lower east side librarian

For those who enjoyed the last Sandy Berman letter I posted (re: the destruction of the People's Library at Occupy Wall Street), here are two more, originally sent to his representative, Erik Paulsen...

Sandy Berman sent this letter to American Libraries on December 6, 2011.

Sandy Berman has renewed his call for the Library of Congress to create a subject heading for Sexting, citing an article inspired by Congressmember Weiner's travails called "Sexting: It's More Common Than You think."

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.

Sandy Berman recently copied me on a few of his suggestions to the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy & Support Office that I thought some of y'all might enjoy...

2010 victories on Sandy Berman's latest Library of Congress Subject Heading personal scorecard (pdf) include...

The Lower East Side Librarian Library of Congress Subject Headings of the Week for Week 46, November 17, 2010 are...

Some visual clues:

October 6 will be Sandy Berman's 77th birthday. To celebrate and to thank him for everything he's done so far, you might want to consider sending him a birthday card, like a lot of people did last year and the year before.

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

Among Sandy Berman's latest recommendations to the Library of Congress Subject Authority Cooperative is CYBERCHONDRIA.