It is said that you can learn a lot about
someone by just looking at their bookshelf.

…Some of my green books…
A little Project Spectrum experiment. I don’t keep my books sorted by color, but I do enjoy putting them in this arrangement every once in awhile to see what titles and topics end up next to each other.
Indeed, the books on my shelves tell stories about me.
I had a hard time narrowing down a major in college. I liked so many things equally. I went in thinking that I would be an English major - I loved language and writing, so why not. I bopped around and took a few classes in all of the humanities and social sciences, and found a very loving home in the Ancient Studies department. It was a small faculty that focused mainly on classical studies of Greece and Rome. I took ancient Greek every day at 8am. We worked our way through Xenophon’s Anabasis [seen above], telling the story of the Greek armies battling with the Persians. We also read the Greek New Testament, the Septuagint, as well as many notable Greek philosophers and poets. A daily dose of the ancient language for three years… and I am lucky if I can remember the alphabet now. It never ceases to amaze me how quickly it goes if you don’t keep up with it.
While I enjoyed the classical studies, my true passion was for the Near East. I petitioned my professors to offer more courses about the Eastern Mediterranean: the history, the archaeology, the religions, and the language. I supplemented my major of Ancient Studies with a Religious Studies minor. My professors in the two departments knew of my interest and were able to organize some very interesting courses throughout my tenure at the university, among them a course in Jewish Mysticism, encompassing ancient and medieval mystic practices. It was a fascinating class with an exhaustive reading list; the book above, Major Trends…, is an incredibly dense book, yet so chocked full of information on the subject. It was one of our textbooks for the semester.
The last two years of my undergraduate career were steeped in Hebrew - both ancient and modern. (At one point I was taking Greek in the mornings and Hebrew in the afternoons - I was definitely living in the past!) I went to another university in the area that offered ancient Hebrew and transferred my credits. Before taking this first class, I had no experience with the Hebrew language. The majority of the people in my class were Jewish and knew their aleph-bet, but I started from scratch. However, in a matter of weeks, we were all reading Biblical passages with ease. Hebrew is surprisingly easy to learn once you get started! My background in the ancient language made it easier for me to pick up the modern language when I did my study abroad in Israel in 2000. When I returned from Israel, I took a summer ulpan, and actually had phone conversations entirely in Hebrew. I marvel at this now, as I am SO out of practice, and while I still can remember some words and constructions in speech, it takes me much longer to read.

I graduated from college in 2002. I wanted to continue my Near Eastern Archaeology studies into graduate school, and I applied to several universities. I was rejected from my first choice, and I lost steam. I began to evaluate: did I really want to be in school for seven or more years studying long-dead languages and the stratigraphy of a tel? The truth is that I really did want to continue, but I became very nervous about actually finding a job in the profession after devoting years of my life to it.
So, I took some time off. I worked in a book store, and then I moved into library work at the same institution that rejected me from their graduate program. I read lots and lots of books - I devoured them actually - reading three to four books a week. I had always been a voracious reader, and had often considered a career in library science. It wasn’t until this break that I felt a strong pull. After some consideration, I applied to two library school programs and was accepted by both. I knew that I wanted to continue my study of history and culture, like I had done in undergraduate, and I enrolled in the Rare Books/Special Collections/Archives tract of the program in 2004. I was also accepted into the History department for a double Masters degree. Over the two years, I took a broad range of theoretical and methodological courses on library science, archival studies, museum studies, and history.
After a particularly difficult semester (fall 2005) I decided to postpone the History degree. By that time I was working as a contract archivist for a great institution (the same place I currently work) and the Library degree was the most important rite of passage. By December 2006, I graduated with my degree in Library Science, and was hired as the full-time archivist for the collections at the same institution.
You never know where you will end up. I realize that I am still at the beginning of my journey. One minute I thought I would be doing the whole academia/professorial thing: years of dissertation research, publish or perish, tenure-track. For so long I thought I would be compromising if I did anything else.
Archivist/Librarian by day, knitter/blogger by night. I would never have guessed that five years ago!
Honestly, I couldn’t be happier with my choices. It is because of these choices that I now have the time to devote to my true passions: knitting and crafting, blogging, reading, exercise, and travel. (All represented on my bookshelf!)
…and who knows what the future holds?
Yeah, and those are just the stories that my green books tell! 