PBP Book Drive Thank Yous – And More

The Prison Book Program in Quincy raised more than 16,000 books during its Great American Book Drive on Saturday. And the PLG helped, by sending over more than 150! We’re proud and honored we were able to participate and hope to make helping collect books to donate an annual event as well.

Some thanks are in order! First, HUGE thanks to the PLG’s REFORMA rep, Sujei Lugo, who , made the fliers and just basically made our mini-drive work. Thank you so much, Sujei!! And also, big thanks to the PLG Community Outreach Coordinator, Hannah Gomez, who rented a zip car and drove around yours truly, trying to find the drop-off point. Thanks so much for doing this and putting up with my map-reading skillz. And thanks to all the PLG officers for offering to help, promoting and everything.

Outside of PLG, GSLIS Assistant Dean of Student Services Em Claire Knowles deserves praise for suggested putting the drop-off box in the GSLIS lounge and donated the first book at that location. And thanks for those Simmons students who donated there; I did get a few good hauls from that box. Somerville Public Library deserves a thumbs up for allowing us to place another drop-off box at their central location – we’d like to especially acknowledge Director Maria Carpenter for her support and to Teen Librarian Ron Castile for his support by donating 10 copies of The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

But a big chuck of our haul came from Lugo’s contacts on Twitter and IRL. They are:

@eldifusor

@hachabrava

@thattommelise

@CleopatraBD

her twitterless dad, Pedro Lugo and

her twitterless Qualitative Research professor from the School of Social Work, Johnnie Hamilton-Mason.

We gratefully acknowledge your help in spreading the word and sending us some good stuff!

And thanks to all those who emailed and asked where they could send books or that they wanted to do something similar in their own schools. But most of all, thank you to all you generous donors. And if I’ve forgotten to recognize you, sorry and thanks!

You can still get involved with the Prison Book Program! Radical Reference Boston and PLG are getting a bunch of people together to head over the PBP TOMORROW 6:30 p.m. – 9:00 p.m. to help with these recently donated books and most likely other tasks. Email our Social Media Officer, Kittle Evenson at evenson@simmons.edu, to join the group or get more info.

And if you want to get in on planning and managing awesome campaigns such as this one, consider becoming a PLG officer. We’re looking for a secretary/archivist and treasurer starting in the summer semester. See here for more info and to apply. It’s fun and great for your resume.

Have a good week – oh, and see you next at the Swap-O-Rama (co-hosted with SCIRRT) –

When: Saturday, April 27, 2013, 12:30 p.m. – 2:00 p.m.
Where: GSLIS Student Lounge

PLG and SCIRRT are co-hosting a Swap-O-Rama. Clothes, books, electronics, school supplies and more are all welcome to be brought and exchanged. This event can be especially helpful for people who are moving or graduating after this semester. The organizers also hope that more than just goods will be swapped. Bring your ideas and enthusiasm for the profession and share them with your fellow GSLIS students, faculty and staff. Questions? Email Eileen Fontenot at fontenoe@simmons.edu or Eva Rios-Alvarado at eva.rios-alvarado@simmons.edu.

Whew! OK – think that was it!

~Eileen, PLG co-chair

Our Zine Event with Nicole J. Georges

(Cross-posted at Comp Lit and Mediaphilia.)

I was very happy when I came across a listserv email about a zine maker and graphic artist, Nicole J. Georges, who was going on tour for her new book, Calling Dr. Laura: A Graphic Memoir. I immediately brought the email to the attention of my co-PLG members and suggested we host her for a workshop of some kind. Obviously we did, because I’m writing this, so March 5, we had a most excellent time with her.

We didn’t really know what to ask her to do, so she asked us. Given that we are all in library school but all have very different interests and backgrounds (and some of us are in various dual degrees and library tracks, including archives), we had about eight million questions for Nicole, so a lot of the event was her answering questions and telling us cool things about Factsheet Five, Riot Grrrl, and other groundbreakers in the world of those self-published packets of expression. As she reminded us, zines are perfect if you feel that you aren’t represented in mainstream media, or even if there’s just a part of you that’s not represented, because maybe your favorite music is widely reviewed already, but there’s no perspective on it from your gender identity; or you love fashion, too, but there are no magazines that talk about it in the context of emotional memory. Or whatever. You get it.

