# Help me design my Enlightenment Library
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036
**Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
**Created:** [June 20, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036 "2015-06-20T22:55:33Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [June 20, 2015, 10:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/1 "2015-06-20T22:55:33Z")
A decade ago I went to London and saw the newly-opened King’s Library exhibit at the British Museum. I loved it. Hands down my favorite museum exhibit ever. I fell in love with the idea, not specifically of the King’s library, but of private libraries serving as personal museums full of naturalist specimens, ancient artifacts, and curiosities, in addition to books.
Okay, yeah, I was hip-deep in the whole British Empire thing at the time. Gimme a break, I was young.
Anyway: next month I am moving to a new house in the Puget Sound area. The house isn’t an especially big or grand one, but it has two living rooms, and I’m turning one into _the library_. Besides shelving the more attractive of the books I own, it’ll have a pellet stove, lots of windows, squashy chairs, Turkey carpets, and [IKEA’s Liatorp tables](http://www.ikea.com/us/en/catalog/products/50269369/) which as you see, if you followed the link, have built-in glass display cases.
My dad tells me he has gotten rid of the fossil fish I scratched out of a slice of limestone in seventh grade (alas) so I have no naturalist specimens to go in the tops of those Liatorp tabletops. So tell me, o Dope, what shall I use? In those displays, and also to put on the walls?
Because we’ll be on the Puget Sound it would be nice if stuff was relevant to the area, but it doesn’t \*have \*to be. There are some striking insect collections for sale on eBay, for example.
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### Author:  [@FeAudrey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FeAudrey)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/2 "2015-06-21T00:02:33Z")
To be authentically Enlightened, the display specimens should be things you have collected yourself. Too bad about the fish fossil. ☹
Look around your house and see what you might like to show off to visitors. Or, alternatively, to commune with privately. If you choose things you like, a theme will emerge organically in the long term.
For wall displays, paintings might not compete well with “lots of windows”. How about framed documents? (or reproductions)
Things associated with the books you are featuring might be a starting point. Don’t be in a hurry.
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### Author:  [@The\_Angry\_Badger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Angry_Badger)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/3 "2015-06-21T01:19:50Z")
> [@FeAudrey](#):
>
> To be authentically Enlightened, the display specimens should be things you have collected yourself.
I would agree. However, that takes a long time. In the meantime, you’re going to have a lot of empty shelves.
I’d suggest you start by looking for random odds and ends - whatever interests you - from yard sales, antique shops, etc. eBay is a goldmine for this sort of thing. It may not be as personal as you’d like, but it’s a starting point and over time you can replace these things with your own collected items.
It certainly sounds like an interesting project, I’d love something like that myself someday!
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### Author:  [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/4 "2015-06-21T02:16:51Z")
I have just such a collection! But I’ve never heard of it as a thing. Who knew! I have a massive seashell and coral collection, rocks, stones, fossils, feathers and tons of curious little trinkets from my travels, (like a protection charm from the fetish market in La Paz!). All the joy is in having found them myself, though a few items not, I suppose.
I haven’t the luxury of a second living room, and the seashells are shelved in the dining room. So I have converted my enclosed front porch into a library, including one very long shelf over the windows that runs the entire length, books from wall to wall.
As it happens I am just now revamping and purging trying to get all the scrapbooks and photo albums in as well. Sent off seven boxes of books last week, and am bringing in more shelving next, lower so I can have room for my plants plus have the rock collection where I can touch it.
It has a deacons bench at the end where you enter and a window bench, high up to the windows, with lots of cushions and room for the dog, at the other! It’s one of my favorite spots in my house.
And now it has a title! Thanks for that, I’m considering some kind of plaque!😃 (As there’s tons of Buddhist books I’m especially loving it!)
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/5 "2015-06-21T02:18:13Z")
Thanks. Anybody familiar with the flora & fauna in the area to give me advice about what kinds of specimens I’ll find? I’m a midwesterner, born and bred, and have no idea.
Oh–oyster shells. I’ll be able to pick up a crap-ton of oyster shells if I want. What else?
ETA:
> [@](#):
>
> It has a deacons bench at the end where you enter and a window bench, high up to the windows, with lots of cushions and room for the dog, at the other! It’s one of my favorite spots in my house.
>
> And now it has a title! Thanks for that, I’m considering some kind of plaque!
Happy to be of service.
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/6 "2015-06-21T12:43:20Z")
The real question is: what motto(es) will will inscribe on your walls and ceilings?
My favorite Humanist (doesn’t everyone have one? :P) Michel de Montaigne, famously had a “room in the back of the shop” on his estate where he could ponder.
> **[Montaigne's tower](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montaigne's_tower)**
>
> Montaigne's Tower is the southern tower of the Château de Montaigne, a historical monument located in the French département of Dordogne. The tower is the only vestige of the original sixteenth-century castle, since the other buildings had to be rebuilt following a fire in 1885.
> The tower was renovated and redecorated to Michel de Montaigne's specifications in 1571, following his first retirement from public life. It notably contained the famous library and study in which he spent "most of his d...
