#libraries
Digitization equipment spread.
From the front matter of Catalogue of Stars by Caroline Lucretia Herschel and John Flamsteed (1798). Original from the Bavarian State Library. Digitized January 14, 2011.
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1. Book printed.
2. Book microfilmed.
3. New print copy produced from microfilm copy.
4. New print copy digitized by Google Books.
Blank page from News from the Stars by Henry Newman (1691). Original from Indiana University. Digitized August 9, 2011.
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Distorted table of latitudes and longitudes.
From p. 345 of A New and Complete Epitome of Practical Navigation by John William Norie (1839). Original from Oxford University. Digitized October 24, 2006.
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Blue links engage handwriting in the auto-table-of-contents.
From p. 598 of Systematic Education: or, Elementary Instruction in the Various Departments of Literature and Science, vol. 2 by William Shepherd (1822). Original from the University of California. Digitized August 31, 2007.
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Rear cover swerve.
From the back matter of The Complete Works of the Rev. Andrew Fuller by Andrew Gunton Fuller (1848). Original from the University of Iowa. Digitized December 21, 2015.
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Plates photographed through tissue.
Throughout Arthur’s Home Magazine, vol. 54 (1886). Original from Princeton University. Digitized April 18, 2008.
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Acute textual triangle.
From p. 61 of University of North Carolina Extension Bulletin (1922). Original from the University of California. Digitized September 3, 2009.
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Hole photographed with blue paper behind it.
From p. 540 of Popular Electricity and the World’s Advance, vol. 4, edited by Henry Walter Young (1911). Original from the University of Michigan. Digitized May 11, 2011.
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Employee’s hand.
From p. 72-73 of Red Feather: A Comic Opera in Two Acts by Reginald De Koven and Charles Klein (1903).
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Illustration photographed through tissue.
The frontispiece toDotty Dimple Out West by Sophie May (1869). Original from Harvard University. Digitized March 25, 2008.
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Foxing blurred by movement.
From the front matter of On the Present Balance of Parties in the State by John Benn-Walsh (1832). Original from Oxford University. Digitized April 10, 2006.
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Circulation slip, with checkouts between and 1977 and 2006.
From the back matter of A Theory of Pure Design: Harmony, Balance, Rhythm by Denman W. Ross (1907). Original from Harvard University. Digitized March 7, 2007.
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Child’s autolinked writing-drawing.
From the table of contents of Forget Me Not: A Gift for Sabbath School Children by Amanda M. Corey Edmond (1852). Original from Princeton University.
Digitized February 15, 2008.
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Football drawing or tracing.
From the back matter of Football and How to Watch It by Percy Duncan Haughton (1922). Original from the University of California. Digitized November 29, 2007.
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Marbled endpapers, with black-and-red optimization glitch.
From the back matter of A Select Collection of the Best Modern English Plays, v.4 (1750). Original from the Bavarian State Library. Digitized September 28, 2011.
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Illustrations left folded.
ThroughoutAnnual Report of the Buffalo Park Commissioners (1871). Original from Harvard University. Digitized March 7, 2007.
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“All fictional content is just fine and totally harmless to everyone” is not my actual position; I believe in nuance and social responsibility and that a lot of things are up for debate.
But as long as there are people out there who think it’s OK to harrass and threaten kids for exploring their sexuality in fiction, and as long as the community that just wants to criticize is not actively taking stepsto oust these predatory individuals, they are pushing people who are horrified by the stalking and harrassment to adopt that as a fall-back position.
Or, in other words, matter how not-OK any particular piece of fiction or art might be, it is always more OK than targeted harm to actual human beings, especially vulnerable children. And that’s a hard line.
And as long as that’s happening on as large of a scale as it is right now, anyone who cares about the safety of minors online should be concentrating on cleaning that up, and people who focus on the contents of purely fictional works instead, or put far greater emphasis on these, are at best misguided and at worst trying to take the attention off their own predatory behavior. This focus is a red flag.
I’ll be happy to discuss the potential indirect harms of more and less permissive stances on media content with a community that demonstrates a commitment to fixing their missing stairs, not ignoring that they exist.
Hint: The missing stairs are the ones engaging in harrassment and abuse, not the ones who reblogged a “bad” fanart once.
I agree with the majority of this, however I don’t 100% agree that fiction should be policed at all. But as a librarian I know that my viewpoint is radical and probably problematic for the majority of Tumblr as it is now.
the bottomline:
Stop attacking people for fiction.
Start attacking people who ACTUALLY HARM CHILDRENJFC it’s not that hard.
To clarify: I don’t believe in policing fiction because I don’t believe in policing.
Ido believe in presenting it with framing information that helps the reader contextualize it: for example, the foreword to Naked Lunch that addresses the matter of its obscenity trial, both the question of why the book was tried and some of the framing arguments that won the case.
I also don’t believe every platform has to be a place for every kind of fiction (and I think that we should all collectively move away from our near-total reliance on massively centralized, commercialized, public platforms like Twitter and Facebook and probably Tumblr, because not everything that should be allowed to exist should be getting flung at your head at 80 mph, jfc.)
I believe that it’s possible to hold the opinion “it’s bad to post untagged, un-warned-for rapefic” while also holding the opinion “abuse and harassment are always wrong, even if the subject has also done something wrong.”
See also my post on Mein Kampf, media responsibility, mitzvahs, and libraries.
A Roller Skating Librarian
from a publication celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Denver Public Library back in 1989
This came from a publication celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Denver Public Library back in 1989. I asked via Twitter (sadly already knowing the answer) if they still got to roller skate in the closed stacks.
Then I started thinking about how awesome a Literary/Librarian Roller Derby team would be. Some suggested names:
Pain Austin
Hurt Vonnegut
Fyodor Destroyevsky
Vladimir Knock-your-block-off (not my best)
J. D. Slaughtinger
Assault Whitman
Horror Luis Borges
Given the number of roller derbying librarians I’ve met, I get the feeling that roller derby needs to be folded into the standard stereotype of librarians.
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