Avi and Leah with the blindfolded mannequin

Avi Silberstein, the Outreach Librarian for Greater Victoria Regional Library describes their provocative and engaging Freedom to Read Week display.

We thought it would be fun to have a mannequin – blindfolded – at the entrance to the library.  So we made a few phone calls and visited a few stores, and after some persistence were able to convince the owner of a local consignment shop to loan us a mannequin.

We picked out a mannequin that was lying on her stomach with her hands near her face, dressed her up in clothes from the consignment store, and propped a book up in her hands.  Then we tied on a blindfold.  We put her up on a table, and filled an adjacent table with banned/challenged books.  We also made sure to put up some signage explaining the display and that the books were there to be borrowed.

The response we received was overwhelmingly positive.  Patrons loved it, staff loved it, and more than anything it got people to stop in their tracks and walk up to the display for a closer look.

A couple of years ago I heard about Scandinavian libraries where you could “check out” a person and talk to them about their life. It seemed like an interesting way for people to develop empathy for people who are not like themselves.

The living library concept has been adopted by libraries all over the world. The hope is that the information passed on by a human book will help counter ignorance, prejudice and discrimination.

The living library concept has been incorporated into the Olympic homeless pavilion. This pavillion has been set up to explain the poverty in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside to journalists, spectators and tourists from around the world. Visitors can listen to a Real Homeless Person from the Downtown Eastside talk about their experiences. I agree with the Vancouver Sun article that argues that this idea is contrived.

Nobody needs publicity shots of smiling politicians, pre-canned 200-word testimonials or human books to find out about life in the city’s poorest neighbourhood.

You just need to go outside.

The homeless and destitute still fill our streets. And they will be there in their unnatural habitat, whether you like it or not, for the world to see, during the Games.

I am angry and frustrated that so much money has been spent on a spectacle, while there have been cuts to social services like education, libraries, and legal aid. The homeless need homes, not to be books in a living library.

I think there’s a broader culture in libraries of only talking about the good things outside one’s library or institution. Conference sessions are rife with “how we done it good here” sessions that present positive success stories. I learn more from stories about how things went horribly wrong, or the hiccups and mess ups that happened along the way.

Starting a new job, I knew it was going to be full-on for the first 6 months. There’s new policies and procedures, formal and informal things about the organizational culture, new people to work with, and in this case for me, completely new subject matter.

I’ve had a casual but uninformed appreciation for art. On the reference desk I often have to ask users what medium a specific artist works in, what country they are from, and if they are alive or dead. Thankfully most of the users are generous, inquisitive and kind. Provinding reference services is collaborative affair—I’ve got some skills on how to find stuff and an ability to teach, and the user has useful information and is often keen to learn. This semester I’d like to learn more about art reference.

I’ve been thinking about and reading quite a bit of management literature. This has surprised me. Some of the other unlikely things that I’ve been thinking about include: organizational culture, community development in an academic setting, supervision and management styles, the library as place, and time management.

In the fall, I started writing about different issues. I either wrote things that I knew would get me into trouble, or posts that were extremely vague, over generalized and uninteresting . This semester I hope I can find an appropriate balance and find my voice again. For me blogging is a way to reflect on the things that I’m doing and learning. I hope to find the words to talk about the things that that are broken at MPOW, or things that have gone wrong during various implementations.

Yayoi Kusama

At the tail end of my vacation in New Zealand, I went to the Wellington Art Gallery to see an exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s work. I’ve admired her work for a long time, and this was the first time I saw her art in person. When I went into the mirrored room with the dangling lights that reflected forever in the mirrors and the water on the floor, I was deeply moved. I talked to one of the gallery staff and learned that the day before  a woman who had recently a brain aneurysm wanted to see this room, but was anxious and worried about the potential effect. The staff person reassured her,  showed her that she could open the door to let herself out at any time, and explained that the water was only a few inches deep. Apparently she spent a long time experiencing this room and came out with tears streaming down her face. She too, had been deeply moved by the experience. Kandou shimashita.

I asked if I could lie on the floor of the day room, a room painted in bright yellow with black polka dots, with many large peanut shaped yellow and black polka dotted inflatables. Some were propped up against the wall and a few were suspended from the ceiling. One was moving slightly. I lay under it watching the giant polka dotted object gently move. It was an utterly wonderful experience. Kandou shimashita.

