How you can help

My way of passing the hat

The information offered here costs you nothing but time.  I’m happy with this.  It allows me the freedom to present the case for Oxford in all its complicated and unique drama without costing anyone (but me) a dime.  It also gives me the flexibility to amend a text when necessary, something impossible with print publishing.  But without the income that would come with book sales, lectures or a university position, it’s sometimes hard to get by, and it’s very hard to get the books I need to keep doing research.

You can help by making it possible for me to get the kind of reference books I need to have at hand.  I’m lucky to live within a nest of prestigious college and university libraries who subscribe to that blessed institution known as Interlibrary Loan.  This means that, with the help of my wonderful local library, I can read such books, but, alas, I can’t keep them, and without a copy machine of my own, there’s a limit to the notes I can take in the amount of time I can keep a library book, and I can’t always be sure that the notes I’m taking will be of help down the road when new questions arise.  A modest nest egg on Amazon.com would make it possible to buy such books when I need them.

It’s very easy to do this.  Just click here and fill in the form.  For “repicient” use hopkinshughes at optonline.net, replacing the at with @), so I’ll be notified of the donation quickly and easily by email.  By putting your name in the “from” field, I’ll know who sent it and can thank you appropriately, and (if you wish) add your name to a list of supporters.  If you choose to give anonymously you can just leave that field blank (amazon assures me that I won’t know who sent it), though I may note how many anonymous donations I receive (if any).  In this way it’s easy to give as often as you see fit and in amounts of any size, with no fees, banks, paperwork or post offices involved.

It’s my way of passing the hat.

Thanks for this, and as always for your interest, which more than anything is what keeps me going.