Chemical Heritage Foundation

This week I started my fellowship at the Chemical Heritage Foundation. They've given me an office near the library with the other fellows. They all back onto a big atrium and we get natural light through large windows. Occasionally someone will stop by and talk to someone else through the window opening but generally we don't feel too much like monkeys at the zoo.

Everyone has a computer in the office with a personalised account on a central server but it's all Windows. After a couple of days of fiddling around, hitting the wrong keys and not having my files with me, I decided to just bring my own laptop and only use their computer to print. I've managed to get the PC's keyboard and mouse working with it (and, although the CHF email won't work with the Mac for some reason, it does work with my iPod Touch).

There is a kitchenette and this leads to a lot of social activities. Every day around 10.30 people stand around there drinking tea and coffee (the folks here drink a lot more tea than your average American) and on Tuesday afternoons at 3 there's biscuits or cake in the atrium (which they call a "public square"). And today I noticed a lot of people walking around with rolled up rubber mats -- apparently it's yoga day.

Delaware

My current fellowship is for visiting institutions in the Philadelphia area, apparently that extends down to Wilmington, Delaware. Today I went there for the first time, that's another state off my list!

I went to the Hagley library to look at some of their Lavoisier stuff. I was lucky enough to get a ride down with one of the CHF fellows so we didn't stop for souvenirs but I did save the money it would have cost to hire a car or catch a train and taxi.

The library and archives are spread across a couple of buildings on a few acres, which used to be the DuPont gunpowder factory. Now it's a nice park with an industrial museum.