So what else is new?

These are what Woodson insiders refer to as the Info Files:

They’re where you look for basic information about people, places, and things related to Rice, all in alphabetical order (more or less). If I wanted to know about, say, a faculty member or the establishment of some center, or when someone came on to the board of trustees this would be the first place I would go. Most of what’s in there are things like newspaper clippings, brochures, programs from events, and biographical information but there’s also things that I would call “miscellaneous,” things that just don’t quite belong anywhere in particular.

This is to say that while I am rather intimately acquainted with these files they can still surprise. I was in the Woodson on Wednesday and I opened one of the bottom drawers,  looking for something I was pretty sure wasn’t there. (I used to say “they pay me to check anyway” but I guess now it’s just a habit.) Right in front were the lease agreements for the three offices Rice rented downtown before everything moved to campus, you know, the ones I just wrote about on Tuesday. Why on earth they were there instead of with the other early contracts I have no idea. When you have so much information to manage, and much of it peculiar, a little idiosyncrasy is unavoidable. Anyway, the leases aren’t terribly interesting but in one of the files I found a nice little sketch of the layout of the Rice business offices in the Esperson Building. I don’t know who drew this but it wasn’t William Ward Watkin. I especially like the WIDE DOORS:

Bonus: This is where I spent my vacation.