Remembering London

This was posted on the ExLibris listserv today and I felt like copying and keeping it to remember.

As someone who still takes comfort in messages posted to this list
following 9/11, let me say how much my thoughts are with friends and
colleagues, known and unknown, in London today. The long walk home is
something that is long remembered, all the more so by the knowledge that
not everyone will be "safe home." I remember the researchers who spent the
day of 9/11 with us here in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library at
Columbia University, as we tried to carry on business. They were very
patient with us, and we were grateful for them, knowing that they are a
good portion of the reason why we are here. Yes, as mentioned on another
list-serve today, London has seen and endured much worse, with witnesses
still alive to remember. New York, in general, had forgotten such things as
the fires of the American Revolutionary War and the draft riots of the
American Civil War. It is our job to keep the records of history available,
each in our own institutional collections, even when it is not so easy to
keep going with the day-to-day work at hand.

Jennifer B. Lee
Rare Book & Manuscript Library
Columbia University Libraries

Knowing several people who are, or soon to be, in London, even events so far away still hit close to home. If it is even possible for a positive to come out of this, then perhaps it is that more were not killed. From being in the Underground many times at 9am, I know how crowded it truly is. 12 hours after the 4 bombs went off the death toll is at 37 with about 700 injured and many, many more who are incredibly lucky.