stats / what to do with 55,000 comic books?

[Nils-at-Duke Lid Hjort]

But first, how should one best spend 41,000 dollars?
The answer might depend on various socio-economic
indicators, but one thing you could do is to study for
a year here at Duke University. This is astounding to
innocent Scandinavian souls like myself, coming from
societies where university tuition is as close to zero
as health care.

And what does one get from paying 41,000 dollars?
At least some good coffee shops (some open to midnight)
and an excellent library (open & intensively used even
after midnight). So, after a midnight coffee at Perk
you migh pass by the Perkins library [before going on
to a couple of further hours of glorious work], where
the lobby part is wondrously adorned these months
with ... comic books from the 1940ies and 1950ies.
A very nice exhibition in a very public place. This is from
"the Edwin and Terry Murry collection of pulp culture",
a monumental gift to Duke from two brothers who were students
here, comprising 55,000 or so comic books. So you can flash
your library card at the "Rare Book, Manuscript, and
Special Collections Library" and wade between the Mark Twain
and Walt Whitman originals and Gutenbergs and ask
to see Terror of the River 1946, please. 

Nils Lid Hjort
stats professor