I think we meant to start creating our own zines, but somehow, time ticked by, and all we were doing was discussing how zines can relate to library collections, why none of us in PLG (except one person) had been to the Papercut Zine Library yet (oops), how you can make a zine even if you aren’t the world’s most talented comics artist or grammatically correct writer, and how they can especially allow marginalized groups to be heard (oh hey, oral histories of people living in nursing homes). It was probably the most enjoyable two hours of natural, real discussion I’ve experienced in awhile, and it made me think of how much it should be applied to public and school libraries.

Zines aside for a minute, I can’t see a lot of events taking shape like this, but in some ways, they are a lot less intimidating than more traditional events, like lectures where you’re supposed to sit and be quiet and then ask an insightful question at the end, or workshops where you absolutely must make a sculpture along with everyone else. It was audience- and speaker-derived, which meant it was always changing and was, I hope, interesting to everyone involved. It is disappointing that we didn’t have a bigger group of people attending when so many people had asked us for more details, but certainly the weather had something to do with that, and also, I can’t really disparage people for not coming to events when I so often do not go to events even when they sound great. But I wonder, if events like these (meaning less defined, more casual, and less about having to immediately be really knowledgeable or fangirl/boy as soon as you arrive) were more common, would people be more likely to engage in group things at libraries?

It’s something to think about. Formal events, even if you think of them as informal book clubs, can be very intimidating to shy people or to people who are simply still feeling out what it is that they’re interested in. So this sponsored-hanging-out-with-an-awesome-person-and-eating-food was a great alternative to the usual stuff you see on offer.

Also, I’m going to start reading (and maybe even writing) zines again. As soon as I finish my homework. Wooo, spring break! Anyway.

Nicole’s Etsy shop is here, and her work is definitely worth checking out. We all went a little shopping crazy.

–Hannah Gómez, PLG@Simmons Community Outreach Coordinator (full disclosure: links are Amazon affiliate links)

Drop Off Books for Prison Book Program Drive at GSLIS Lounge

Faculty, staff, students and any interested parties may now drop off their book donations for the Prison Book Program drive at the Simmons GSLIS student lounge (2nd floor of the Palace Road building). We have set up a shiny blue box with attached flyer on top of the filing cabinets to the left of the door as you walk in. The drive itself is April 13, but PLG is gathering books now to bring to that event. So you don’t have to!

For more information about the book drive, click here. For what books are needed (and not needed), see our flyer.

Ain’t No Party Like a Bookmakin’ Party!

We had a great turnout for our first DIY bookmaking event last night in P210. Thank you everyone for coming out, and an especially big thanks to Emily Hopkins for leading the workshop and co-chair Brian Shetler for making it happen. The PLG hopes to have another DIY bookmaking workshop in the spring, with some of the kinks worked out. We hope to have another big turnout; even if you came to this first one, stop by again and make another book for yourself or a friend and get to know some fellow GSLIS students as well.

But if you didn’t make it to this last one and think you may not be able to make any future one(s), here are the instructions (thanks again, Emily!):

Bookmaking:

Supplies needed:  printer paper, a pile of big books, PVA/wood glue, brush, wax paper, a pencil, bookboard, book cloth, an exacto knife/scissors.

Don’t nest the paper; fold them separately.

Fold each piece of paper in half horizontally.

Stack all your folded pieces of paper (make sure you’re putting them on top of each other and not inside each other) so that the folded edges are all lined up; this will be the spine.

Get your pages and make sure everything’s straight. Secure the edge opposite the spine with two even piles of big books and, using wax paper to ward off glue spillage, feather the spine to the right and the left, gluing as you do. This allows for glue to get in-between the pages, which helps them stick together.

Press the spine together and wipe off the excess glue.

Using wax paper to protect the book, smush the glued pages in the book to solidify the spine.

Using wax paper to ward off glue spillage, leave the pages under the pile of big books until the glue has dried.

