West calls herself an "anarchist librarian." She sits on the Social Responsibilities committee of the American Library Association, maintains librarian.net to provide links to resources for other librarians, and is heavily involved with promoting readers' rights. She is also the coeditor of "Revolting Librarians Redux," a collection of essays and stories on radical library issues such as book banning and sexuality tolerance. The original "Revolting Librarians" was a small compilation from the 1970s.
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Today's librarians challenging stereotypes
By JESSICA M. PASKO
Associated Press Writer
October 2, 2005, 9:22 AM EDT
UNDATED -- Eris Weaver is a bellydancing librarian.
A librarian for almost 20 years, she got interested in the Middle Eastern dance a decade ago and set up her Web site, The Bellydancing Librarian, soon after.
"I often get told 'But you don't look like a librarian,' and I'm like, 'Yes I do. This is what we look like now,"' said Weaver, of Rohnert Park, Calif. "I haven't seen anyone wearing a bun and shushing in years!"
These are not your parents' librarians.
Weaver joins others in the library world who are increasingly challenging perceptions and making activism part of the job. They're speaking out against censorship and protesting the Patriot Act, which they worry could allow government officials to seize library patrons' records to see if anyone's checked out suspicious books.
A number of them have started Web sites and blogs to change the way people think about them. There's the Ska Librarian, the Lipstick Librarian and even the Modified Librarian, where library workers can post photos of their tattoos and body piercings.
"There's something inherently progressive in collecting and preserving information for people," said John Buschman, department chair of the Rider University library in New Jersey. He's a member of the Progressive Librarians Guild, which was started in 1990 by a group of librarians concerned about the move toward library alliances with corporate business, which they view as a threat to free and objective dispersion of information.
Nearly three decades ago, the Social Responsibilities Round Table was formed within the American Library Association for those who believed libraries had a duty to be actively involved in the day's social issues, including feminism, poverty, and racism. The Progressive Librarians have also spoken out on issues such as the destruction of archives in Iraq, said Buschman.
This kind of watchdog activism go along with the basic tenets of the American Library Association, said librarian Jessamyn West. Librarians often have to deal with issues such as local legislators passing bills that restrict libraries from using public funds to buy books on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues, she explained. At the library in Guilderland, N.Y., a trustee proposed labeling all young adult novels containing sexual descriptions with an orange "PG" sticker. The proposal was ultimately turned down.
West calls herself an "anarchist librarian." She sits on the Social Responsibilities committee of the American Library Association, maintains librarian.net to provide links to resources for other librarians, and is heavily involved with promoting readers' rights. She is also the coeditor of "Revolting Librarians Redux," a collection of essays and stories on radical library issues such as book banning and sexuality tolerance. The original "Revolting Librarians" was a small compilation from the 1970s.
One of the contributors to "Redux," Jenna Freedman, a librarian at Barnard College in New York City, helped start Radical Reference in 2004 just before the Republican National Convention in New York City.
Freedman said the group is "supporting the activist community with tools they didn't know existed." During the RNC protests, they served as street librarians, researching questions about the convention or protests and offering "ready reference kits," binders full of maps, RNC schedules, anarchist literature and more.
About 40 librarians also took part in the largest protest march. Since then, Radical Reference has stayed active, teaching fact-checking to journalists, doing workshops on free library resources and sending librarians to other demonstrations.
"Our politics may be radical," she said, "but we're doing really basic things."
Freedman has also been working on establishing a collection of "zines," small circulation, noncommercial publications that usually deal with political, personal and social content that wouldn't appear in mainstream media. So far she has about 1,000 of them at Barnard, focusing primarily on women's issues.
"The idea was that, these were voices not represented in libraries; If you want an accurate picture of society, you have to hear from everyone," said Freedman.
The changing perceptions may be attracting more people to the profession. Enrollments in accredited Library and Information Science degree programs have climbed from 18,901 in 1997 to 26,521 in 2003, according to the American Library Association. There are about 137,000 librarians in the United States.
"There's always been a group of progressive librarians, committed to free access,but it used to be harder for them to organize," said West. "The Internet has really helped to get the message out."
On the Web:
http://www.librarian.net
Progressive Librarians Guild
http://www.libr.org
http://www.lipsticklibrarian.com
The Bellydancing Librarian http://www.sonic.net/erisw/bdlib.html
http://www.ala.org
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
Lord We˙rdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in
any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in
itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or
tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never
entered into any war, or act of hostility against any
Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no
pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce
an interruption of the harmony existing between the two
countries.
-- The Treaty of Tripoli, entered into by the USA under
George Washington
http://www.infoshop.org/alibrarians/public_html/article.php?story=20051002230814615