I’ve been settling down here in Chicago–and finally yesterday I got my Chicago Public Library card at the downtown Harold Washington Library Center. The downtown Chicago library is great, and I’m looking forward to the newly built Logan Square branch to open as it is only three blocks away from my place. It looks like they are putting shelving up, so it shouldn’t be too long.
I checked out a some summer reading material, including Revolting Librarians Redux. While I don’t know if I’ll agree to all that I read in this volume of essays, anything with some passion is worth checking into. I’ll attempt a review later on.
I was reminded of Revolting Librarians Redux when I attended an unofficial ALA conference event at Quimby’s Bookstore: “The Secret Lives of Librarians Event Feature Jenna Freedman, Travis Fristoe, Jenn Phillips-Bacher, Keith Helt and Celia Perez.” The place was packed, and everyone was having a great time. Each of the librarian/authors read from their zines. Writing wise, I was particularly impressed with Jenn Phillips-Bacher and Travis Fristoe. Jenn’s humorous biographical essay on Dewey (I hope to get ahold of the one existing issue of Riot Librarrrian if there’s a copy around somewhere). Travis’ writing seemed perfect as spoken word performance, with hilarious comments on library work and library patrons.
Jenna Freedman, who also read from her work, is a member of Radical Reference, a “service provided by librarians from over the United States to support the work of activists and independent journalists.” Check it out.