Get book board and, using a pencil, ruler, and an exacto knife/scissors, cut out two rectangles measuring 5 ½ in. by 8 ¾ in. If the spine of your book is thicker than ¼ in., you will also need to cut the book board to make a spine.  The spine should be 8 ¾ in. tall and however wide your spine is.

Get book cloth that is large enough to extend 1-2 inches beyond the book when it’s spread open (you can estimate this with an unfolded piece of paper).  Trim any excess.

Using wax paper to ward off glue spillage, glue the entire back of the book cloth.

Place the book covers upon the book cloth, after liberally covering it with glue.

Take the book pages and sandwich it in-between the two book boards. Position the book boards so that the edge of the board is not flush with the spine, but is instead about ¹/₈ in. away from the spine (this room will create a sort of hinge, so you can open the book once you’re done). The other edges of the book board should extend slightly beyond the pages of the book.

Holding the book boards in place, place the book on the book cloth so that the spine is roughly center and then fold the book cloth in half to glue the front book board to it and then unfold it (making sure the board remains attached) and remove the book pages, leaving the book boards.

If your book necessitated a spine cut from book board, get it now and place it on the book cloth in between the two book boards already there.

Using scissors, cut the corners of the book cloth about ¹/₈ in. away from the edge of the book boards.

Fold the edges of the book cloth around the cover and glue the back of the first page to the board.

Fold the edges of the book cloth over, onto the book boards.

Position the book pages on the back cover so it is in the right place (i.e. the edge of the board is not flush with the spine, but is instead about ¹/₈ in. away from the spine).

Using wax paper to ward off glue spillage, glue the top end page and then fold the cover over to glue the top end page to the top book board.

Then, flip the book over and repeat with the back.

Smooth out the book cloth making sure there are no air bubbles.

Put the book under the pile of big books and wait for the glue to dry.

The finished product

We’ll be announcing when the next bookmaking event will take place next semester, so be sure to pay attention to the fliers in the Palace Road building, or hook up with us electronically on our Facebook or Twitter, or right here on our blog. Thanks again for the support!

Bookmaking Your Way

Take a break from your hectic, last minute, end-of-semester duties, if only for an hour of bookmaking fun. PLG is hosting a DIY Bookmaking Workshop from 5 to 6 p.m. TOMORROW, Wednesday, Dec. 5, at P210 (the Palace Road building on campus). Stop by to find out how to make a book for yourself or for someone else as a holiday gift. Questions? Email plgatsimmons@gmail.com.

In Summation …

Your PLG has been working hard the past month or so, making connections with other organizations and co-hosting a big yearly event, the Boston Anarchist Bookfair. 

The second annual Bookfair, which was held Nov. 9-11 at the Paresky Center in the Main College Building, attracted approximately 40 organizations sharing information and art and hundreds of people eager to exchange ideas and learn about anarchy and related topics during skillshares, workshops and films. Musical acts kicked off the weekend on Friday night; some performers included Jake and the Infernal Machine, Evan Greer, Not4Prophet and Adan X of the X-Vandals and Spider Cider. Some highlights included the panel discussions; Saturday afternoon featured Ray Luc Levasseur, Kazi Toure and Ashanti Alston, who discussed The Jericho Movement, which advocates the freeing of political prisoners. On Sunday, members of Maine Earth First!, the Earth First! Journal and RAMPS discussed eco-defense. PLG members hope to meet with the Boston anarchist collective to discuss the success of the bookfair and to also discuss hosting the event again.

PLG has also reached out to the Lucy Parsons Center regarding the planning and maintaining of a radical lending library it is undertaking with the Boston Radical Reference collective, whose members are the caretakers of Occupy Boston’s A-Z library. This is still in the early planning stages, so check in with us to find out how this is progressing. Also, PLG wiki/blogmaster Eileen Fontenot is now the GSLIS liaison to the Scott/Ross Center at Simmons. This is part of an on-going effort to partner with other organizations in creating volunteer opportunities and keeping action at the forefront of PLG’s goals. Along with GSLIS, the four other graduate programs at Simmons are uniting to plan volunteer events around the Simmons neighborhood. If you have any ideas or would like to help out, email Eileen at eileen.fontenot@simmons.edu.

