Re: poly: canonical texts

>> Now, how many of you polymaths would use such a service?
>
>Since I'm currently attending a good school, it's a relatively
>low priority for me. If I want to learn about something, I head
>to the bookstore or library and browse.
>If I weren't in college I'd certainly want it. I certainly
>find good reference texts very satistfying to have around the
>house but relatively hard to find.

You have an "American-centric graduate school" perspective Curt ...

I'm also a graduate student, but the German graduate school system
don't have courses (the Germans completed them at the previous level), and
so the students are basically on their own at their various research
institutions to do their research. I don't really have a school library,
but my research institution library, instead (which is _really old_,
and not particularly great. Sometimes I use the library at the
Max Planck Institute for Astronomie up the road).

By the way, the texts for any German course can be found at _any_
bookstore (that's what I'm told, since I've not attended any courses
here in Germany yet). If the store doesn't have it in stock, then
they get it from a nearby bookstore in a few days.

Another German difference with bookstores in the States is that the
books at every bookstore in Germany are the same price- it's a kind of
law. There's no price competition between bookstores here.

(I've been making huge use of amazon.de to buy my books since I moved here.
It saves me a lot of hassle, and it's fast, cheap, and easy.)

So.. actually, for me as a graduate student, this idea of knowing the
key books or papers on a topic would be very useful for me ....

Amara

***************************************************************
Amara Graps | Max-Planck-Institut fuer Kernphysik
Interplanetary Dust Group | Saupfercheckweg 1
+49-6221-516-543 | 69117 Heidelberg, GERMANY
Amara.Graps@mpi-hd.mpg.de * http://galileo.mpi-hd.mpg.de/~graps
***************************************************************
      "Never fight an inanimate object." - P. J. O'Rourke
Received on Mon Jun 14 21:13:09 1999