james quattlebaum

  • Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (1961)

Tags: Arts, Culture

Ivy and Sherlock

Arriving at Columbia from the south, I was curious about what “Ivy” might mean to me day-to-day. One thing I noticed quickly was that searches for referenced papers and books were essentially always successful.

I considered it, among other things, in bad taste for a snooty institution to flaunt its power in a southern boy’s face, so I took to requesting obscure and far-fetched articles to “defeat” the Columbia libraries.

Humiliated in my quest for an erudite “victory,” I then tried a more frivolous challenge: I asked for the Sherlock Holmes Society’s “Baker Street Journal.”

“V.1 to current” was the response.

I surrendered.