Finally, if you’d like to become a PLG officer, we currently have three positions open for the spring semester: co-chair, treasurer and blog/wikimaster. Visit our wiki page to put your name down for a position and write a few sentences about why you’d like to join us. We’re planning a DIY bookmaking event later this month and a serving the underserved panel next semester and would love to hear your ideas on what other fun stuff we can discuss and accomplish. If you don’t have time to become an officer, get involved with us in other ways. Check out a book from our pop-up library, design a new logo for us, interact with us on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest or meet up with us at our next meeting (date TBD). We look forward to meeting and working with you!

The Boston Anarchist Book Fair is Back!

Saturday and Sunday, November 10th and 11th, 10a-6p

Come check out the 2nd Annual Boston Anarchist Book Fair

Hosted by the Progressive Librarians Guild @ Simmons

Constructed by the tireless Boston Anarchist Book Fair Committee

Join us for an amazing weekend — shop for radical books, watch films, attend lectures and workshops!  Sunday sessions include a presentation by Simmons students on “Activism in the Archives”. Chat with librarians in the Radical Reference Collective, meet Progressive Librarians Guild officers and members, check out reps from the Papercut Zine Library, and the list goes on… Complete details can be found at http://www.bostonanarchistbookfair.org/.

This event is free and open to the public, of course

xoplg

Logo Contest Commence

The Progressive Librarians Guild (or PLG@Simmons) needs a logo. Badly.  We know you’re all busy, but we figure, while you’re putting off that Moodle discussion post you could design the next PLG logo and win $25 to Revolution Books or the Lucy Parson’s Center, orrrrrr even the Curious George Store

 

DETAILS
Deadline: Monday, November 26th (11/26/12)

Submissions should be made to plg@simmons.edu

Design must include “PLG” and “@Simmons”

Submit logo designs in .JPEG format

Multiple designs may be submitted

Submission should include contact information

Voting will take place the week of submissions

Winner will be notified by email

Questions may be sent to breenj@simmons.edu  

 

GOOD LUCK

Pop! Goes the Library

Your faithful progressive librarian students at PLG had a very productive and fun first meeting of the semester September 17th in the GSLIS Student Lounge. Six students, along with four officers, discussed pop-up libraries and their effects on the communities they serve. Using PLG’s Pinterest board as a guide (http://pinterest.com/simmonsplg/popup-libraries/), we considered their value to their communities and discussed whether or not they are reaching the right people and, if not, how to bridge the gap from reaching those who are already voracious readers and have access to resources to those in who do not have those resources.

But first, how about some background on the Little Free Library (aka pop-up libraries, micro libraries) movement? According to an article in Library Journal (Sept. 1, 2011), two Wisconsin men, Rick Brooks and Todd Bol, decided to top Andrew Carnegie in the library endowment department. In 2009, they began building their 24″ x 24″ x 30″ structures, which cost only about $350, around Madison. In the intervening years, there have hundreds and hundreds more (whose locations can be found on Google Maps http://pinterest.com/pin/469781804849599986/).

It appears that there’s a good variety of pop-up libraries spreading in both urban, suburban and rural areas. John Locke of New York City has installed many shelving units in the city’s now-unused public telephone booths (http://gracefulspoon.com/blog/2011/07/06/dub-002/). Quite often, children take a hand in building and in the upkeep of these pop-ups, thereby ensuring a new generation of book lovers. What librarian wouldn’t love that?

Circulating books without the aide of traditional libraries and librarians sounds like a fantastic idea, but what are some of the drawbacks? Don’t patrons need the guidance of information professionals in selecting just what they want or need? As one article stated, a rural community started a little free library after their local public branch closed. Hopefully, these micro libraries will continue to enhance and support a community’s public libraries, not be the sole information source. But one thing is for certain: readers who gather at pop-up libraries are sure to benefit from the sharing of ideas and getting to know their neighbors.

