Snatched from the Eagle’s Claws

Photos: Elchanan Kotler

When Rabbi Nachum Zitter, studying in the library science track of an Information Technology master’s degree program at Bar-Ilan University, told his family that he’d been assigned to keep a daily library blog, their reactions ranged from disbelief to shouts of laughter.

“What will you write about every day?” they asked him. “Monday, someone talked in the Reading Room, and I told him to be quiet. Tuesday someone talked in the Reading Room and I told him to be quiet. Wednesday…”

You get the idea. Keep a library blog? What can you say about libraries, stuffy places where there’s really nothing to get excited about except the occasional reader speaking in a loud voice who needs to be shushed?

Full disclosure here: Nachum is my son, my bechor. Fuller disclosure: I was one of those who laughed at the idea of a library blog.