Make Way for Ducklings

Today was a good day for birdwatching.

I had to spend four and a half hours in the library this morning, essentially because I haven't done enough research for my final paper that's due on Wednesday.  And it's the National Library of Italy (there are actually two of them--one here and one in Rome; every time a book is published in Italy, a copy of it has to be sent to each of them), which means extra security, and it's only open until one on Saturdays, and given the standard convoluted bureaucracy of Italian libraries in general, I arranged to get there when it opened at 8:15.  In looking at the website ahead of time, I was stunned to discover that they do, in fact, let you check out books. Clicking on the link revealed further details.  Yes, absolutely you may check out books!  With some exceptions, of course.  They are as follows:

- anything published before 1935
- anything published in the last five years
- all volumes belonging to historic or special collections
- periodicals and serial publications
- government publications
- publications "a dispense"
- publications with attachments
- publications with declared limited print runs
- novels and books about hobbies
- commercial catalogues
- exposition catalogues
- musical publications
- librettos for operas
- publications with particular historic or editorial characteristics
- miscellaneous things collected into a volume; pamphlets of fewer than 50 pages
- publications with tables and illustrations outside of the text
- publications with photographs or illustrations, if there are many of them in ratio to the text
- dictionaries, encyclopedias, atlas, maps, guides, and prints
- works not printed on paper
- volumes larger than 28 cm or smaller than 15 cm
- publications inventoried as "minor material"
- all volumes that have undergone restoration
- works located in the reading rooms and indexes present in the information office
- works in precarious condition that may not be photocopied.
- any material that for some reason is shouldn't be removed from the library
- doctoral research thesis

Honestly, it probably would have been more efficient to post a list of the books that you ARE allowed to check out.  There are probably about five of them.

I gave up hope of checking anything out, and planned to arrive at 8:15 and spend the morning reading.  I got there a little early, so I sat on the wall by the Arno, munching on a rice cake, admiring the bright blue sky, and watching a heron fish for breakfast:

It was a good thing my morning started off so cheerfully.  I went to sign up for a library card, armed with my passport and an official looking letter of introduction from Smith.  I knew that there was more than one kind of card, so I asked if the card to read books was the same as the card to check them out.  I don't remember now what he said, but I took it to be a yes, or at least that he knew I need to do both and would make the appropriate arrangements.  While waiting for my card to print (after he sloooowly typed in my information with one finger), he explained to me the rules and hours (check-out is only open from 11-1, and if you miss the once-hourly submission of requests to read or check out a book, you have to wait an hour for the next one; if you request a book to read, you CAN'T decide to check it out the same day, you have to wait until the next day, and so on...).

My next stop (after making the entry security thing beep repeatedly until the guard showed me how to swipe my card first--he also pointed me in the right direction afterwards, since I probably looked overwhelmed and lost) was the front desk, where I asked a librarian whether the books on my list could be checked out or not.  Not, predictably.  Also, it was a moot point, as the card the man at the desk had given me only allowed me to read books, not check them out.  Also, one of the books was up in the Music Room, which requires yet another distinct library card.

But the Music Room I'd been to before on a field trip, so I made my way up there and--with great relief--recognized the librarian who given us the tour.  Better yet, when I told her I was from the smith class, she recognized me, and welcomed me cheerfully in, and arranged for the music room library card, and found my book for me, and generally restored my faith in Italian librarians (I had a rather disastrous trip to the University's art history library yesterday, involving a completely unhelpful librarian, and, with a few exceptions, my experiences with the librarians in the research section of the Oblate have not been positive, although the ones in the modern novels and movies section are quite friendly).

So that was a successful trip.  And then when I got home, I poked my head out my window and discovered DUCKLINGS in our torrent!

A torrent is an artificial river bed/canal sort of thing that fills up when it rains a lot, and there is one that runs under my window.  At the moment it's only a few inches deep in the middle, and dry on the edges, and a duck had decided that it was a good place to bring her ducklings (perhaps to practice?).  I think I counted 12 or 13, all paddling around, nibbling at the algae underwater, and exploring the dry bits at the edge as the whole crew migrated slowly downstream and out of sight.  Later, as I was making lunch, I heard urgent quacking through the open window, accompanied by a chorus of anguished peeping.  I leaned out the window to see what was the matter.  Mother duck, while leading her ducklings back upstream, had hopped up a little ledge where the level of the torrent bed rises a bit, and the ducklings were stuck.  The ledge is all of about two inches high, but it might as well have been the Great Wall of China for all they knew.  Finally one duckling, either particularly clever or just lucky, worked out that it could scramble up the (slightly angled) cement wall at the side of the torrent and hop onto the next level from there.  All of the other ducklings proceeded to throw themselves at the wall, scrambling up it to great (and unnecessary) heights of two feet or so and falling back down again, until one by one they managed to land on the ledge instead.  And then they picked themselves up, and the whole brood set off up stream again.  And I went back to making my lunch.