BUT, word has reached Mablethorpe that Some People at the old Alma Mater are under the impression that a visit to the departmental library is not as popular a form of self-improvement as it once was.
Outraged, Crail demanded the gag and restraints be removed, out came the Box Brownie from the back of the wardrobe [still a couple of shots left on the reel luckily] and off we went to Cambridge. Moribund, eh? We'll see about that!
THIS is what we found. Hand on heart, unposed [well, all right, Aslin looks a bit self-conscious], unrehearsed, unadjusted, just a normal day, none of that Photoshop malarkey [except to make the images smaller and loadable]. Hence the crap shots, you will say. Cinema verite, I say, gritty realism. THIS is the Genetics Library, circa 2.00 pm on Tuesday 21 June 2011. Bear in mind that any self-respecting Part II has by now gleefully chucked away all their lecture notes, and is likely to be found face-down in their College rosebed, where they have been for the last 5 days.
So who are these people? Postgrads, postdocs and visitors, all happily working away in the Library. Not the nicest library in the university, you could say, and pretty small, note, but THEIRS, a few steps away. Furthermore, these are scientists, a group of people not generally perceived as haunting libraries, or whatever you want to call them.
I might add that, in one's other role as concierge of the Plant Scis Library, one noted 6 users in the various nooks and crannies [ergo difficult to photograph].
6 users in Plant Scis, 8 in Genetics? Oh perLEASE, you might say. Pathetic! But, these are long-term users, not poppers-in, and the libraries in question are single-room facilities for small departments. We're NOT DEAD YET!
Gauntlet chucked, back in time for Darby and Joan.
