As I have not been at pains to conceal, my official title is "Galactic Librarian, Orion Sector." The Orion Arm of the Milky Way is considered by some a bit of a backwater, not a real arm at all but more of a "spur." Without getting into a controversy about nomenclature, let me just observe that the location of the Orion Arm with respect to the center of the galaxy and the other arms more than makes up for its diminutive size. It is neither too close to the crowded center, with its monstrous black hole and bevies of star clusters, nor a straggler on the very edge of things, rubbing shoulders with the impossibly vast intergalactic night. Rather it is in a comfortably middling location that is convenient even if one should be hunting for cosmic crustacea in the Crab Nebula (over at the end of the Perseus Arm) or whisking around the hotspots in the Sag (Sagittarius Arm, that is). The Orion Arm, in fact, has a bit of a reputation as a scholarly mecca and repository of information about galactic cultures past, present, and future. Some rather nebulous accounts have given larger libraries precedence, such as the Behemothra in the Centaurus Arm, but one must look beyond mere size, I think, to the quality of the intelligence that is housed within these repositories and also the quality of the minds that constitute the scholarly environment around them. If all that is taken into account, the Orion Arm is second to none.
In my present capacity as Researcher Second Class on assignment to the Sol system, I have garnered many physical manifestations of the local bibliophlora and bibliophauna, in the form of books. The acquisition of these books has actually been proceeding in a more orderly fashion than the actual reading, digesting, and interpreting of them. I shall attempt to correct that with a new blog which I am establishing. It will serve to provide interim reports on significant writings that I encounter, for it is not my opinion alone that this planet is extraordinarily rich in this kind of resources. One might almost nickname this world Orbis Biblios, so that will be the name of my blog.
