Back In The Day When Librarians Could Wear Cool Hair...

Wow when I saw this guys hairdo I knew he had to be a librarian__but seriously Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz was an immense intellectual force in the 17^th century, a mathematician, a scientist, an engineer, a lawyer, a philologist, a philosopher, a logician, a historian, an acquaintance to nobility and yes a librarian. Librarians commanded a bit more respect back then. A similar regard can be seen for Johann Winckelmann founder of modern archaeology, influential art historian and also a librarian. But Leibniz was a true polymath with a mind similar in character to Isaac Newton. Both are given credit for independently developing infinitesimal calculus. [This is a type of advanced ciphering done by librarians.] Leibniz also made contributions to metaphysical philosophy where he developed the idea of “monads,” According to Leibniz, monads are "substantial forms of being" which are eternal, indecomposable, individual and subject to their own laws. The ontological essence of a monad is its irreducible simplicity. [Librarians often have a lot of time to ponder such things.] He also developed the idea of mv², an idea similar to kinetic energy. He was a profound moralist and devoted considerable intellectual and diplomatic effort to healing the breach in the Church caused by the Reformation. But most dear to librarians is Leibniz’s work in library science. He was a librarian at the ducal libraries in Hanover and Wolfenbuettell. To house the 100,000 volume collection Leibnitz helped build what is considered the first building explicitly designed to be a library. Because he developed the ideas for an empirical database and an indexing system he is considered one of the founders of modern information science. No librarian nor philosopher for that matter has had as much influence on the laws of state, ethics and politics. Leibniz ideas and theories are spread throughout a vast array of publications, most of which are written in scholastic Latin, French and German. Quite a guy__but the main point of this rambling post is that librarians used to get a lot of respect. I only need to emphasize this because it is unfathomable to the modern mind that a librarian could have any respect. But in regard to respect__ that hairdo…