Creating an Image

Abstract

It is said that there is a recipe for rabbit stew that begins: “First, catch your hare.” In order to establish—or, since I shall wander through my past few decades, re-establish—the reputation of a library, one must first find an institution in need of help. It is not good policy to canvass along dusty and forgotten bibliothecal lanes and offer your services like a trollop. Boards of Directors do not take kindly to solicitation, the inference that perhaps their Lethe-like policies have permitted the library, the museum, the society, to sink from public view. Cultural reputations, like sterling . . .