Category: librarians

how to be so-called famous

Posted on by jessamyn

Karen Schneider has a great post that is just now crossing my radar because I’ve been ignoring my RSS feed for a while and spending more time cooking. It’s called How To Be Famous and there are two things I like about it a great deal.

First, when I scanned it the first time I was like “Oh this was great but she forgot…” and then on a second read I realized she didn’t forget a thing, at least as I see things. Second, she wrote this list so I don’t have to. People in libraryland ask me what I do or did to travel and speak like I do — less than most but more than many others — and I let them in on my little pair of secrets which is 1) you have to want to do it to be able to do it, which already rules out a ton of people with other obligations or who just hate travel, public speaking or, frankly, other people. 2) I can manage to do what I do because I live a very small and simple life in rural Vermont with no pets or children and only a few peaked looking houseplants. The town rolls up the sidewalks at eight and most evenings I noodle away working. I am lucky to have a job, or a few jobs, that are flexible enough to allow me to travel and I’m equally fortunate to actually enjoy schlepping around and meeting other people.

The most important things I would point to on Karen’s list are these. The importance of taking care of yourself or as she says “pace yourself.” Not only are you no good to anyone if you haven’t gotten enough sleep or down-time, but being continually on-the-road exhausted is a lifestyle problem at some level. If you’re a brain surgeon, this may not be true. If you’re a librarian, it definitely is. Also, I believe strongly in helping up-and-comers and mentoring people newer to the profession or even people just considering the profession. People were there to answer my million questions when I was an early WLA and ALA member, I figure I can do the same for early bloggers and facebookers and whoever. Time and effort you invest in other people, for the most part, is time and effort well-invested.

in memoriam, Celeste West, revolting librarian

Posted on by jessamyn

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.