I am back in Hannover. This time there was no really good excuse despite the fact that there was a Leibniz-congress (even in Leibniz-Haus!). To be honest, the primary reason was that I had some travel money left in my post-doc-project and I thought to use it to contribute to my next project to which I am applying funding now. The future project has to do with Leibniz's theory of soul with a special emphasis on Leibniz's theory of emotions and I thought it would be great if I could find some unpublished material by Leibniz to be able to offer some novel insights to his theory. So back to Leibniz-Archiv I go.
Only this time it wasn't so simple. The library is under renovation until 2015 and the reading rooms are closed. What is left is a small two room complex of book delivery and information. Fortunately for me, the information-room contained a machine for reading and printing microfilms, so the whole trip was not in vain (there is also a possibility to use another machine in the manuscripts department but that has the downside of one being dependent on personnel). But to be frank, as a beginner with microfilms and with people coming and going and speaking in the information-room, what I could do is to go through the microfilms (I've prepared and ordered them beforehand) and print what looked interesting). So now I have a pile of copies of manuscripts in my bag.
A welcomed novelty in the provisory library was a book scanner which saved me a lot of money and trouble. It is free and one can save the scans to a USB-stick, so I did not have to carry a pile of copies with me to the hotel and post them in a package to Finland as I did last time. The scans are of good quality, too. As I was here two years ago, there was not much new books to look at - instead I went for other early modern philosophers like Hobbes and Spinoza, to gather new stuff on them. Well, around 2 gb of scans to read in the future!
As the library was closed on saturdays this time plus a band holiday which happened to occur during my visit, I had more time to visit museums etc. First I went to the aviation-museum which is in the Hannover Messe-area. I was there before, in 2001, and like the place very much. Not only is there aeroplanes (including, among others, Spitfire, Messerchmidt 109 and Focke Wulf 190), but also instructive walkthroughs of the first attempts to fly, the development of aerial warfere, the life of airmen and so on. Recommended! In addition, I enjoyed the night of the lantern in the Herrenhausen Gärdens. Beautiful lightning in the sublime environment. Beautiful!
As usual, I visited most of the record shops, too. Monster Records in Linden is highly recommended, decent-priced rare indie-stuff as vinyls and bit of cd's, too. 25 Music in Eastern Hannover is a great bet, too. And then there is the flea market every saturday. For some reason, this time I bought more singles than before, probably because of recent dj-activities of me and my wife. Hannover is a good place for that. One could find good stuff from 0.50-1 euro. Bad stuff, too...I bought a pile of Boney M-singles ;)
