Have you ever been to archives anywhere? I never had til this week.

This all started with me trying to find a data set that has existed since the 1930s, and which has been updated regularly. I need the data to create new research of my own. Scientists builds upon the discoveries of their predecessors, right? The material I wanted has become proprietary, that is, people are now making money from it - if you've taken the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory, well, that is based on the data I need. Now that people are making money, they won't give me the data!! I find that offensive because the original work was supported by money provided by the state of Minnesota.

I was getting very frustrated: I'd been hunting for access to this data for about 6 months. Then I went to a party and met Dr. LeBold, a retired professor emeritus. He asked me what I was working on, and when I told him, there was a chorus of angelic voices, and a light shown on him and he said, Oh, I collected that data here at Purdue for years, including the S-C data."

Waooooow! Turns out that the prof who taught me about all of this was a good buddy of his. Life is strange. Dr. LeBold told me that most of his work is now in the University Archives, and that I could go and use whatever I liked.

To get to our archives, you have to take a special elevator to the top floor of one of the libraries. Sign in, present and surrender your ID. Lock your gear, including your purse, in a beautiful wooden locker, and pocket the key, just like at the pool or gym, only much nicer. They unlock the gate and let you into an area with handsome, individual tables... and a proctor. You can take in only a small tablet, your locker key, a laptop, and a pencil. The librarian saw my sharpie and almost fell down in her hurry to relieve me of it. You tell the librarians what materials you want, and they put it all on your own little cart, and they bring you the cart and keep it for you for weeks or even months until you've finished. You select what you want to copy, and the librarians copy it for you. Dr. LeBold's material is getting better treatment than he is! You'd think it were DaVinci's work. The irony is that tomorrow I'm taking home three or four more boxes of his material that are at the department stashed under a secretary's desk!

Archives are a lot of fun, really. It feels quite quite special.

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Oh, sweet music that brings back the days when I believed, and the remembrance of faith and peace; When the pure delight of wandering banished all dark desires...

Berlioz The Damnation of Faust