Japanese courtesan research powerup:In which I advance to the Harvard University special collections

[issendai]

Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you a new holder of a Visiting Researcher card to the Harvard College Library system

Comments

[issendai]

If your research project is sufficiently obscure, you should be able to round up the documentation to get a pass. You're good at that sort of thing. I looked up Viking clothing books and found some delightful things, but they're mainly at Widener or the Harvard Depository. Jewelry books seem to end up in the fine art special collection, though, so if you can make a case for needing some of them...

[londo]

I'm pretty sure that none of the things I am keenly interested in require access to a library like that.

This has surprisingly little effect on how droolingly envious I am.

[issendai]

*basks in your envy*

[rivkaesque]

This me writhing in jealousy. I tried so hard to get to their collection of the mythopoeic journal, but my librarian was not as helpful as yours.

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Thaaaaat sucks. What was the exact name? If there's a specific article you want, I can see whether I can get it.

If it was in Widener, that may be why you couldn't get it. Widener is locked DOWN. You can't set foot in the stacks unless you're affiliated with a university, and even then a card costs several hundred dollars a year. The closest everyone else can get is the reading room, where the librarians might get them books from the stacks for in-library reading. No idea why--a matter of demand, perhaps?

In any case, I can get into the Widener reading room and might be able to request materials, so even if the journal is in Widener, I might be able to make copies for you.

[rivkaesque]

Nah, no specific article. It was, in fact, in Widener, and I just wanted to spend about a day going through back issues of Mythlore for inspiration for my bachelor's thesis. As it is, I wound up doing it on something to do with the relationship between the Faerie Queene, which I thought could have influenced Tolkein's Angophilism, and either LotR or the Hobbit (don't remember which offhand).
Of course, I'd still love to spend a week or two wandering Widener's stacks. Sigh. Talk about a dream vacation.

[issendai]

Thaaaat would be an interesting vacation. Roam the stacks by day, pitch your folding cot in an aisle at night, emerge to forage at Burdick's or Wagamama...

[browngirl]

Damn. I am IMPRESSED.

[issendai]

*beam*

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Thank ye! It's delightful. Turns out that as a topic, the pleasure quarters are virtually mainstream in Japan. There are books at every level, from the heavy scholastic tomes to glossy, overillustrated sub-Time Life books for casual readers. The pleasure quarters were major centers of culture and art and were the subject of some of the most important art of the period, so it's not entirely surprising... but can you imagine U.S. teenagers doing reports on 17th-century London brothels?

If you shoot me the names of the books on Chinese court titles that you were looking for, I can see if Yenching has them. (Or you can check yourself via the Hollis catalog.) If there's a particular section you wanted, I can make you copies...

[issendai]

Aha! 676 pages--Jesus! What parts are you most interested in?