TILT #43 Outlasting the blues through perpetual reorganization
Reading and remembering and reordering
Been a while. My mother died a few weeks ago and my sister and I are managing some grief and a large house full of things, the latter of which plays right into my librarian strengths.
From my mother I developed a love of reading and writing, my father taught me how to be organized. Here’s a note on the wall in her office, typed out sometime in the 70s, showing the hours of the local libraries all of which we went to frequently. The ditto just kills me… rural libraries and their funny hours.
The last month has been a bit of a blur but I do have a lot of little things to show you. This hand-drawn map by an author of Choose Your Own Adventure books take me right back to being a kid, excited to find books that finally gave me some agency.
Apparently creating visualizations of these CYOA books is something that’s been done for a while.
Do you “do media” for your organization? Would you like to be better at it and understand what it’s all about? This article on being an interview guest from the always-readable Paul Ford rang true to me.
I was recently interviewed on VPR as part of a piece on library funding (great commentary from Burlington VT’s head librarian Mary Danko in there). I also called in a few pieces for But Why? a great kid podcast, about the first book and about how libraries get money. Being able to speak clearly and engagingly about library topics is a useful and learnable skill.
My mom’s house is full of, among other things, cookbooks. This image was used to illustrate a terrific talk-turned-article about the challenges involved in being an ebook publisher in a world where nothing goes out of print by Teresa Elsey, a digital mangaing editor at Houghton Mifflin. It’s hugely challenging in ways I wouldn’t have considered.
My concept of backlist ebooks is that they’re all basically ticking time bombs: as soon as you make an ebook, the clock is running toward the day when that ebook is going to look out of date and embarrassing.
Speaking of publishing, here’s a wonky-but-fascinating look at Harper Collins and their move towards “cost per circulation” pricing models for ebooks. As with all vendor deals, this has upsides and downsides, but Bill Rosenblatt argues that it’s a better deal for publishers than for libraries.
A social awareness campaign I came across recently from an organization called We the Deaf People. In related accessibility news, Senator Elizabeth Warren sponsored a bill which recently passed allowing hearing aids to be sold over the counter. Hearing aids are expensive, not well-covered by insurance, and could assist the 17% of Americans (over 50% of those over 75) who have partial hearing loss.
The graphics for this year’s Banned Books Week (September 24th — 30th) are likewise quite bold and appealing.
Remember to report those challenges, whether it’s because Teen Vogue is talking about anal sex or because it was written by an alleged sex offender.
Lastly, some interesting conversation spurred by a tweet of mine asking about the placement of a “This library is a safe space for ALL” poster near a video surveillance notice sign.
It gave me pause as I walked into the library. I wondered what others thought and they told me.
I am lucky to have such an engaged group of online and offline colleagues and companions.
Today in Librarian Tabs is written irregularly by Jessamyn West who also maintains librarian.net. It’s also available in your inbox via TinyLetter. Thanks for reading.
