Checked out books to a classmate of mine from History of the Book, and there seems to be an emerging consensus that the second half of the course has not been nearly as interesting as the first half was. Whereas earlier in the term we were watching papermaking documentaries from the Czech Republic and casting our own hot lead type, now we have to endure three-hour lectures about preservation and conservation management and collection development, topics that are not just classroom Nyquil per se but ones we'll all be forced to cover again in various other library science courses. What made this class interesting was its novelty. Even an inspired lecturer such as Professor Berger can only do so much with the material beyond a certain point...
I wish we could have lingered over the "hands-on" stuff and jettisoned the lessons what would be duplicated elsewhere. Let's cast more type, make some paper, print our own folios. That would have been cool. But to chase a strong opening to the semester with canned lectures about library operations is just a recipe for disappointment.
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