ALA at 150: An Interview with (and by) Sanford Berman


Sandy Berman asked me to post his essay Omissions and Distortions Abound in Libraries, Too, which I am glad to do!
Here's a bad OCR from Sandy's typewritten copy, just to give you a sense of what it's about (I'll edit it later if I get a minute):
OMISSIONS . AND DISTORTIONS ABOUND. IN LIBRARIES., TOO
by
Sanford Berman
This year's Sandy Berman birthday tribute: http://bibliogadfly.wordpress.com

In trying to clear stuff off my desk, I excavated a few old Sandy Berman petitions to the Library of Congress and have a couple of new ones to share, as well, from today's mail.
Sandy Berman is calling for LC to add headings for:
Anarchafeminism
Ethical fashion
Paleophilia
Robin Hood Tax
I'm catching up on my pile of mail, and by "catching up," I mean turning it over and starting at what was previously at the bottom, instead of answering letters immediately or never.
The first thing I found was a copy of a 3/28/11 letter from Sandy Berman to the Cataloging Policy & Support Office of the Library of Congress, recommending they establish the subject heading READICIDE.
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 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.