It has been said that March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb. To celebrate the approaching spring, the Special Collections featured book for March 2016 is Love Notes: Experiencing the Natural Areas of Binghamton University, 2000, by Jennifer Ivan, ’99.
As an English major, Ivan felt she could give a different perspective of BU’s natural areas than that, say, of someone studying biology. She communicates her “sense of place” and hopes to “strike a chord of longing in you – a longing for the larger ‘home’ to which we belong, and all the discoveries about our own humanity that lie therein.” Ivan calls her book “a journal describing the encounters in my relationship with nature” and, through her words, tries to give a picture of place as she remembers it recording what she saw, heard and felt within BU’s natural areas.
However, she cautions that her book is no match for experience and, with that said, offers blank pages at the end for readers to record their own journeys, experiences and thoughts.
So, why not take Ivan’s advice and take a walk through Binghamton University’s Nature Preserve today?
This book is part of the University Archives collection and can be found in Special Collections located on the second floor of the Bartle Library. There is also a copy in the circulating stacks.