2008 Woodie Awards
Open Riggs Library
Nicholas Wheeler
Issue date: 8/27/03 Section: Commentary
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My library
Was dukedom large enough. — Shakespeare
Dukedoms generally seem too much to handle. Hence we stand in need of God and learning to guide us here and there.
The new academic year now upon us recalls to mind a fond memory of my own freshman move-in: Boxes of books, for which I had little space, being carted into the Village C dormitory cell that was to be my new home — and the exasperated glances of parents who obviously judged my elevator-clogging attachment to the written word to be of a highly impractical nature.
Yes, I really did need to have the Guide to New England Seashores which I begged my fourth grade science teacher to give me all those years ago. And may the god of efficient bubble-wrap packaging be damned.
So I continue to cart my little library around. There are snipped cartoons from The New Yorker; the anthology of Robert Frost poetry; the de Gaulle biography my French exchange family gave as a gift. Smallish bits of treasured familiarity to reassure the first-year soul! — or something like that, at any rate.
It may well be my own prejudice (I come from a family of congenital school library volunteers), but I tend to think that a collection of books is or should be among the most hallowed of things on a college campus. The chapel and the career placement office are both, without a doubt, highly important, but neither represents the true mission of a university nearly so much as a good library does.
Every student should at least have the opportunity to run the risk of stumbling over his life's purpose within the narrow confines of a bookcase.
Which brings me (in typical, long-winded fashion) to my central point: As a new class of Hoyas assumes its place on the Hilltop, the University administration ought seriously to consider opening up Riggs Library for more than occasional ceremonial.
Though it is no longer a working library, Riggs retains a sense of authentic dignity. The intricate moldings of her wall panels, her spiral stairwells, and her stained glass all suggest the majesty of old, European learning. Where else on campus can you look up the House of Commons' records for the debate on the Reform Bill anno domini 1832? Where else are well-thumbed religious journals from mid-1800's France to be found? Where else can you so readily acquire a sense for Georgetown's own roots?
Was dukedom large enough. — Shakespeare
Dukedoms generally seem too much to handle. Hence we stand in need of God and learning to guide us here and there.
The new academic year now upon us recalls to mind a fond memory of my own freshman move-in: Boxes of books, for which I had little space, being carted into the Village C dormitory cell that was to be my new home — and the exasperated glances of parents who obviously judged my elevator-clogging attachment to the written word to be of a highly impractical nature.
Yes, I really did need to have the Guide to New England Seashores which I begged my fourth grade science teacher to give me all those years ago. And may the god of efficient bubble-wrap packaging be damned.
So I continue to cart my little library around. There are snipped cartoons from The New Yorker; the anthology of Robert Frost poetry; the de Gaulle biography my French exchange family gave as a gift. Smallish bits of treasured familiarity to reassure the first-year soul! — or something like that, at any rate.
It may well be my own prejudice (I come from a family of congenital school library volunteers), but I tend to think that a collection of books is or should be among the most hallowed of things on a college campus. The chapel and the career placement office are both, without a doubt, highly important, but neither represents the true mission of a university nearly so much as a good library does.
Every student should at least have the opportunity to run the risk of stumbling over his life's purpose within the narrow confines of a bookcase.
Which brings me (in typical, long-winded fashion) to my central point: As a new class of Hoyas assumes its place on the Hilltop, the University administration ought seriously to consider opening up Riggs Library for more than occasional ceremonial.
Though it is no longer a working library, Riggs retains a sense of authentic dignity. The intricate moldings of her wall panels, her spiral stairwells, and her stained glass all suggest the majesty of old, European learning. Where else on campus can you look up the House of Commons' records for the debate on the Reform Bill anno domini 1832? Where else are well-thumbed religious journals from mid-1800's France to be found? Where else can you so readily acquire a sense for Georgetown's own roots?