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Last fall, I flew up to the University of Michigan to visit a library.
Hi.
We have an appointment at the special Collections Research center.
So you go up to the second floor, go past all the computers, you walk into an elevator lobby and take that to six.
Okay, great.
The special Collections research center is where the university houses some of its rarest and most unusual items.
It's not much to look at a single reading room.
Modern, utilitarian.
The morning we arrived, there was a guy there, very carefully turning the pages of a 40 zero year old book of maps, detailing the precise choreography of battles that had occurred in the belgian region of Flanders.
And this fellow, the Chevalier Jean de Bouron, was an important maker of maps.
I find these kind of archives oddly thrilling.
Handling one of a kind manuscripts, noticing.
The smudge marks of some historically significant.
Person going through them, is like a treasure hunt.
Theres no Dewey decimal system, no detailed.
Guide to table where you want to be.
And we have brought down the collection for you.
We'll bring out one box at a time.
Do you just want to start at the beginning and go straight through?
No, we don't.