The job of guarding the turnstile at the entrance to the library must dull one’s attention over the years, and I discovered in 1967 that by melting into the crowd of students flooding into the library at 8:30 in the morning, it was usually possible to sneak in. Firestone’s fifty-five miles of books, most of them shelved underground, offered a warm, anonymous refuge until it was safe to reappear out on the street and meet up with friends who had suffered through a day at school. I was left with a love of libraries, and a fear of librarians, that has lasted ever since. Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College granted me research associate status, with library privileges, to write this book. The Mabel Zoe Wilson Library is a small, comfortable facility, and to its resources I owe most of the citations appearing here. Special thanks go to Frank Haulgren and colleagues at interlibrary loan, who successfully pursued obscure requests. Bob Christensen, who enjoys confronting librarians as avidly as I shy away from them, helped excavate many things.
What do You think about Darwin Among The Machines?