It was covered with his favorite quotes and personal statements, most famously:
> [@](#):
>
> IN THE YEAR OF CHRIST 1571 Michael Montaigne, aged 38, on his birthday, the day preceding the Calends of March, already long wearied of the servitude of the law-courts, and of public offices, has retired, with faculties still entire, to the arms of the learned virgins, there to pass in all quiet and security, such length of days as remain to him, of his already more than half-spent years, if so the fates permit him to finish this abode and these sweet ancestral retreats consecrated to his freedom and tranquility and leisure.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/7 "2015-06-21T13:17:14Z")
> [@WordMan](#):
>
> It was covered with his favorite quotes and personal statements, most famously:
My room has a dropped panel ceiling (blech) so no mottoes on the ceiling. My favorite from Montaigne’s room has always been “I am a man, and I think nothing human is foreign to me.”
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### Author:  [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/8 "2015-06-21T13:24:04Z")
> [@Sattua](#):
>
> My room has a dropped panel ceiling (blech) so no mottoes on the ceiling. My favorite from Montaigne’s room has always been “I am a man, and I think nothing human is foreign to me.”
Boom - there ya go. So what are you thinking: a nice 6" font along a wall? 😉
I think my favorite from him is: When I play with my cat, who am I to say she isn’t playing with me?"
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### Author:  [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 1:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/9 "2015-06-21T13:43:18Z")
Shouldn’t an Enlightenment Library have booked that are at least a couple hundred years old?
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### Author:  [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/10 "2015-06-21T14:01:35Z")
Well, as curios go, [The Bone Room](http://www.boneroom.com/store/c1/Featured_Products.html) is always dependable. [Hominid fossil casts](http://www.boneroom.com/apps/search?q=hominid+cast), [hassle-free fish](http://www.boneroom.com/store/p421/Budget_Fish_Skeleton.html) (stuffed Piranha are out of stock at the moment, alas), fossils, and [instant roommates.](http://www.boneroom.com/store/c45/Real_Human_Skulls.html)
Odd conventions might be a good source, too—there’s a [Steampunk convention](http://seattle-steamposium.com/) in Seattle coming up in September. The last one I went to, in California, had among other things, Vacuum Tube jewelry and (imitation goatskin) shrunken heads. When it comes to curios, there’s _never_ a bad time for Tsantsa, I always say.
If you’re looking for an appropriately nautical touch, some model ships (in or out of bottles) might do the trick. Perhaps [more unusual vessels,](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_W._Lawson_%28ship%29) or ones that [were](http://www.amazon.com/Battleship-Super-Yamato-Plastic-Fujimi/dp/B00OC0T5RS) [never](http://rp-one.net/usn_1912_bc/usn_1912_bc.html) [built.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphibious_assault_submarine) Or built only [in fiction.](http://www.ebay.com/itm/Nautilus-20000-Leagues-Under-Sea-Submarine-Dried-Wood-Model-Small-New-/390611495644)
Of course, since this IS a library, a choice selection of “specialty” reading material would serve both a functional AND aesthetic purpose. For example, the [Voynich Manuscript](http://www.amazon.com/Voynich-Manuscript-Full-Color-Photographic/dp/1599865556/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1434894973&sr=1-1&keywords=voynich+manuscript), _The Witch-Cult in Western Europe_, the works of Paracelsus, a leather-bound _Al-Azif_…etc.
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/11 "2015-06-21T14:59:12Z")
> [@Ranchoth](#):
>
> The last one I went to, in California, had among other things, Vacuum Tube jewelry
Funny you should mention that. My husband designs boutique vacuum tube audio equipment. He could certainly let me dig through his box of reject tubes, if I wanted a display of those.
My tastes tend more toward natural speciments, though.
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### Author:  [@jimbuff314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jimbuff314)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/12 "2015-06-21T17:45:23Z")
I totally misunderstood the OP. I was going to suggest something along the lines of Alan Watts’ _[The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are](http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Taboo-Against-Knowing/dp/0679723005)_.
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### Author:  [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/13 "2015-06-21T19:38:18Z")
You could do lots of [cool stuff](http://www.decorativeceilingtiles.net/225-decorative-ceiling-tiles-drop-in-24x24/?gclid=CPiu-NPEocYCFQYzaQodvy8AxA) with a drop ceiling…
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### Author:  [@Sattua](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sattua)
#### Post date: [June 21, 2015, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/14 "2015-06-21T21:46:10Z")
> [@ZipperJJ](#):
>
> You could do lots of [cool stuff](http://www.decorativeceilingtiles.net/225-decorative-ceiling-tiles-drop-in-24x24/?gclid=CPiu-NPEocYCFQYzaQodvy8AxA) with a drop ceiling…
HEL-lo!
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### Author:  [@MsKaren](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsKaren)
#### Post date: [June 22, 2015, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-me-design-my-enlightenment-library/723036/15 "2015-06-22T05:22:48Z")
As the last in a line of only children, all girls, going back 4 or 5 generations, I have inherited everyone’s collection. Each of us women loved colored glass. There are all colors: red, purple, green, yellow, aqua, cobalt. I have two lit up breakfronts on the interior wall. They are like windows. The light through the glass is a constant pleasure. Jars, bowls, marbles, vases, animals; all transparent and colored. It is easy to acquire and you can buy from artists who do amazing work, or pick up stuff at the thrift store or local souvenir shop. I love to go to street art fests and buy whatever shines in the sun. Those tables look great for colored glass display. The LIGHT would be very appropriate for an enlightment room.
I did not mean last of my line. I meant last of the only children. I have a brother and have a son and daughter myself who each have a baby.