I’ve had this photograph for quite a while and every time I look at it I’m filled with longing. It’s labeled on the back “Fondren Staff Area, 1966.” I don’t have a good mental map of how the library was laid out before I got here in the early ’90s so I’m not really sure where this room was located. I’d guess it to be closer to the front of the building than the back, though.
There’s an awful lot of obsolete technology here but the thing I’m interested in today is hard to see. Zoom in and look at the old typewriter to the left of the woman in the brown dress. That’s actually not what I’m talking about, but on the same table you can just make out a couple of small carousels. Those carousels held something we don’t use any more: rubber stamps.
I didn’t think much about this until a couple of weeks ago when one of my colleagues in Fondren, Sarah Bentley, showed me something amazing that she’s kept by her desk:
They’re useless now, of course, but they’re still kind of beautiful.
Bonus: Fondren Summer Hours! As I guess is becoming customary, I’ll try to keep posting on a regular basis over the summer but might miss a day or two here or there. I’ve got plans to go out to Berkeley to look at Ken Pitzer’s papers. Tantalizingly, they also have a collection of papers from Griffith C. Evans, Rice’s first mathematics professor, which include both documents and photos from his years here.
