Eli M. Oboler Library
Friends Of Oboler Library
Organized in 2003, Friends Of Oboler Library is supported by nearly 100 founding members. We would like to invite you to become a founding member.
So what is a friends group? Many libraries have friends groups that support the library. Most groups have a two-fold mission:
- To provide programming about books, libraries, reading, and literacy to members and the community
- To assist the library in raising funds for special projects and on-going endowments.
Programs can include events to honor ISU authors, talks by other regional and national authors, trips to plays, special tours, and other "literary" events. Fund raising can include dinners, book sales, and auctions. The library will also provide publications and announcements to keep you informed of our collections, exhibits, and activities.
Friends Of Oboler Library Newsletter
Read the latest Friends Of Oboler Library newsletter, FOOLSCAP (PDF)
Why "FOOL"?
The "Friends Of Oboler Library" - "FOOL" for short - may seem an odd name for an organization whose aim it is to support the university's primary repository of knowledge. Yet it must be remembered that that the fool, or jester, has had a long history, especially during the later Middle Ages and Renaissance, of being uniquely privileged to speak the truth in the presence of authority, without fear of the consequences.
And fools have had a way of surprising us with their wisdom. The tale is told by a contemporary chronicler* that in 1544 an angry mob made a bonfire of Lutheran books. Quite unexpectedly, a fool appeared on the scene and remarked that it was light labor to burn books, but difficult to expel that which was in the head and the heart. So saying, he pointed to his head and heart, and went his way. Thus was the futility of censorship displayed.
Shakespeare was particularly fond of the character of the fool, who appears in many of his plays. In As You Like It, the fool's name is Touchstone, and he is, as his name suggests, the test of the quality of the men and manners within the play. And the character Feste, in Twelfth Night, is a fool who is clearly a more perspicacious observer of his world than his social betters. The character Viola says about Feste, "This fellow's wise enough to play the fool." (III, I, 68).
The Library would like to believe that it, like the fool, serves its public as a fearless teller of truths, as the touchstone of scholarly character, and as a storehouse of the wisdom, as well as the instructive folly, of humankind.
*Gastius, as related in Enid Welsford's The Fool: His Social and Literary History. Garden City: Doubleday Anchor, 1961.
Read more about member benefits, membership levels and a sign-up form. Even if you can't make it to the current event, we hope you will become a member.