{"id":118,"date":"2026-11-06T00:02:44","date_gmt":"2026-11-06T05:02:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/?p=118"},"modified":"2026-11-06T00:06:56","modified_gmt":"2026-11-06T05:06:56","slug":"the-books-weve-read-and-who-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/2026\/11\/06\/the-books-weve-read-and-who-we-are\/","title":{"rendered":"The Books We&#8217;ve Read and Who We Are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A while ago, when learning more about nutrition, I was really taken with the idea that healthy eating isn&#8217;t about willpower and saying no. It&#8217;s about high quality food crowding out low nutrition food<sup><a href=\"#fn-1\">[1]<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">With all the talk about the decline in reading<sup><a href=\"#fn-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup> and worry about cognitive surrender<sup><a href=\"#fn-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup>, I started thinking about what I could do to use that same way of thinking for my mental diet. My husband got me an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.xteink.com\/products\/xteink-x3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Xteink X3 reader<\/a> for my birthday and I&#8217;ve been reading <a href=\"https:\/\/standardebooks.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Standard Ebooks<\/a> on it for the past month. It&#8217;s exactly the same idea: high quality content crowding out content that wasn&#8217;t serving me as well. In this case I&#8217;m putting it in a place (the back of my phone) that I can&#8217;t ignore every time I&#8217;m tempted to scroll and habitually open apps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">My institution just inaugurated our new president. If you care about higher education, the importance of research and knowledge, and the role of education in shaping people, you should definitely <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=EzWR0dIKnrg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">watch President Rodriguez&#8217;s address<\/a>. I have not seen another speech so perfectly capture what we&#8217;re trying to do in higher education, while shining a light on the diversity of disciplines that expand our knowledge and contribute to humanity&#8217;s flourishing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Inaugural Address\" width=\"700\" height=\"394\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/EzWR0dIKnrg?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the most moving part of the speech was his quoting of Jorge Luis Borges, whom library types might first think of as the author of the Library of Babel<sup><a href=\"#fn-4\">[4]<\/a><\/sup>. President Rodriguez quotes an interview &#8220;&#8216;Jorge\u2026 Who are you?&#8217; &#8216;Well, I\u2019m not sure that I exist, really. But, I am all the books I\u2019ve ever read. I\u2019m every friend I\u2019ve ever made, I\u2019m all the women I\u2019ve ever loved. I\u2019m all the cities I\u2019ve ever visited. And, I am all my ancestors.'&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And isn&#8217;t that the truth. Aren&#8217;t we all a collection of the books we&#8217;ve read, ideas we&#8217;ve encountered, the relationships we have had, all the varied experiences of our lives? I think about this all the time from my leadership role: that what works in one community\/culture\/context won&#8217;t work the same way in another. And in Standpoint Theory&#8217;s clarity that your position shapes what you can know<sup><a href=\"#fn-5\">[5]<\/a><\/sup>. And that the curation of a collection of resources creates the conditions for serendipity. And the courses you put together in pursuit of a liberal arts degree are specific to your life up until that point and shapes your life thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The entire speech was rich with themes to draw upon, and I&#8217;ve spent time reflecting on them since Friday afternoon. But the librarian in me continues to circle around this idea of curation and our own construction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Voyager_Golden_Record\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Voyager Golden Records<\/a> are another example from within this address. The idea that we might be able to capture humanity through images, music, and science and the idealism of sending that collection out into the universe so that it could be found by another civilization is beautiful. The curatorial work to do so is nearly unimaginable. But once again: to the ones that might find those records, we are the experiences captured on them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So here I am, nearly a week later, still reflecting on how we become what we read and encounter as individuals, as institutions, and as cultures. And I&#8217;m still reflecting on that theme, whether personally, on the tiny ereader on the back of my phone or institutionally, in the collections that I walk past in my library every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Greger, M. <em>Putting the Daily Dozen to the test<\/em>. In <em>Nutrition Facts with Dr. Greger<\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/daily-dozen-diet-put-to-the-test-for-weight-loss\/\">https:\/\/nutritionfacts.org\/video\/daily-dozen-diet-put-to-the-test-for-weight-loss\/<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Kuta, S. \u201cReading for Pleasure Has Declined by a \u2018Deeply Concerning\u2019 40 Percent Over the Past Two Decades.\u201d in <em>Smithsonian Magazine<\/em>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/reading-for-pleasure-has-declined-by-a-deeply-concerning-40-percent-over-the-past-two-decades-180987228\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.smithsonianmag.com\/smart-news\/reading-for-pleasure-has-declined-by-a-deeply-concerning-40-percent-over-the-past-two-decades-180987228\/<\/a><a href=\"#fnref-2\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Hogenboom, M. \u201cAI chatbots could be making you stupider.\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/future\/article\/20260417-ai-chatbots-could-be-making-you-stupider<\/a><a href=\"#fnref-3\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If you want to know more about this short story: <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Library_of_Babel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/The_Library_of_Babel<\/a><a href=\"#fnref-4\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>I&#8217;ve talked about this before: <a href=\"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/2026\/04\/06\/the-library-creates-conditions-for-knowing\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/2026\/04\/06\/the-library-creates-conditions-for-knowing\/<\/a><a href=\"#fnref-5\">\u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<a href=\"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/2026\/11\/06\/the-books-weve-read-and-who-we-are\/\" rel=\"bookmark\" title=\"Permalink to The Books We&#8217;ve Read and Who We Are\"><p>A while ago, when learning more about nutrition, I was really taken with the idea that healthy eating isn&#8217;t about willpower and saying no. It&#8217;s about high quality food crowding out low nutrition food[1]. With all the talk about the decline in reading[2] and worry about cognitive surrender[3], I started thinking about what I could [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_hide_featured_image":false,"_jetpack_featured_image_duplicate_dismissed":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75],"tags":[76,78,13,77],"class_list":["post-118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-higher-education","tag-curation","tag-ebooks","tag-standpoint-theory","tag-wake-forest-university","h-entry","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":122,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118\/revisions\/122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/laurenpressley.com\/library\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}