#libraries and archives

[u-mspcoll]

"I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don't think it will be based on the colour of the skin... Malcolm X"

Political Posters, Labadie Collection, SCLP0163

[yourblackhearts]

Friendly reminder that you can ask your library to buy books that you're interested in reading and there's always a good chance they might say yes!

In related news I requested @inkskinned's new book for my own library and-

[lrosewrites]

LIBRARY USERS OF TUMBLR who are age 35 or younger, are you able to help out a grad student by taking a survey? Your prize will be my eternal gratitude 😔

EDIT: You all are incredible! I have SO MUCH DATA to work with!! ❤️📚❤️ Survey is now closed

[jesslovesboats]

It's been an extremely busy, extremely weird few days in libraryland, mostly bad but also at times inexplicably hilarious.

Case in point: I was at the service desk with a co-worker when an older gentleman came into the library yesterday. He mentioned that he hadn't been to a library in many years, so my coworker said "welcome back!"

This man then proceeded to stand directly in front of the desk and sing the *entire* theme song to 70s TV sitcom Welcome Back Kotter while we stood there awkwardly and stupidly, waiting for him to finish and unsure of what to do with ourselves in the meantime. You know how uncomfortable it feels when people are singing Happy Birthday to you? This was that x 100. After he finished, we did an awkward golf clap and expected him to leave, but he just kept talking 🙃. Eventually we succeeded in getting him on his way.

I posted this on other socials so I apologize if you had to hear this more than once, it's just the kind of harmless weird story that I love to tell.

Libraries, man.

[whathehe11]

This is a friendly reminder that libraries exist and that they have more than just books.

Now, some libraries have more services than others but even the most basic libraries will have shelves upon shelves of dvd, cd, books, games, etc… that you can borrow and use for free(!!!)

Some more bougie libraries will also have other awesome stuff.

For example, I once went to a library with a recording booth with a good quality mic, they had a green screen room, cameras that could be borrowed, computers with the Adobe suite to do editing, as well as a plethora of other resources and help from librarians.

Another thing, ask what your local librarians can do. They often are really good at researching and also might be able to borrow things from other libraries as well.

Also, once you get a library card you can sign up for Libby that has a ton of books and audio books (again) for free.

Personally I just borrowed the 4th series of doctor who and have been watching the episodes and extra content on the dvds. I’m having a blast!

[atthelibrarywithmegan]

Just a reminder:

In Oregon (I’m not sure about other states), as long as you have a home library and hold a card there, you can get additional library cards in other counties/cities through the library passport program.

I hold 5 library cards for my county, surrounding counties, and with the @queerliblib. I plan to get more where I can.

Libraries don’t just have physical books to check out. They have ebooks and audiobooks, DVDs, magazines, electronics, games, audiobooks on CD, music on CDs, and so much more. Many libraries also hold community events. Go to those and support your local libraries.

[obsessioncollector]

Okay sorry job rant ahead. I truly enjoy the actual content of working at the public library. We lost power for a few days (the building is a century old and we had a heat wave so the A/C probably overloaded and made everything crash) and so it's been stressful because we're behind on our work and also patrons are constantly asking about the situation, which is understandable but it's annoying to have the same conversation over and over. I expected work to be really busy and aggravating today since it's the first day we're back fully open, but it was actually fine. I showed someone how to check out ebooks on their phone, made library cards for an Austrian family of four who just moved to the US, and gave out prizes for summer reading (you check something out, you get a little prize like candy, a bookmark, a sticker.) In all of these interactions I felt that I was making a positive difference in people's lives, however small. Now ebook guy can send books to his kindle for free, and he didn't even know about the app that allows him to do that until today! The Austrian family has a surname with an umlaut, which many computer systems in the U.S. don't allow, so I made sure I got the right Anglicized spelling of their name in the system so there's no confusion (think Müller vs Muller vs Mueller.) Both kids and adults love choosing their prizes! At first it surprised me that I enjoy a job with a substantial amount of social interaction so much since I'm autistic, but it's very fulfilling, and I alternate between the circulation desk and more solidarity tasks like shelving books, so I don't feel overwhelmed by the amount of social interaction (unless we're having an especially hectic day.) All of this rambling is to say that it's actually an ideal job for weird autistic mentally ill me.

