Shakespeare in any language

A patron came over to the Information Desk and tried phrasing her question, saying she was not sure how to say it. She wanted to read Shakespeare; well, not Shakespeare himself, but about Shakespeare, so that she could understand it.

"I read it in school many years ago," she said, easily seventy years of age. "But I don't recall much of it."

I did a quick search, simply to be sure I gave her the right information -- though I knew that Shakespeare is at 822.3: just a couple of days ago I went to the stacks to search for Shakespeare's Trolius and Cressida, after finishing the Tunney biography (Trolius and Cressida was the Champ's favorite Shakespeare work), and I remembered 822.3.

"Now I know why I don't understand Shakespeare," she told me in an accented voice. "I grew up in Hungary, in Budapest, and I read Shakespeare in Hungarian."

An art question

Hungarian artist: LÁSZLÓ MOHOLY-NAGY. A young lady, I'd say of college age, came in looking for a book about Moholy-Nagy. As usual, the Hewlett-Woodmere has books about him in its collection. Once again I was amazed at how comprehensive the collection is; rarely do we not have material about an artist a patron asks for. And, of course, there is a website for him.


"Founder's Day At The Bauhaus", left to right: Moholy-Nagy, Gropius, Breuer, Mies van der Rohe. The back page by Bruce McCall for The New Yorker magazine.