – 5 books in the two & a half weeks I’ve been here so far! My total is up to 7, which is a long ways off track, but I’m hoping to have 25 books read by the end of July. It’s a lot, but I have a significant amount of time on my hands, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

Lastly, I’m not sure I ever put up pictures of my newest tattoos. A lovely birthday present from my husband, my half-sleeve is nearly complete. I added a skull, another book & some flowers. It truly has become an “information sleeve” – a card catalog representing libraries, a skull & book representing archives & birds from a book representing dissemination of information.

All of it’s been done by Frank at Depot Town Tattoo – I high recommend you check out the shop if you’re ever interested in getting tattooed, they’re all amazing artists & wonderful people!

Break time’s over – back to work!

xoxoxo

I’ve been waiting for this day for a long, long time.

It’s the day I got a tattoo of my card catalog!

Many thanks to Frank at Depot Town Tattoo.

It takes up most of my arm, making it really hard to photograph without twisting & distorting the lines, but you get the idea. It’s also a little swollen & bumpy right now, but everything will be beautiful once it’s healed. It says “peace & knowledge” in the banner. ["Peace through knowledge" was too long for my little arm]. You can see the rest of the set on my Flickr.

Some have expressed concern that tattoos might be a hindrance in job finding, but I figure this proves I’m really dedicated to the field.

And if all else fails, I’ll still be the coolest bookworm on the block.

Not sure if it’s a fun allergy, restlessness or another one of those unique personality traits, but I’m ready for break to be over, the weekend to end & to get back to my life.

In an attempt to get my brain back in working order:

• I read a very interesting article titled “Emerging technologies for the provision of access to archives: issues, challenges and ideas.”

• Also, in case you thought archivists were boring & without a sense of humor, check out Archival Haiku. Over 50 clever haikus about the profession, including gems such as:

Endowment way down
Budget cuts everywhere. Here,
A silverfish sighs

&

Little old lady with bun
Archivist stereotype
Not this wild woman

• The photos are of Kabul, Afghanistan 1969 & 2009 posted at Briefly Mused Upon are a sobering reminder of what was & what remains.

• This isn’t quite academic, but it’s Sunday, which means there’s set of postcards up on Post Secret.

• The NY Times has a really interesting graphic that shows the big stories, mavericks, verbs, nouns & such over the past 10 years:

Now I’m going to take advantage of this lazy Sunday & tailor some flannel shirts. It’s 18 degrees right now, but last night it was down to at least 7, plus windchill.

Here’s a hint of what I’ll be doing tomorrow…

Cheers!

For all intents & purposes, I’m DONE!
Monday I have class, but we’re just giving presentations on our papers & I’ve already presented mine. Friday I have a group paper due, but we know exactly what we’re going write, so it won’t be too much work. So although I have a few things to do, none of them will cause any stress.

Yesterday, a group of went out to celebrate the end of the semester. I came home around 7pm, laid down to take a nap for an hour or so & ended up sleeping until 10:30 this morning. Ok, I did get up at 2am & eat some ice cream, but I slept uninterrupted otherwise. I guess I didn’t realize how exhausted I was, but I feel much better after 15 & 1/2 hours of sleep!

Here are some things I’ve found that are cool:

Archives Without Borders International Congress
This is being held next August in the Hague, so there’s really no way for me to go, but I would LOVE to.

The Congress will focus on the importance of archives for good governance in an international context, where their significance transcends national boundaries in the globalized information society.

December 10th was international human rights day, celebrating the 61st anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Available in 360 languages, it is the most translated document in the world.

In calling for a new culture of international relations, based on full respect of human rights, human security, the responsibility to protect and sustainable development, I wish to emphasize that we must not and cannot forget those who are denied these rights. It is incumbent upon us to champion their cause. (UDHR)

A short, but amazing article about successful reforestation efforts in Columbia. They took an area where it was considered “impossible to plant trees in such acidic, inhospitable soil” &, using mycorrhizal fungi, were able to successfully plant 8,000 hecta acre of trees, resulting in 10% more precipitation in the area, making the area the top supplier of clean drinking water. Awesome.

I got a twitter account! Fancy.

Notebook Doodles generously offered to do 100 doodles as a Christmas gift to her blog readers. I requested one that has the text of my tattoo. I love it!!

HAPPY SATURDAY!

I’ve done very little lately besides homework, namely my research paper. I so badly want it to be good & to appear smart. Plus, I find it all so interesting that I don’t mind researching. Although, the mechanics of writing a paper are less than enjoyable.

I’ve come across so many beautiful quotes about books, libraries, archives & records that I thought I’d share one of my favorites. This is from a speech at the Library of Congress by Barbara Tuchman:

ooks are the carriers of civilization. Without books, history is silent, literature dumb, science crippled, thought and speculation at a standstill. Without books, the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are engines of change, windows on the world, and (as a poet has said) ‘light-houses erected in the seas of time.’ They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the treasures of the mind. Books are humanity in print.

If I had enough space on my arm, I would get this tattooed.

Also – I need your help!
In a few months, I will be going on an Alternative Spring Break trip with some other SI students. There are a number of different places I could spend the week and they include the Library of Congress, the Museum of Natural History, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NPR, the American Library Association and the National Archives and Records Management [to name a few]. Students going on the trip make a $25 donation and pay for their own food, but travel & housing are paid for through fundraising & matching grants from SI. One of the ways we raise money is by hosting an annual book sale.

So:
Please donate your old books!
Your new books! Short books! Yellow books!
Any & all objects that could be seen as a “book.”
You can give them to me or drop them off on the 4th floor of West Hall if you happen to be around campus.
I would really really appreciate it.

Credit goes to Daily Drop Cap for the beautiful “B” used in the quote. Check out the site more more fancy letters!

Also, check out this fun site. They have postcards, such as the one below, that you can fill out & send online! It’s a fun, thoughtful way to keep in touch with those around you [besides inviting them to take Facebook quizzes...].

& with that,
goodnight.