Moving Books

We packed up about 70 boxes of books for the move. All but one box of essential philosophy of language went into storage.

Library Fines

I'm closing out my account with the Regenstein Library, returning all my books and paying my fines. I just found the following letter I received from the library a couple of years ago:

"Hello - I have had the opportunity to look over your fine appeals;
let me say that they were articulate and humorous. My problem
is in September of 2005 you had $72 in fines waived; in January
of 2006, we waived $87 in fines. Now you want us to waive $102,
or $261 in roughly a year.

The purpose of a fines are to encourage, if that's the word, people
to comply with library regulations, especially as they pertain to
books other borrowers need. We occasionally waive fines because
we believe that the borrower will not get him/herself in a similar
situation. In fact, it seems that each time you appeal fines,
the amount is larger ($72 - $87 - $102).

So, I am not willing to waive these fines. If you wish to appeal
my decision, please contact [so and so], who is the Head of
Access Services.

Sincerely yours..."

I'm happy to pay the remaining fines--I agree completely with the "Dedicatory Epistle" in James Redfield's Nature and Culture in the Iliad:

The Regenstein Library is very large, very expensive, and it works. Probably no environment better adapted to the activity of scholarship has ever been created. In this library much that had been impossible becomes possible, and much that had been difficult becomes easy.