1: Across the Pond for Poetry
I am a proud third generation Michigan library worker. I came to librarianship as an adult by way of primary source research. Do not let my sensible shoes fool you! Library research is an adventure.
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2: At the Library of Congress
When I began my adventure in the stateside portion of my independent study on Katherine Philips, I started out in the special collections room of my own university, Michigan State University. It had an original printing of Philips’s work from 1710. I spent hours copying out her poems in pencil, one by one. Learning her…
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3: Time well spent at the British Library Reading Room, 1993
I flew to London with my class on British Airways. I had forgotten, while caught up with all of the planning, that I get motion sick on planes. It was 7 1/2 hours of hell during which I made two critical decisions: I wasn’t big on beer. I didn’t like dark beer. I’d never had…
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4: My time at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. Harry Potter’s library!
In 1993, I had the privilege of doing research at four libraries in Great Britain. One was the Bodleian Library, Oxford University. I was geeking out on 17th century poet Katherine Philips. #englishmajor The Bodleian was used as the library set in the Harry Potter movies. I was very excited to find out that the…
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5: Walking in the footsteps of vacationing Romanovs: The National Library of Wales Part One
When I had finished everything I could do at the British library, it was time to move into Philips’s own backyard: Wales. I took the bus to “Aber” as it is affectionately known: Aberystwyth. It’s a good-ish long train and then bus journey from London through trees that completely cover tiny country roads. At the…
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6: Pinning a Note to the Sweater of a Librarian at the National Library of Wales
At the National Library of Wales I found the goldmine of my research on 17th century poet Katherine Philips: her personal copybook. One day, needing a break from my hours in the rare book room, I decided to peruse the museum part of the library on the upper floors. I wound through rooms, gazed at…
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7: Begging Honest Welshwomen at the University of Wales
High adventure alert! After three days at the National Library of Wales, I had checked off many items on my “list of stuff to find in Wales.” There was one very important item that I had decided to give up on without even trying: a dissertation by Patrick Thomas. At the time, it was the…
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8: Choosing dissertations over meals at the University of Wales
I was at the University of Wales and a very kind Welshwoman librarian had just brought a dissertation out of storage that I desperately wanted a copy of. I asked her where the photocopier was in the library. “Photocopier?” she asked doubtfully. The dissertation sat on the book truck between us. “Yes.” “We don’t have…
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9: Poetry, Mothers, and Priories
(The building on the left is the original monastery and the building on the right is the add-on hospital.) So, this non-Catholic girl goes to the Anglican nation of Great Britain to study a 17th century poet and got tripped up on the lingering Catholic vocabulary. I had been seeking poet Katherine Philips at the…
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10: Made Ill by Poetry
I was an English major at Michigan State University in 1993 and I had been reading and researching 17th century Welsh poet Katherine Philips at the Library of Congress, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Wales and the University of Wales. Her genre was female romantic friendship poetry and I was…
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11: Celebrating Female Romantic Friendships in the 17th Century and Today
“To rocks and rivers, not to thee, complain” Following in Katherine Philips Footprints I had been reading and researching Welsh poet Katherine Philips at the Library of Congress, the British Library, the Bodleian Library, the National Library of Wales and the University of Wales in Aberystwyth. I had finally found her adult home at Cardigan…
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