brief encounters

Monday I met with the reference team without their supervisors. We were talking about marketing library programs. I mentioned often Americans do marketing events around holiday themes. The holiday next week, Kurban Bayram-The Feast of the Sacrifice, is a religious holiday that remembers the ram that Abraham sacrificed in place of his son Ismail (Isaac). During the four-day festival, lambs are slaughtered and the meat distributed to the poor. Some of the ritual slaughters take place in public places. So the librarians joked that they should slaughter a koç (ram) in the library reading room and that may attract some students to the library.

I started my formal presentation to the librarians by saying that Emory was founded by Methodists. The next day one librarian wanted to know what kind of influence the Methodists still had on the university. I showed her the religious life web page at Emory to illustrate that all religions were openly practiced. Turns out there is a woman who is the Muslim coordinator. The librarian asked if she wore a turban. I told her probably not, but it turns out she meant headscarf (the Turkish word is similar to turban.) I replied I didn't know, but explained that we had students wearing headscarves. Koç does not have a mosque- that would be taboo here.

It's easy to run into students here because it's such a small campus. I was chatting with a student who had lived in San Francisco. I said that I thought Istanbul and SF were similar in some aspects - like the hills, beautiful views and the water. This student said "and Istanbul has such a diverse population like SF." I said really- looks to me like most of the people are Turks. Oh, but he said many of the people are from eastern Turkey, so it is really quite diverse!

Mitas, my office mate, doesn't seem overly thrilled with being a business librarian. Turns out he makes films. I asked him today how he chose to be a libarian. All high school graduates take a national test. The results of that test determines where you will study in university. All state schools are free. So, he wanted to study film, but his grades were not good enough. His choices were librarianship and archaeology! He waits now until his friends from Ankara will join him in Istanbul and then they will make films- seems like this could be a long wait.

Today Mitas and I went up to the clock tower for coffee. You get a bird's eye view of the university and see the Bosphorus and Black Sea. It's very small and decorated in Ottoman style- a real jewel on campus.

I had lunch with some faculty members. They were quite surprised that I as a librarian was taking such interest in the business school. The lunch was short and we concluded by the professor writing down the best place to get pudding and desserts in Sariyer, the town by the sea, down the hill from school.