Introduction!

Hi! My name is Evelyn, or I also go by Evie. I’m in my first year at the iSchool, in the Library and Information Science concentration.

I was born here in Toronto, but my family moved to Victoria, BC when I was six months old. I attended the University of Victoria for my undergrad, where I majored in English and did an Honours degree in Greek and Roman studies (which most universities call Classics). I just moved (back) to Toronto at the end of August.

One reason I was excited to move here is because of the Blue Jays. I guess I’ve been a casual Blue Jays fan all my life (family from Toronto), but I really started following the Jays closely after August 10th, 2014 (Canada Baseball Day!), when I tuned in part way through the bottom of the 9th of the Jays-Tigers game. The Jays had just tied it, and I figured I’d keep watching to see who won. Well, that ended up being 3 more hours of baseball, since that game went 19 innings! The Jays won in the end, and that game sparked a real love for baseball in me. I really love how full of stats the game is. I attended my first ever home game on August 28th this year (by coincidence another Canada Baseball Day!). That was a pretty great first home game to go to, and will be hard to beat!

During my undergrad I fell in love with Greek and Roman Studies because it includes so many different topics: history, art, literature, religion, languages… I took a class on seafaring in the ancient world in which I wrote a paper on ancient bilge pumps, which might be the most obscure thing I’ve ever researched! Several professors at the iSchool have said that this love for exploring many different areas of knowledge is common among Information students, so I guess I’m in the right place!

In my final year, I wrote an honours thesis on public libraries in Ancient Rome. Did you know that later in the imperial period, the Romans may have even had libraries in their bathhouses? This theory is one factor that led me to focus on Roman libraries in particular. 

I don’t actually know that much about LIS yet of course, and I mainly explored this topic of ancient libraries through a background of Classical studies. I probably don’t even really know what I’m talking about! I’m looking forward to learning more about LIS and maybe being able to return to the topic some day with an approach more informed by Library and Information Science.

So I wanted to take this course on the future of the book because I like the idea of studying the future after having studied the past - the past of libraries but by extension also the past of books and reading. But I’m also interested in the ephemerality of texts, I guess I would say. The only reason we know much of anything at all about what people wrote and read in the ancient world is because of all those monks in monasteries in the middle ages who made copies of ancient texts. Since the actual contents of Roman libraries do not survive, scholars mainly study them through their archaeological remains and the infrequent mentions of library use by ancient writers. What of the very distant future of today’s books? What implications do new forms of the book have for the way texts and libraries will survive far in the future?

Finally, I want to tell you about my dog. His name is Amigo and he is a rescue dog from Mexico. I had to leave him back in Victoria and I miss him a lot!

photos: author