Deo Vindice...

Your loyal blogger has acquired a new work computer after about three years of begging, so please pardon any delays in blog posting or updating the website.  It's taking some time to transfer years of photos, fonts, bookmarks, address lists, applications, etc. from The Underpowered Compaq From Hell to my shiny new Mac, hallowed be its name.

And since there's Young Professionals tonight, and a new brochure that needs to be mocked up, and event photos to tag, and in a few minutes, it'll be Children's Storytime downstairs, I'll just share a quick anecdote about work at a 262 year old institution:

This morning, your loyal blogger was called upon to help satisfy the need of a certain federal agency to prove that the Charleston Library Society is, truly, an ancient and venerable eleemosynary library, and not a sinister terrorist front.  And to be fair to the diligent fellows of the DHS, the Society has held a copy of the Qur'an for longer than we've been "Americans"... our Qur'an dates from 1762, twelve years before the founding of this country.

So we get a call this morning that we need something- anything really- that shows our organization's legal incorporation, and proves we're real, live, nephews of our Uncle Sam, born on the Fourth of July.  Which would be easy enough, if we weren't chartered by the monarch of another country, Mr. George the II, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Hannover, Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire.

This little issue required going back and finding out if His Highness's Royal Charter is still good enough to prove we're not terrorists.  Apparently it is (I suppose it does indicate we're not IRA members, at least).  So now that it's approved, your loyal blogger must make a copy of the document to send in.  One doesn't just stick a Royal Charter in the Xerox machine, especially since the chances of getting a new one from ol' Liz Windsor are slim-to-none.  So I also got permission to use "the first reprint of the charter that is in good enough shape to photocopy".

So the (fully approved) document now on file, the one that shows we're no threat to the "homeland", is the Library Society's Act of Incorporation... printed by A.J. Burke, 40 Broad Street, Charleston, C.S.A, 1861... NHS, osculare pultem meam.

That's it.  Young Professionals tonight, library's closed on the 15th, and check us out in the latest issue of Charleston Magazine!