Here she is, my next librarian crush Julie "Lulu-to-the-Barricades" Tozer of the Ocean County Public Library and the Garden State Rollergirls. Long-term readers of my blog know I have a crush on all derbrarians, but Lulu was my first.
photo by Patrick Brewser
Before I met Lulu, I met Julie, like Cherie, through Radical Reference. She didn't join up during the Republican National Convention in 2004 because she was busy doing the hero's work of helping to coordinate housing. Thousands of activists come to NYC to protest--where do you put them? Ask Julie! Once she had become part of the Rad Ref crew Julie bottom-lined events and was one of best dealers-with-bureaucracies we had. Temporary beer license needed for a fundraiser? Julie was on it! She also hosted a memorable meeting at her apartment in Jersey City. It was the best catered Rad Ref event I've ever attended. The girl can cook. Plus, as a vegan for ten years, she knows a lot of tricks. Like did you know that Pillsbury Crescents are vegan?!? Actually, though, Julie has been "vegan except dessert" for the last seven. As a "vegan except for a slice of pizza every month or two" I respect someone who makes sacrifices for her ideals, but allows a little wiggle room in her orthodoxy.
As part of her job as a teen librarian in South Jersey, Julie provides weekly services to teens at a county juvenile detention center, something she was highly prepared for, having written her graduate thesis about urban fiction and library services to people in prison. At the "regular library" she facilitates everything from an Anime Club to a Gay-Straight Book Club, all for teens. I really admire also that Julie is at that public library at all. When I met her, she was support staff at Columbia's Avery Architecture and Fine Arts Library, in line with her undergraduate degree in Art History and her continuing interest in architecture and public space. After finishing library school at Queens College, Julie got a migrant archivist job at Columbia processing a collection of architectural records. I suspect Julie could have continued getting processing archivist gigs in NYC--a hard to break into line of work as far as I can tell, but she gave it up to be a teen librarian in the 'burbs, something I call walking the walk.