Jessamyn C. West's Blog, page 2

Who has access to collections?

Mist in the valley of East Randolph, from the National Archives on Flickr Commons

This started out as a cranky email and then I decided to write this up instead and be (somewhat) constructive.

I was listening to a local history podcast which I love called Before Your Time. It’s a joint project of the Vermont Historical Society and Vermont Humanities (where I used to be a board member). They look at one item from the VHS collection and talk about what it tells us about the history of Vermont. It’...

Every person their book

This is a message I sent out to a mailing list I’m on, responding to the Scholastic Reading Report about kids and family reading.

“Most alarmingly, kids in third and fourth grade are beginning to stop reading for fun. It’s called the ‘Decline by 9.'” A few people on the list discussed their own children who didn’t like the books they were given to read in school.

I’ve thought about this a lot as someone in the library world where YA books that cover “issues” (for lack of a better word, but basi...

Vermont Chapter Councilor Report – LibLearnX 2023

This is not my usual ALA report because the Council meetings at LibLearnX were brief and I was occupied with some legislation I’d been working on. Here are some important notes for those who are interested in ALA topics.

1. American Library Association Updates Core Values

This was a 2.5 year process culminating in massaging the existing lengthy list of core values into five: access, equity, intellectual freedom and privacy, the public good, and sustainability. There was some healthy debate abo...

2023 reading list and commentary

Here was the Mastodon thread of what I read last year. This is the thread of the books I am reading this year. My plan was to read LESS this year than last year and I did a good job. One hundred and fourteen books. I was busier, happier. I think I stubbornly finished every book I started in 2023 although some of them maybe I shouldn’t have. I did lower my “books by men” percentage an amount that felt good. I’ve been actively seeking out non-binary authors and trying to read print a little more....

2023 in Libraries

Not a big year for libraries. I didn’t go to any new ones! This was partly because I had a regular shift at my own, and am also sticking to my mostly-no-travel policy.

Kimball (79) – Most weeks I worked here one day and I stopped by a lot of other times, for sub shifts or just to get a book.Rochester (1) – I did one drop-in shift here.Kilton/Lebanon NH (1) – Jim and I stopped by when we were in NH. It’s a neat place, has a cool garden and place to hang out behind it that I had never been to....

End of an era, beginning of another one

I gave my first talk in person to librarians since 2019 this week. I’d been traveling less for climate change reasons but also for “sort of tired of it” reasons before Covid hit. I’d done two talk to non-library groups–one about Fair Use for lawyers and one about Libraries of Things for recreation department workers–but NELA was my first library talk. NELA is always one of my favorite conferences. Good group of people, I have no governance/admin role, interesting programs. I’m also nearly alway...

Ask A Librarian: Dealing with haters?

A friend writes in: What are you doing about the idiotic book bannings and attacks on Librarians and what can I do to help? 

It’s a mess and part of the mess is that it’s really state by state, so what might make sense for you where you are wouldn’t be the tactic in Pennsylvania or Iowa or Arkansas.

The usual advice is still good. Consider joining your local school board or library trustee board. You could even pony up some money to your state library association and join (even as a non-library...

Vermont Chapter Councilor Report – ALA Annual 2023

Hello — I recently got back from virtually attending ALA. Virtual attendance at Council meetings continues to work pretty well and I submitted one resolution.

We had significantly shorter meetings this time because we’ve gotten the main bylaws changed and the major Council reorganization done which were big jobs. Here is my report.

Previous reports from me: June 2020, January 2021 (did not write a report), July 2021, January 2022, June 2022 (did not go to ALA ), January 2023

I filled in for outg...

Why the Resolution on Guaranteeing Virtual Participation in ALA Governance?

With SRRT Councilor Tara Brady, I sponsored a resolution about making ALA governance available virtually. Right now the bylaws say that Executive Board and Council meetings “may be held in either fully virtual, or hybrid virtual-and-in-person modes.” and we want to change that may to shall. Since this involves a bylaws change (The first one with his new set of bylaws!) it was referred to the Bylaws Committee. Here are my brief remarks on why it is an important resolution.

I am Jessamyn West, Ver...

the work I got

So it’s funny, I spent a lot of time “working my network” to try to find the right thing for me. I applied for a few jobs, had a few good interviews but no actual bites, put feelers out on social media. And, at the end of the day, the thing that wound up working for me was a random “Hey I’d really like to work here at the point at which you wind up having people working here” email.

You can read the announcement about my new (part-time, contract) gig working for Flickr Commons as their Communit...