A Year In Read-View 2019 (Books)
Eighteen books this year. A pretty good effort, along with the truck load of comics I managed to get through as well. Still trying to prioritise women writers over men and still having no regrets. For years I've been wanting to try and read poetry and at the end of the year finally got around to looking into the Beat poets, true to form though I sought out women writers first and thoroughly enjoyed Elise Cowen's work. I did try to read more non-fiction and I am quite happy with all the ones I m
An Annotated Bibliography of the Inside of My Head
I saw this post by Alex Bayley and thought, why not. So in no particular order (actually it ended up in the order I first read them), here are some books that I just can't stop thinking about. You know, those ones where every now and then a line or an image from it just pops into your head. They may not be your all time favourite books, but they certainly stick with you or have influenced you in some way. I've split it up into fiction, non-fiction, and comics. Enjoy. Fiction Powers That Be b
Do No Harm
Since I listened to the Incendium Radical Library (IRL) cardiCast episode I can't stop thinking about the collecting policy they have adopted (time stamp 17:49). IRL have broad frameworks they align the library with, so when accepting new donations or looking at acquisitions they look at how these items could harm the wider community and balance that against the good they could do. In Annelise's words: "I guess like the frameworks of this library is social justice, anti-oppression, intersection
We Don't Want Your Donation
GLAM Blog Club's theme this month is Donation which instantly sent shivers up my spine thinking about all the terrible books people bring into the (public) library to donate. As Hugh's example shows, it's often the things we don't put into our collections that make a library. In my own professional life I have seen two types of librarians in regards to donations. One being the accept almost everything librarian, and the other decline's almost everything. I am of the latter persuasion. In one wor
Low Bar
Recently I had the pleasure of attending a talk by Alice Procter entitled Muddling the Museum. It looked at ways museum collections and interactions were being decolonised by external groups, as well as critiquing the internal processes of these colonial institutions. The event was filmed and hopefully it will be available for others to view as Alice is an exceptional speaker and was able to provide a clear picture of the complicated and often messy nature of decolonisation. I came away from th
What Did I Learn Last year?
Usually I'm fairly good at recording my achievements through the year, so when it comes to performance reviews or job applications I have a handy go-to list. Last year seems like a year of business as usual. While I did manage to do a few exciting things, mostly I just kept myself going. No big projects, no pushing myself and my skills, no major revelations, just one day at a time. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, sometimes we all need to stay the course and enjoy the smooth sailing. It's pos
