Library of Congress Subject Headings Weekly List 13 (April 1, 2009)
As regular readers of my blog and zine know, I'm interested in books and other media that feature librarians as characters (or are written by librarians). I'm especially fond of librarian characters that offer realistic portrayals of the profession, like this one does. 42-year-old Meg McLean, the new county library director in a small northwestern community, is one of the two protagonists of this "Latouche County Mystery." Her co-tagonist is, of course, a cop, cuz this is a detective story.
Library of Congress Subject Headings Weekly List 12 (March 25, 2009)
This week's faves include
There's a post tv show world of Buffy!!! I found out about the comics from A.j. Michel's consumption log. I know it's lame that I didn't know about it already, but I'm really not much of a comics/graphic novels girl, which I know is also lame. So Wolves at the Gate is the third episode of Season 8, with an introductory story written by Mr. Whedon himself. The tone of the comics is the same as the show, though I think Buffy comes off a little more like her earlier seasons persona. The slayer army is still around, as are Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Andrew. Plus Dracula makes a cameo appearance. The biggest surprise, though, is who Buffy starts sleeping with. Now to get ahold of the first two episodes of the season, The Long Way Home and No Future for You, which are sadly n/a at NYPL or Columbia.
This Jackie Robinson biography, originally published in 1997, does a good job of being authoritative, but not overly academic and of admiring its subject without ignoring his flaws. Speaking of appropriate balance, 150 pages of the 464 pager (excluding the 23 pages of notes) are devoted to Robinson's time in Dodger organization. That's ten of his 53 years. Rampersad knows that fans of the athlete want plenty of coverage of Robinson's baseball career, but that fans of the man can also handle 300 pages of his life pre- and post-major league baseball.
Nevertheless, protesting against Jim Crow was important: "Every single Negro who is worth his salt is going to resent any kind of slurs and discrimination because of his race, and he's going to use every bit of intelligence, such as he has, to stop it. This has got to absolutely nothing to do with what Communists may or may not be trying to do." Similarly, "because it is a Communist who denounces injustice in the courts, police brutality and lynching, when it happens, doesn't change the truth of his charges." Blacks were "stirred up long before" the Communists arrived and will be "stirred up long after the party has disappeared--unless Jim Crow has disappeared by then as well." p.214, speaking before HUAC, regarding Paul Robeson.
...[at the NAACP] called "Patience, Pride and Progress," Robinson challenged the notion that patience meant submission, or that impatience always meant radicalism. "Although we who struggle to secure civil rights deplore prejudice," he declared, "its elimination is not our goal. Containment is our goal. What we seek is the suppression, by law and the weight of public opinion, of the hostile manifestations of racial prejudice. We wish that the hearts of all men were filled with good will for their fellow human beings. But this goal is beyond our reach and we cannot wait until men's hearts are changed to enjoy our constitutional rights." p.330
Sandy Berman is calling for the Library of Congress to establish a subject heading for SEX-POSITIVE FEMINISM. He cites the an interview Celeste West did with Joani Blank and Annie Sprinkle's Wikipedia entry, and other women sex writers as warrant.
LCSH Week 11
In which the Library of Congress welcomes FLIGHT ATTENDANTS IN LITERATURE, WIZARD ROCK MUSIC, and other fine new headings.
LCSH Weekly List 10
My friend Tracy is editing a book for a series my friend Emily is coordinating:
Out Behind the Desk: Workplace Issues for LGBTQ Librarians (a working title), edited by Tracy Nectoux and published by Library Juice Press as part of the series Gender and Sexuality in Librarianship.
Seeking submissions for an anthology of personal accounts by librarians and library workers relating experiences of being gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered, or queer at work. This volume seeks to represent a broad spectrum of orientations and gender identities, highlighting a range of experiences of being and/or coming out at work. Also welcome are critical and historical perspectives on the challenges of navigating gender and sexuality in the library workplace.