Category: OPINIONS!
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The Freedom to Be Totally Ignorant
“I’m not afraid anymore so go for it.” — Jane Elliot The Oprah episode above aired in 1992. Jane Elliott first did her blue eyes/brown eyes experiment the day after MLK was assassinated. (Note, that transcript contains offensive racial terms.) (If you’re not familiar, in brief, Jane did a lesson in prejudice with her class…
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Teens, Trauma, and the Future of Libraries
Imagine if a library closed its doors from 3-5 p.m. every day, which just happens to be when the Senior Center across the street lets out for leisure time, and heading to the library was a popular activity. Now those seniors need to go somewhere else during that time. Imagine if a library decided that…
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reasons I despise banned books week
BBW is already widely used internet lingo, and it ain’t about books. Why are we promoting something we’re against (banning books) instead of promoting something we are FOR (the freedom to read)? It confuses library users. I’m sure nearly every library worker has a story about someone seeing a “banned books” display and saying something…
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Us, Too.
On being complicit. As a Youth Services Librarian, I sometimes have opportunities to mingle with those in the publishing community, including the authors and illustrators of books. I’ll meet them at signings or events at conferences, or from booking an author visit to my library and community, or from an excited phone call to tell…
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I Can’t Even: Ages and Adult Programs
Library programmers, for the love of Ranganathan, DON’T DO THIS. Here’s why: It is exclusionary as hell. I’m almost forty. I don’t see my interest in graphic novels and horror disappearing on my fortieth birthday. But apparently the library thinks I shouldn’t want to attend programs like this if I’m forty, which, delicate flower as…
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Librarianship, friends, is not cool
Librarianship, friends, is not cool. We must not say so. But I will say so. It’s kind of my thing. Librarianship is not cool. Librarians are not cool. Libraries are not cool. Libraries are for nerds, and dorks, and outcasts, who want to dig deep into a subject and hardly come up for air. Libraries…
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Outreach in a Time of Uprising
My first job out of college was working as a preschool teaching assistant in a state funded preschool program. Children in this program were “at-risk”, meaning they were growing up in poverty, or with only one parent, or with parents who didn’t speak English. An essential part of our work were home visits, where my…
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The Emotional Labor of Librarianship
Librarianship isn’t what you might call a physically demanding profession. Youth librarians do exert quite a bit of energy–I regularly hit 6000 steps during a day of book talks, and if I’m not sweating at the end of my toddler time then I feel like I’ve failed as a presenter–but compared to, say, my stint as…
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Management According to Hamilton: Thomas Jefferson
“What’d I Miss?” If you manage a Thomas Jefferson, you have a star employee who always convinces you to send them to the best conferences and networking opportunities. They reflect well on your organization, though, so you don’t mind sending them everywhere all the time. When a Jefferson is actually at work, they’re rushing in…
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We Live in a World of Bad Text
Obamacare vs The Affordable Care Act Fake news versus propaganda . . . (one more) Alt–right versus white supremacist ripped from the womb vs late term abortion * * * There is power in names, in language, in how we describe things and what we call them. When female authors write under male pen names (or just use their…
Hi, Miss Julie 