This site is called Library Monk, because yes I have been known to dress as a monk on occasion. Ask anyone who in the summer 2002 Genre Fiction class at UT’s School of Information Sciences. The reason I was dressed as a monk then was to talk about my favorite book, A Canticle for Leibowitz. Canticle tells the story of a post nuclear war world. People have turned against science and learning and life has reverted to a medieval existence. And as they did in the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic monks preserve what scraps of knowledge remain.
The name Library Monk is a homage to that book and grateful acknowledgement of the fact that if not for those monks in the Middle Ages, libraries in Europe and the Americas might not exist. Western Civilization is built on the work of those monks.
And monks are still preserving knowledge today. According to this New York Times article, monks at the Monastery of St. Catherine in Egypt are using a 75 megapixel camera to preserve ancient manuscripts. Almost makes you want to go to Egypt and help out.
Hello. Thank you for that thoughtful discussion of the book. I plowed through it because I thought it was my duty but I never really appreciated until I read your comments. (Sorry, I am a cultural literacy junkie!)
Dianne M (on orkut)