Personalizing a pop-up library is part of the fun. Placing it in a location with a lot of foot traffic is quite valuable in catching the attention of your potential users. Then, according to what you believe what your patrons’ interests are, you can make the collection very specialized and unique. (Much like what we are doing with our own; we intend to keep our volumes focused on social justice and radical librarianship.) Also, at times when a patron may feel intimidated in a “real” library, possibly because they are part of a disenfranchised population, stopping by a pop-up library may make them feel more at ease and more welcome in the community. And, after they become more comfortable, these patrons can begin visiting public libraries and enjoy their benefits.

If any of you in the Simmons community would like to stop by PLG’s little free library, it is located on the second floor of the Palace Road building near the Tech Lab at locker number 121. The combination is 24-48-46. There are a few books there now, and more are on order. To check out what we have and what we will be getting in the future, see our Library Thing catalog page at http://www.librarything.com/catalog/SimmonsPLG.

We’d also love to see you get involved with the library! We’re working on stocking it with PLG swag, like buttons and bookmarks, but first we need some creative help. If you’d like to join PLG and design us a new logo, we’d love to see your ideas! Just send us an email.

Our mission statement:
The PLG@Simmons Locker Library exists to serve the greater Simmons community. It aims to be dynamic, not static, which means it is always growing and changing to reflect the current interests of PLG and the wider community. In stocking the PLG@Simmons Locker Library with materials not widely available, we support individuals in their pursuit of knowledge and self-edification, champion the freedom of information, and further progressive ideals.

Our etiquette suggestions are:
1. Treat books like you would regular library books.
2. A large proportion of books in this library are out of print, small press, or self-produced. That means they’re basically priceless! Please make sure you return books when you’re done with them.
3. The suggested loan period is one month.
4. If you have a book/zine/other bound set of paper to donate, please fill out the slip and leave it in your donated book so that we can add it to the catalog.
5. For every book you borrow from the library, tell one friend or colleague about it. Help us spread the word!
6. To suggest titles, email plgatsimmons@gmail.com or fill out the form: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/M6W7YRC or http://svy.mk/PT8Hqn.

Opportunity for Instruction Experience Coming Up

Dear GSLIS Community,

As some of you may remember last fall the Progressive Librarians Guild hosted the first Boston Anarchist Book Fair–and we are very excited to do it again this year!! There was one main thing missing last year:

AWESOME WORKSHOPS BY LIBRARIANS!

This is an excellent opportunity in a safe welcoming environment to:

Improve your public speaking skills! Practice user instruction! Share your knowledge! Bolster your resume!
**Show librarians are key in every context!**
Compile extraordinary bibliographies! Eat food and buy books ♥ ♥

(You don’t have to be an anarchist to participate, obvi.)
This is an official call for workshop proposals to be included at the 2012 Anarchist Book Fair AND a request for bibliographies submissions to be available for workshop attendees.

Submit proposal by: October 17th
Hear back about it by: October 24th
Book Fair Date: November 10 & 11 (Sat & Sun)
(**Your workshop will only be on one day)

Please include:

Your name and contact information
Working title of the workshop/lecture
Summary of content/intended outcomes
Anticipated duration (max 1hr, minimum 30min)
Any other information you feel is pertinent to expressing the idea (noooo more than a page)
Email to: joanniemercedes@gmail.com (Joanna Breen, PLG Co-Chair)

****Bibliographies do not need to be proposed, please just reply to this email stating you will prepare a bibliography on X topic, and then send it to me as a completed PDF by November 1st

If you and three other people want to each make fifteen minute presentations on related topics, propose it. If you want to be informal, propose to present a poster in the Paresky Center where the book fair will be taking place. Some made up examples to get your imagination flowing:

Lecture on Intellectual Freedom
PATRIOT Act impact on libraries
Library history – Library Awareness Act, libraries and political movements
Current state of intellectual freedom and privacy issues
Bookbinding, bookmaking on a shoestring
Politics in children’s lit
Themes of independence in YA lit
Libraries as cornerstone of democracy
Best practices for records management for activists
Bibliography of political research tools / demonstration of searching for political, census, governmental, NGO, non-profit information
Copyright
Bibliography of conspiracy theories, activist resources, environmental terrorism, anarchist fiction, political memoirs, etc etc

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Contact Joanna Breen: joanniemercedes@gmail.com

Looking forward to hearing from you!

xoPLG