In August, I got to see Jodaiko, an all star group of international female taiko performers brought together by  taiko legend Tiffany Tamaribuchi. From year to year the members of this group shift a little bit, and in 2009 two professional musicians from Okinawa joined them. The concert is always amazing—everyone is extremely skilled (most are professional musicians), they drum with intense joy and passion, and that is communicated to the audience. For me, it’s also exciting to see a lot of fierce queer Asian women perform in such a skilled and powerful way. Jodaiko explodes the stereotype that Japanese women are quiet, subservient, delicate and weak. I suppose I was a bit emotional to be home in Vancouver, and Pride weekend/Powell St. Festival always are exciting and a bit of an overload. When Tiffany and one of the women from Okinawa were playing on a drum together, their intensity, passion, and joy were so intense. Until then I’d never been moved to tears by music. The only words that came close to expressing how I felt was kandou shimashita.

One of the things I love about working at an art school is that I’m surrounded by creative people who are always making stuff. I’ve been surprised at how politically minded most of the students seem to be. I’m not at all excited about the Olympics coming to Vancouver, but I’ve been moved and impressed by the political art that’s been happening to express resistance to the Olympics, as well as the recent cuts to arts funding. These creative responses give me hope. Kandou shimashita.

from greenpeanut on flickr

A couple of days ago  The Tyee reported that VPL’s Marketing and Communications Manager Jean Kavanagh’s sent a memo in November 2009 to  staff outlining rules about branding and logos of non-Olympic sponsors. The quote that stuck in my head was Kavanagh’s advice to stick a little piece of tape to cover a non-sponsor logo:

The same care (about non-sponsor logos and brands) must be taken for audio-visual equipment. The branch should try to get devices made by official sponsor Panasonic. Should staff only be able to find Sony equipment, the solution is simple. “I would get some tape and put it over the ‘Sony,’” Kavanagh said. “Just a little piece of tape.”

Her email to staff she explains that:

We cannot ever use the VANOC logo. The City as Host City can use the Games marks in conjunction with the City logo but we must obtain permission to do so every time we want to use them. All such requests must be sent to me and I forward the request to our City VANOC liaison.  If you want to insert any VANOC branding/photos with posters/materials we also must obtain approval. I have a good sense of what gets approved so please talk to me before work is started on such materials.

There are also strict rules for using logos/branding of Games sponsors so again please contact me with any ideas before things get underway. The Library doesn’t really deal with the major sponsors, but if for example a branch was involved in a Host A City Happening event and a local Bank of Montreal wanted to sponsor it we would have to say no. The Royal Bank is the official banking sponsor. Some branches may have an opportunity to participate in torch relay activities and all these rules will apply then. Information about the torch relay will be available in the new year.

Kavanagh’s memo outlines several potential branding conflicts and proposes

For example, do not have Pepsi or Dairy Queen sponsor your event. Coke and McDonald’s are the Olympic sponsors. If you are planning a kids’ event and approaching sponsors, approach McDonald’s and not another well-known fast-food outlet.

If you have a speaker/guest who happens to work for Telus, ensure he/she is not wearing their Telus jacket as Bell is the official sponsor.

If you have rented sound equipment and it is not Panasonic or you can’t get Panasonic, cover the brand name with tape or a cloth.

If you are approaching businesses in your area for support and there is a Rona and Home Depot, go to Rona. If there’s only a Home Depot don’t approach them as Rona is the official sponsor. Try other small businesses

VPL has a Sponsorship Policy that outlines the principles of the library:

Vancouver Public Library is a cornerstone of the community. Sponsorships must not undermine the integrity of the non-commercial public space that the Library provides. In developing sponsorship arrangements the Library will:

1. not compromise the public service objectives and practices of the Library or of the sponsored event, service, programmes or activity;
2. protect its principle of intellectual freedom and equity of access to its programmes, services, and collections;…

Download the VPL memo

Media links

The Tyee: Librarians Told to Stand on Guard for Olympic Sponsors

CTV Olympics site: Library asked to cover up non-sponsors’ logos during Games

I now work in a fine arts library, which is lovely, wacky, and wonderful in many ways. As I don’t have a background in the arts I’m learning a new vocabulary and learning about different resources. I love industrial design, typography, and book arts, so this is much more fun than learning about resources to support an actuarial studies program, or mollusk research laboratory. How to Make Books: Fold, Cut & Stitch Your Way to a One-of-a-kind Book is quite delightful and practical beginners guide to making books.

Instructables also has some good book making projects (1, 2, 3,).
Notebooks

I wanted to write the interview as more of an article, but found it more challenging and took the easy way out by writing it up as a Q&A piece. I think I was successful in organizing her ideas and presenting them in her voice.

I was excited to get the PDFs of the article. I love the clean layout of World Sweet World. The photographer did a great job of capturing Wendy’s energy and spunk. I love the close up shots highlighting the details of the zipper on the obsolete black vinyl chair, and the red buttons on the other obsolete chair.

