Day 85: The Heart-Wrenching Destruction of Books

This morning was the midterm for Research Principles and Analysis. As it was "Open-Everything" (like "Open-Book" but all course material was allowed) it wasn't too daunting, though that does tend to herald more convoluted and difficult questions.

I had bought myself some Tim Hortons on the way to write the test, and as a result I had a nice "medium" half coffee/half hot chocolate to drink through the midterm. As it's Lent, Tim Hortons has their "Roll Up The Rim To Win" contest on, so the cup I was drinking from could offer me many things from free food and drink, to a new car.

Always paranoid about having neglected some simple thing and as a result failing the entire endeavor, I told myself that if I had failed utterly on the midterm, I should at least win the camping equipment from my Roll Up the Rim. You know, to make up for it.

I won a donut.

I take this as a good sign for my level of success. I already know that I answered one multiple choice question wrong, but so far, that seems to be my only big mistake.

And any midterm in which you can write an entire response about Pastafarianism, Pirates and Global Warming is a good one in my books.

As for today's lesson...

Lesson 83: In 2004, the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Germany was destroyed by a devastating fire (caused by faulty wiring) shortly before the entire collection had been scheduled to be moved. This fire destroyed around 12,500 volumes which are completely irreplaceable.

It's nice to think that in an age of mass-digitization this kind of massive information loss can't happen. But cases like this make it all to real. The photos of the library before and after the fire were particularly heart-breaking; the entire place was completely gutted and lost the entire top floor.

The destruction of the original Library of Alexandria made me cry when I first learned about it, and upsets me just to think about.

I don't deal well with the destruction of knowledge and information...