It's now been three weeks since the Progressive Library Skillshare in Pittsburgh, so my report back will not do justice to the event, I'm afraid. I'm just going to list the highlights, since too much time has passed for me to produce a thoughtful narrative.
- Jet Blue, while I've heard it to be a union-busting airline, sure has the best food in its JFK terminal that I've ever seen anywhere. It's easy to be vegan there.
- Alina and Vani picked up Sandy and me from the airport and were our thoughtful travel directors for the whole weekend.
- That reminds me--isn't it interesting that the most low budget events are the most considerate and generous with their guests? The Skillshare paid our travel, put us up, gave us per diem, and offered honoraria. (We refused the last.) NCOR, too pays travel, finds housing, and feeds you, whereas if you speak at ALA or ACRL, you have to pay all your expenses, including a hefty registration fee. Whose got class?
- After settling in we visited the Big Idea, Pittsburgh's radical bookstore, where Vani volunteers. It's a small, but well located space with a nice hang out area on the second floor.
- We then had a delicious dinner at the Quiet Storm, which features the kind of menu that dizzies a vegan unaccustomed to having so many tempting choices.
- My talk was at an eco-friendly coffee shop that seemed to be thriving, despite its location across the street from one of those ubiquitous coffee shops that shall not be named. The organizers had rented out a room for the talk and movie and brought in another amazing spread of vegetarian yumminess. The event was incredibly well attended--maybe 50 people?--including non-librarians.
- Sandy gave me a far too kind introduction, and then I reprised my new favorite theme of how everyone can make radical change, in their library or wherever. I talked about starting the zine collection at Barnard and Radical Reference and how all it takes to get stuff like that done is the idea and effort. We then had a really nice discussion about the projects I talked about and things participants were into.
- Then they showed a documentary about Book 'Em, Pittsburgh's books to prisoners program by tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE. It was really inspiring to see what this town's activist crusty punks are up to.
- Let me say a few words about Pittsburgh. It's a great, manageably sized city. The kind of city where a community can really coalesce, where you can attend most, if not all, of the radical events. I also liked that it still has a working class feel, despite the collapse of the steel industry that made it so.
- I stayed with Vani, who was a great host, despite being a little hungover on Saturday after having half a beer the night before with Alina and me. I get a little nervous about being one on one with someone I don't know, but Vani was very easy to be with and generous in discussing gender, race, politics, and librarianship with me. Getting to know Vani and the other organizers was a high point of the experience for me.
- One really cool thing I learned about after my talk from Andrew (?) at the AIDS Library in Philadelphia. They've got a del.icio.us page that groups all their resources by Dewey classification. As he explained to me, in addition to collocating material, it also deftly reveals where the holes are. Note to self: this deserves a whole blog post of its own.
- On Saturday morning was Sandy's talk and the skillshares. Of course Sandy was inspiring, rousing, intelligent, and funny, reminding us all why he has the hero status he eschews. That leads me to the sole complaint I have about the weekend.
- Where the fuck were the LIS faculty? I believe there was one in attendance at Sandy's talk. I would have expected every librarian within 50 miles of Pittsburgh to drop everything at the chance to hear from one of the greatest librarians of the 20th century, especially the local professoriate. But they weren't there. Not even to support their students who had organized this incredible event. Well, it's their loss and their shame.
- I'm not sure how many people attended the talk and participated in the skillshare--maybe another 50? I attended the bookbinding workshop, where I learned Japanese stab binding, and then addressed prison resource guides to prisoners at the Book 'Em table. Both were very satisfying.
- It was great to see Tom Twiss, who I know from SRRT, and who led a well attended skillshare on international responsibilities and librarianship.
- I also collected zines and other literature from the tablers.
- Saturday night Sandy and I were treated to an Indian dinner by the organizers and afterwards I went dancing with Alina, Jude, and Vani at Donny's Place, a lesbian bar. The music kind of sucked, but it was still a good time. I'm amused to report that it was the librarians who started the dancing. No one was moving until we four led the way.
- Sunday, home again with a full heart and a bag made heavy with zines and a cute t-shirt made by the organizers.
- The organizers, by the way, were stupendous. They were Alina, Jude, Justin, Kelly, Tricia, and Vani. (Hope I'm not missing anyone!) The worked well together, had everything covered, didn't seem overly harried, were creative, generous, and fun.
- Photos
Well, I guess that was kind of narrative after all, and kind of long. Sorry!