Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sandy Berman but Were Afraid to Ask

by Chris Dodge

"Long before e-mail, Internet, talking computers and jolly jargon, Sandy Berman was out there doing his best to link the world with old-fashioned letters to more friends than the Library of Congress has headings. His hard-hitting polemics, whether they be for political, racial, sexual or ethnic causes, have enforced the idea of librarian as activist. It all adds up to an exhilarating intellectual who has profoundly shaken our ideas of what libraries and librarians are all about"-From Bill Katz's Foreword. For nearly four decades Sandy Berman has been the embodiment of the activist librarian, championing the causes of intellectual and personal freedom with a seemingly boundless supply of energy. His work to rid the Library of Congress subject headings of bias is legendary, but it is perhaps his encouragement and prodding of fellow librarians to broaden their vision of the profession that most counts. Here many of his friends and associates (Fay M. Blake, Martha Cornog, Elaine Harger, Zoia Horn, E.J. Josey, Will Manley, Noel Peattie, Norman Stevens and 24 others) reflect on what Sandy has meant to them and the profession.

199 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 1995

Reviews

[Kiana Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

very wholesome celebration of a radical leftist librarian. this dude rocks

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are some musicians that are known as "musicians' musicians," writers that are "writers' writers." I consider Sandy Berman a librarian's librarian--someone who exemplifies what I think of as all the best and most important values of the profession. (For example: when he found subject headings that were racist, sexist, classist, or just plain useless, he didn't copy-catalog and grumble to himself; he took it up with the Library of Congress.)

This book of essays in his honor is readable and fun--and slightly frustrating at times, since Berman's story isn't just one of "radical librarian makes good," but rather, "radical librarian does great stuff and is ultimately fired." Still, it's an inspirational volume, and one that reminded me that in a world in which equality and human dignity are considered "radical," it's all the more pressing to fight for them, and to find ways to practice the values (of service, access, and intellectual freedom) that drew me to librarianship in the first place.