THE LINCOLN UNIVERSITY LIBRARY IN JEFFERSON CITY, MISSOURI

We drove the two big hills to get to the library at Lincoln University--an historical African-American school--and we were told that, yes, if we have a Jeff City library card, we could use the library. The librarian hooked us up and we put in our key words and--and--an entire page of Nubia and/or Kush books and reference materials filled the page.

We went to the stacks (actually fast walked to the stack)--two of them (one in the basement and one on the second floor). Once again, Egypt--a few shelves. Ethiopia--a number of books. Sudan, Congo, South Africa--represented and represented well. But Nubia?

Nothing.

And this is the sad part--every book we checked on was listed as available on the library's data base.

So I went to the reference desk and asked about all of the books and this is what I found out--the books are neither checked out or available. A professor has asked for them and he has an office in the library so he may have them all stacked nice and neat on his desk. He's writing a book on Egypt. (Does Egypt need another book?) Here's his phone number. He's really nice and he's always accessible.

He really was accessible. This is how dialog begins. And it turns out he's writing a book on Nubia.

THE NUBIAN DETECTIVE

A friend asked if I could assist her in an art project about the Nubian people. I had heard of them, but really did not know much about them. So we walked to the library--the Missouri Regional Library in Jefferson City, Missouri--and found...

Nothing.

Not one book about Nubia. Egypt was everywhere. Ethiopia had its share. There were even books on ancient and modern day Sudan. But Nubia?

Nada.

We scored the shelves. Then--buried near the bottom, shoved in further than it had to be, we found a book that did not fit in--as if books too have popularity issues. Too thick with quite a misleading title: The Rescue of Jerusalem--The Alliance Between Hebrews and Africans in 701 BC by Henry T. Aubin, Soho Press, 2002, the book leaped into my hand--or so it seemed--and when I went to the index, I found, oh, yes, "Nubia, see Kush."

And there in the library's data base under the keyword Kush was a children's book: The Ancient Kushites by Liz Sonneborn, Scholastic, 2005.

Were the Nubians the Kush?

I took both books out and...

The art project? History. Nubia? The detection begins.