“The following would be the best job ever for a rollergirl/librarian type.” Director/Curator, National Museum of Roller Skating. [pubhist]
in memoriam, Celeste West, revolting librarian
I was saddened today to hear of the death of Celeste West; my sincere apologies if you are hearing about it here first. Celeste, no relation to me, was one of the two fiesty authors of the original Revolting Librarians back in 1971. She wrote the introduction to our follow-up, Revolting Librarians Redux and really pushed us to think about ideas such as copyright and the whole idea of publishing through another company as opposed to doing it ourselves. Her answering machine, which I frequently spoke to in those days said something to the effect of “Send me a sunbeam” and though I’d like to think our back and forth conversations about licensing and releases fit the bill, I suspect they may not have.
In addition to her library writing with dry titles such as The Public Library Mission Statement and Its Imperatives for Service, she also wrote Lesbian Love Advisor and Lesbian Polyfidelity. She was also the first editor of Synergy a newsletter for SFPL’s experimental Bay Area Reference Center. Celeste discussed the relationship between the city’s transforming culture and the local library activities.
She described the city as “a trend-mecca–whether it be communal living, campus riots, gay liberation, independent film making … you name it and we’ve got it.” But what San Francisco had, she argued, was not reflected in library collections unless somebody took the time to pull together “the elusive printed material.” Thus, Synergy began examining the nature of library card catalogs, indexes, and selecting tools because its staff believed that such tools were mostly “rear-view mirrors” that provided little or no bibliographic access to the public’s current information needs. [library juice]
And, like any activist, her accomplishments expand well beyond this brief list of specifics. As her friend Judy said in her email to me “I hope someone will do a piece on her pirate queen life and what she has done to make libraries a little bit freer.” and I hope the same. There is a brief piece on the SF Zen Center blog, where she was a librarian from 1986-2006, with a grinning photo of her and a bit more information about an upcoming memorial service, should you be in the Bay Area and want to pay your respects.
these are not my del.icio.us links
But I do have a backlog of things to tell you about and only a medium amount of time to tell them to you, so I will be a little brief. I have been in New Hampshire peeking in at some of the election stuff and visiting with friends and now I’m really going to get going work and travelwise starting tomorrow. While I did my reading wrap-up here, I did my swimming and guestroom wrap-ups over at jessamyn.com. This year I may try to revive my “libraries visited” list now that I’ve got Flickr to help me out with the organizing, but it’s too early to tell if that will really work.
I’ve been to one library this year so far, the all-new Sargent Memorial Library in Boxborough MA. The library was way the heck up a hill and in a teeny building when I was growing up and we went there all the time. The librarians were always encouraging me to read whatever I wanted and my Mom stopped in often to get the new Ed McBain mysteries. The library outgrew its space and an all-new library was built and opened in 2005. I went there with my Mom yesterday and said hi to the library director who said she reads my blog (hi Maureen!). The last time I went to the old library as a patron I was probably in my late teens and I don’t think they even had computers yet. The new library is huge and lovely and has wifi. It’s also walking distance from the elementary school which is good news all around. It was fun to pop in there and get a real eyeful of how things have changed.
So here are a few things I thought you might be interested in, and my apologies for the brevity.
- A few books about libraries. The LA Times has an article about Don Borchert’s book Free for All: Oddballs, Geeks, and Gangstas in the Public Library and Scott Douglas reminds us that he has a book about working in a California library as well, Quiet Please.
- Lichen Rancourt is going like gangbusters at her new job at Manchester Public and she has a great post about how she’s creating and importing events lists into their library website despite being locked inside a city-wide CMS that they can’t control. Some good back and forth between her and Brian in the comments too.
- Speaking of back and forth the most recent Pew Report has some interesting stats about how people go looking for information. I haven’t read it yet, but there is some discussion over at web4lib both about how their conclusions seem a little strange relative to the data but also discussion about a study about user satisfaction, sort of an exit survey. The formatting on that page is terrible but it has links to more information.
- This seems like it will be a fun party or set of parties at ALA, and c’mon bring a gently used book and get a FREE DRINK? Almost worth the train ride to Philly.
file under: why did you tell anyone?
Package Containing Porn, Pot Mistakenly Sent to Maysville Library. [thanks coldchef]
bring your favorite mug or water bottle to ALA
I’m not going to ALA. As I mentioned before, I’m not a member and Philadelphia in January is not my idea of a good time. However, I do stay in touch with many ALA-ers and Monika Antonelli brought this Task Force of the Environment Campaign “Cup by Cup for a Greener ALA” It’s very very simple
- Bring a reusable cup to Midwinter
- Fill it with a favorite beverage
- Raise your cup and tell colleagues how you are helping the planet
- Drink, repeat & support TFOE-SRRT efforts toward a sustainable ALA.
One of the things that is distressing about having these big destination events is the huge amounts of waste that are generated. Council alone prints up tons of paper documents that were already distributed electronically, many of which are recycled (hopefully) or thrown out (likely) right after the meeting.
Even conscientious librarians who might bring their meals if they were just going to work wind up buying bottled water and packaged snacks because they’re trapped in the wasteland that is vast convention centers. Spend a little bit of time beforehand this year and try to pack a travel mug, a few powerbars or some fruit, your own pen and notebook, and maybe some teabags or Emergen-C that can keep you from spending time, money and resources just keeping yourself fed, hydrated and in prime note taking shape. Enjoy yourselves.