lower east side librarian

I wrote a report back on going to the Occupy Wall Street Library (OWSL) with Radical Reference this weekend over on the Rad Ref site.

I thought I might follow up, perhaps a little defensively, but I mean it to be reflective, on one of the things I brought up, and that is my feeling ashamed that I/we hadn't gotten involved sooner. Folks from the library first reached out to us on 9/21, but we couldn't rally to get involved. Five, even three years ago, we probably would have been engaged with the project from its conception, maybe even conceiving it ourselves.

The Lower East Side Librarian Library of Congress Subject Headings of the Week for Week 21, June 20, 2011 are...

These are the notes I made during the ALA Zine Cataloging panel. I can't seem to bring myself to write them in a nice narrative wrap-up. I think there's info that I'd like to make sure I get down somewhere, so here it is, unadorned for those who agree that something is better than nothing...

This is a guest post by Lauren Orso, who is working with me this semester in the Barnard Library Zine Collection. She responds to a mailing I received from Sandy Berman about Syndetics "value-added content."

Fred Woodwarth, publisher of The Match zine, heard from a Match reader that Secret Ceremonies, a memoir by Deborah Laake (a book reviewed in The Match), was referred to as a "silly account of life in the LDS church and with a couple of rigid Mormon men" in Baltimore library's catalog record. Fred, who doesn’t use computers, mailed this finding to fellow computer eschewer Sandy Berman, who forwarded Fred’s letter and his response, to several "computer savvy catalogers and reference librarians" to do some research.

I have to admit I'm getting a little sick of this game and also I'm becoming increasingly demoralized about the efficacy of subject headings, even if we could convince the Library of Congress to fucking acknowledge BUTCHES and FEMMES, the FAT ACCEPTANCE MOVEMENT, SEX WORKERS, FREEGANISM, and, for the love of dog, FOLKSONOMY. (See a larger list of Sandy Berman's suggestions if you don't already get the idea.)

But for some reason I can't let go, so here I give you a three for one on LCSH Watch!

Week 1, January 6, 2010, Week 2, January 13, 2010, and Week 3, January 20, 2010:

Anti-copyright movement
Condom use—Religious aspects
Corn mummies

Cultural intelligence
D.C. hand dance
Enemies

Feminism on television
Handball players
Happy hours
Jewish transgender people
Lesbian photographers
Mind and body in motion pictures
Orphan works (Copyright)
Pink in art
Stupidity in art
Uncanny, The (Psychoanalysis)
Work life balance

Week 51, December 23, 2009 on LCSH Watch:

• Beards (Islamic law)
• Cell phone etiquette
• Cooperating teachers
• Ducks—Counting
• Female juvenile delinquents in literature
• Gay political refugees
• Marijuana in motion pictures
• Webisodes
• Weiss beer
• Wheat beer
  

Week 50 on LCSH Watch 2009:

• Animated films
• Door-to-door selling
• Climate change mitigation
• Coffee cozies

• Costermongers

• Eleven Thousand Virgins (Legendary saints)
• Internet in evangelistic work
• Multicultural services librarians
• Muslim gay men
• Muslim gays

• Necromunda (Imaginary place)
• Operation Enduring Freedom, 2001-
• Operation Noble Eagle, 2001-
• Power line bird strikes

• Sacred space
• Subject headings
• War on Terrorism, 2001-2009

LCSH Watch: Week 49, December 9, 2009:

• Banks and banking—Contracting out
• Crime in music
• Music and crime
• Frau Antje (Advertising character)

• H1N1 influenza
• Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Imaginary organization)
• Legislators' pets
• Metadata harvesting

• Network‑centric operations (Military science)
• Semiotics and motion pictures