But our library administration (and also the town government) is driving me insane! They are so out of touch and have no understanding of what library workers actually do on the job. We are significantly underpaid compared to every neighboring town, even though this is a wealthy town, so if anything you'd think we'd earn more 😭 They have been stalling union negations for over a year, the whole time I've worked here plus some, so part timers still aren't included in the union. Library part timers are also technically classified as seasonal employees for no actual reason, unlike every other town department, so we get even fewer benefits. There are no opportunities for advancement or even mentorship. I have a master's degree in library science and am working a job that does not require the degree. It's one thing if they can't fund more positions (although it's interesting what they choose to spend money on 😭) but you'd think they would want to work to retain qualified staff (not just me but many of my coworkers) instead of keeping conditions so shitty that people leave as soon as they get another job. More than half the employees started here in the past year because people keep leaving! Also the majority of the workers in my department have some sort of injury because we do so much repetitive heavy lifting (which has also significantly increased over the past year and isn't reflected in the job description.) It's like they're actively trying to make this place as hostile to workers as possible. Kms

[u-mspcoll]

"Trans Rights are Human Rights" Pinback Buttons, Labadie Collection, LBC.1588

[maarr-ss]

Biblioteca de México 📚

[s-hecateis]

on tumblr blogs as personal archives, the struggle of being authentic online, and why i started this blog

howdy, everyone! now that i've had this blog for a few weeks and have been flexing my writing muscles a bit more, i wanted to put a little blurb out there about why i returned to this hellsite, and slap some thoughts and feelings about it somewhere (because i'm the queen of intellectualizing literally everything that i do). i also want to get in the habit of writing things that are more longform so it doesn't hit me like a semi when i start up my PhD program in the fall.

if you read this, and have read any of my writing on here: THANK YOU. it's really cool to have a little community of writers and creatives on the internet that read your stuff and interact with it at all. 11-15 year old me that was absolutely intoxicated by tumblr when i first found it would be very happy to see me actually putting our thoughts out there, and see that anyone at all supported them. xoxo

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as i hinted at in the intro, tumblr was a weird little corner of the internet that i found in middle school before any of my friends at the time knew what it was. when i saw people reblogging posts about the fandoms they were into, and saw a sliver of community in folks yapping about their shared interests, i was enraptured. people sharing cool art and infodumping with each other? sign me up, literally. i was too chickenshit to put any of my writing or art out the at the time, but i adored the concept, and reblogged cool things like my life depended on it.

for context, i grew up on the top of a ridge in a rural part of southwestern PA, in a little unincorporated community that fended for themselves most of the time (i'm talking gravel dirt road, a decent drive away from most resources and actual neighborhoods -- stuff people would say and go "i can hear the sound of banjoes!" if they somehow ended up lost on our road). for most of my life up on the ridge, i was the only kid around, and my default setting was either putting all of my creative energy and random thoughts into spiralbound notebooks that no one would read, or talking about it to, not with my mom nonstop (love ya mom, sorry if i was annoying as shit ♡ ). additionally, we had dial-up much longer than most people up on the ridge, and couldn't even get your standard commercial internet providers up there, so finding fun corners of the web up there carried more weight, more significance. things took a painfully slow moment to load, but when it did, it felt like treasure.

i'm setting the scene here only to emphasize just how revolutionary finding a place like tumblr felt. i cared about other social media only because having accounts when you're younger than thirteen wasn't allowed (unless you, cough cough, lied or put your mom's birth year in instead of your own. once again: sorry, mom), but none of them held a candle to tumblr. on tumblr, whether i divulged who i was or not, i digitally practiced being as authentic to myself as would allow. no instagram filters, no masking how interested in topics that i loved: just a direct line to my tween/teen stream of consciousness where i could dump all of that weird hormonal energy somewhere and then carry on with my outside life as normal.

all of that being said, when i came to the realization that i should get back in the habit of writing more to better acclimate to full-time doctoral studies, and try to write more for my own enjoyment as opposed to writing to complete an assignment or meet a deadline, i was considering more "professional" platforms like substack, or some kind of livejournal blog: something with a seemingly-genuine-but-actually-deliberately-curated tone to put things out there, check the to-do box in my head, and give myself a pat on the back. as soon as i signed up for my substack account, though, i already felt exhausted at the idea of filtering myself or masking that much. this ritual of self-filtration is something that i, we, do enough at work, in daily social situations, and i wasn't about to torture myself to do so in another format under the guise of doing something that i love. it sounds masochistic to do that, almost, now that i type it out. i stand by my decision to end up here instead of a more buttoned-up platform.

