A few weeks ago, Debbie Stier at HarperStudio wrote a blog post that encouraged the bookish among us to seek information in less linear ways. I may be over-channeling Stier’s perspective, but I took her to mean that we’d learn more if we let ourselves be surprised more.
In that spirit, I was delighted to read this weekend the story of a former student (and self-declared nerd) who had chronicled graffiti in the University of Chicago’s Regenstein Library. The former student, Quinn Dombrowski, turned her labor of love into a book, Crescat Graffiti, Vita Excolatur: Confessions of the University of Chicago, available for purchase at the school and on Amazon.
You may not buy Dombrowski’s working hypothesis, that the graffiti reflects the character and mood of the university at the time she captured it, but give credit to a world in which a person can conceive, create, publish and sell a book on her own.
Quinn Dombrowski is not unique, and she is probably part of a growing number of independent authors. She’s also testament to Debbie Stier’s call for serendipity. I ordered Dombowski’s book.
