I’m not a fan of the librarian meme, but I love the images like the one above that I stumbled upon here. So I thought it fitting to begin this biweekly installment of interesting reads with that. And now that it’s out of the way, here are some worthwhile links from the last couple of weeks. Oh and I should note that I mean it when I say this installment is thinner than most!
- The weight of books. I love this piece and I especially love the way the author weaves in Benjamin’s thoughts on what a personal library is and what it signifies. I think about that a lot, especially as I start to think about clearing books off my shelves. Why do I keep what I do? Why do I choose what I do to purchase in the first place, even?
- What would the covers look like of best selling albums if they were actually books instead of albums? Well, here’s a gallery. I’m a fan of Pet Sounds.
- Kate wrote a series of wonderful posts about women and librarianship, incorporating scholarly resources into the history of the challenges faced therein. These pieces — part one and part two — are absolutely fantastic, and I am really looking forward to part three, which will be a foray into gender and youth librarianship. Speaking of women and library history, there’s a new tumblr featuring some of the women who shaped librarianship in honor of women’s history month.
- Balancing the serious with the lighter hearted….Lucky magazine has a piece on how you can look like Audrey Horne. That is, if you’re as obsessed with her as I am. And if you do not know who Audrey Horne is, you are welcome to join in on the weekly Twin Peaks viewing parties Leila at Bookshelves of Doom and I host Sundays at 8 pm Eastern. We’re onto episode 6 in season one tomorrow.
- I’ve been thinking about this piece for over a week now, when I first read it: the buried treasures in our archives. We value new blog posts so much in general, and I wonder how much we forget about the older things we’ve written. It’s easy to bristle at old reviews and how “bad” they were but maybe they weren’t. This week, someone asked me about a review I wrote in 2009 and when I pulled it up and read it, it wasn’t that bad. So, it’s something I’ve been thinking about, wondering if maybe pulling a periodic “from the archives” post up once in a while.
- This is short but it might be one of the most interesting things I’ve read about covers before: how do men and women respond to different covers and the different elements on a cover? It includes heat mapping.
- Let’s talk about men and women some more, shall we? More specifically, who gets more exposure in the biggest review sources? The answer isn’t shocking and it is still sad.
- Did you see the list of Lambda Award nominees? Of the YA list, there are only four titles I have not read. This is an excellent group of contenders.
- What happens when your son falls in love with a “girly” book series? A great piece on Bitch about gender, books, and marketing. And, you know, busting out of those things.
- This is arguably the most important piece I’ve read in the last couple of weeks: giving them what they should want. I know I’ve talked a bit about the decision that Douglas County Libraries in Colorado made in terms of signing with Smashwords for ebooks. This explores it a little more and raises a ton more questions. Again, no collection development policy except “we’ll figure it out.” And the nice slight to children’s books in there, too.
- My last link (like I said, this was a shorter roundup!) is a piece written by one of my friends. Kate talked about the experience of being a fat yoga teacher and the perceptions/fears she had about that. It’s inspiring and motivating.
Read anything great on the internet in the last couple of weeks I missed? I’d love to know! I’ve been elbow-deep in work so I am sure I missed a few good things.