this idea of deliberate authenticity in your interactions, fragments of the self (hi jung, you crazy mfer), and assessing how unadulterated you are online was also top of mind because of reading how to do nothing: resisting the attention economy by jenny odell -- which is a FABULOUS book, if you haven't read it. odell references great writers and thinkers throughout the book on a variety of topics related to how you divide (and algorithms everywhere fight for, tooth and nail) your selves and your attention up online, and mentioned audre lorde's own struggles at unifying parts of herself (quote below from sister outsider: essays and speeches):

"I find I am constantly being encouraged to pluck out some one aspect of myself and present this as the meaningful whole, eclipsing or denying the other parts of self."

as a neurodivergent person that has been obsessed with the concept of self fragmentation ever since i saw jung's own writing on it in high school and connected it to my own experience of diluting my enthusiasm and passion to cater to the comfort of others, this quote and odell's care-filled analysis of it stuck out on the page like a giant billboard with flashing lights and an arrow that said, "hey, look, it's that thing that you're exhausted by all of the time."

of course, i want to be careful and point out that lorde's writing and oration also connects to her lived experience with blackness in america, which i do not have the tools to fully relate to as a white person. with that care in place, i still felt very spoken to, with, at when i read this quote, and was also reading it at a time where i was not only debating what type of silly blog to run on the internet to dump my writing, but i took in the words at a time in my mid twenties where being true to myself felt like the antidote to and mending of so much time spent waging a war on the true me, on my real passions and thoughts and feelings. with this in mind, i had my sights set on building a little spot in the cavernous space of the internet where i could relish in being me, unapologetically, and found myself returning to this goddamn hellsite to do it.

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it's early here, but i want to wrap this up to spend more time with my mom before i fly home. i would normally do drafts and reworkings of something like this before putting it out there for all to see, but that doesn't really resonate with the theme of little-to-no filtering of my authentic self, does it?

if you read all of this, thank you! i appreciate you. this blog is not only my dumping ground of things i love and creative endeavors i enjoy, but it's very much a personal digital archive, and i am thankful for anyone that takes the time to sort through it as a patron of the archival collection, so to speak (more on that later -- i have another post drafted about tumblr being archival).

[happy-mokka]

God.

Book lover's paradise... 📚

The library of Trinity College in Dublin. Est. 1592.

Imagine being able to actually live there. Wandering the shelves on a daily basis. Digging in the smell. Picking up books at random. Gently touching the pages. Some of them older than your grand grand parents...

I'd sleep in the fictional section, amongst all the great ones...each morning sip my coffee in the poetry section. Pick a new book every day and read poems while the coffee steams on the side until it gets cold cause I got lost in 42 additional poems...

Imagine that.

By Diliff - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=42693401

[khrystynapv]

Reading it’s sexy

[jesslovesboats]

Hello! As a fellow reader of sad boat books (polar exploration category) and also a fellow librarian, your posts delight me. Did you know that Ada Blackjack's diary was recently digitized? It's here (along with one of my favorite photos of her and Vic, who is displaying the timeless goal of cats to Not Be In This Picture):

https://www.library.dartmouth.edu/digital/digital-collections/collating-wrangel-island/ada-blackjack-diary

Hello! I have seen it-- what an incredible resource! I highly encourage everyone to click through and take a look at it and read about Ada's experiences in her own words. I'm so grateful to Dartmouth for digitizing so many of their Wrangel Island resources and putting them online. Not only does it mean that more people have access to the materials (which is ALWAYS a good thing, information wants to be free!), it means that I have to send fewer deranged emails to their special collections division asking for scans. Everybody wins!

Also thank you for the compliment! I'm glad you enjoy my posts, especially since everyone knows librarians have the best taste. Sad Boat forever! ❤️

[theother1one]

Old books, pretty ceiling…

[loki-zen]

a thought on promotional signage in and about libraries:

if you as a librarian are not viscerally uncomfortable with how inadequately specified, contextualised and elaborated the information in your poster is, it almost certainly isn’t punchy enough.

[obsessioncollector]

My library has an LGBTQ history display for Pride and there was a mom + dad with little kids reading the info to them + explaining concepts they didn't know (like drag.) Rly sweet to see them interacting with it in such an affirming way and without making a big deal out of it ❤️ And they were really normie looking suburban new england types... shouldn't judge by appearances but tbh it was even nicer bc I wouldn't necessarily expect them to be that actively accepting