Ignorance of bliss is no defence

Abstract

My undergraduate career at Lancaster University began shortly before my 43rd birthday. Even though Lancaster boasts a very high percentage of mature students, this made me well over twice the average age of the majority of students. There were, of course, 101 new experiences which lay in wait for me in the coming three years, which I contemplated with emotions ranging from excitement to sheer horror. However, one aspect of student life which held no terrors, or so I thought, was using the university library. After all I had had plenty of experience with books, having been a voracious reader all my life. (Although nothing in print was ever actually banned, my reading career as a child had been largely conducted clandestinely, under the bedclothes, complete with torch and sandwiches.) However, accustomed as I was to browsing among the shelves of local libraries, I had never before confronted the mysteries of a collection of books housed within an academic institution. Could it be so very different? Indeed it could. This was Bliss.

Citation

Dawbarn, F. (1993), "Ignorance of bliss is no defence", New Library World, Vol. 94 No. 5. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb055698