Wendy Neale: Maker

Erna Paris, the Chair of the Writers’ Union of Canada, wrote an eloquent article about some recent Canadian examples of book challenges:

In Canada, more than a hundred books have been challenged over the past two decades alone, in schools, in the courts, in libraries and in bookstores, but although they have been removed from classrooms and shelves, they have rarely been banned outright. Today, the stated reasons are usually perceived racism, inappropriate sexual content and, occasionally, political reasons, including one claim that a children’s book misrepresented the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Margaret Atwood’s dystopic The Handmaid’s Tale is a frequent source of inspiration to the censorious class.

Yes, it is all quite depressing, but there is a happy side: Banned books are always so very enticing. We itch to read them – and we usually do, sooner or later. I’m sure I’m not the only one who hid a book my parents disapproved of under the covers to read surreptitiously with a flashlight.

This article also includes some examples of historical censorship:

Long before books were replicated in multiple copies, banning was effected in other ways. In the marketplaces of medieval Spain, political parody and satire were vocalized in verse, to the delight of the townsfolk – leading one beleaguered king to publish an ordinance forbidding “the singing of songs.

Read ‘To mock a book-banner’ in the Globe and Mail

Most of the Porn Cupboard’s contents today look respectable: here are printing plates for the reproduction of thoroughly decent works by Turner and Dürer. That’s because, since the latter part of the 20th century, a lot of erotic material has been removed from the cupboard and repositioned in the department. “We’ve been integrating the contents of it into the main collection,” explains Sheila O’Connell, assistant keeper of prints and drawings. For instance, there used to be a Rembrandt etching in the cupboard called The Bed, depicting a couple making love, with the man on top of the woman; but that is now with the other Rembrandts in the museum’s Department of Prints and Drawings, on the fourth floor. You can request it and, as long as nobody else is busy looking at it, they will show it to you. There used to be sheaves of banned Georgian cartoons by Thomas Rowlandson in Cupboard 205, but now, providing you have come of age, you can go to Prints and Drawings and study Rowlandson’s images of gentlemen and saucy wenches having explicit intercourse on beds, on road journeys, and beside gravestones.

The books in the Private Case were originally subject to heavy restrictions: you had to write to the keeper, the head of the department, to see any of them and give your reasons for wanting to. “The books were quite difficult to see,” says Goldfinch. “They had a separate catalogue, and the catalogue wasn’t available to readers. So there were two stages: you’d have to ask if the book was in the collection, and if it was, you’d have to ask to see it.”

Lesbrarian badges/stickers

I thought it would be fun to organize people to march under the lesbrarian banner for the Vancouver Dyke March. I’ve met so many rad lesbian, bisexual and queer women working in libraries, I thought it would be fun to so something social and a bit silly together. Also, I thought it would be good to strengthen existing professional relationships and connect new people to the information sisterhood.

I wanted it to be inclusive of all lesbrarians, whether they work in libraries, archives, or other information organizations, whether they have a formal qualification or not. Soon I was getting emails from friends “I research and write policy papers, can I come too?”, “I love libraries, can I join you?”, and “I’m a software developer, am I geeky enough to join you ladies?” A couple of men, both gay and straight, were extremely supportive and excited and wanted to come too. Traditionally the dyke march is only women, so I explained that it probably wouldn’t be appropriate.

Lesbrarian Venn diagram

I made a banner that illustrates the place where lesbian and librarian overlap. Graphic designer and artist Terra Porrier made lesbrarian badges so that we could easily identify each other. By the end of the march there were about 20 of us: public librarians, corporate librarians, academic librarians, children’s librarians, an archivist/librarian, writers, web designers, a documentary film maker, and a software developer. I met about 10 other people in the park who were sad to have missed us–some current and future library school students, as well as some women I went to school with and have worked with in the past. I had no idea they were homos!

Hot lesbrarian shushing action

(Nicole Maunsell, Anne O’Shea, Faith Jones, and me looking rather threatening)

Using Facebook to quickly gather suggestions, Anne O’Shea whipped together a booklist of lesbrarian vetted books (PDF). Annotated even. This proved to be a big hit with the sidewalk crowds. I was surprised at how keen the motorcycle cops were to get a copy. All 150 copies were gone halfway through the short march. It was good to have something to give people and it was a great conversation starter. About 20 parents asked me for booklists targeted towards elementary and secondary school kids. Maybe next year.

Next year we hope to do this bigger and better. Perhaps Lesbrarians 2010 will include some fancy book truck manouvers, a lesbrarian reference desk in the park at the festival, or large paper mache sculptures. I’d like to continue playing with the librarian sterotypes while queering and updating them a bit. After all lesbrarians are about so much more than just books.

Please get in touch if you want to join us next year. If you have more photos of us, add a link in the comments.

Photo credits: the multitlalented Sarah Leavitt

More photos by Winnifred Tovey on Picasa