#international libraries

[peachdoxie]

The topic of Danny Phantom came up in conversation with a coworker and I mentioned I'm active in the fandom, and he asked me what the weirdest thing in the fandom is, so I said the dissection/vivisection fics and then showed him art of Little Baby Man and Diddles Piddles. He was like "yeah that's weird." Stay classy, Phandom.

[californiastatelibrary]

Today, Jan. 30, California celebrates Fred Korematsu Day of Civil Liberties and the Constitution. But who was Fred Korematsu?  Mr. Korematsu was an American civil rights activist that stood up to the U.S. government’s wrongful incarceration of over 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry living on the West Coast during World War II. Even without support from his family or community, he disobeyed the government’s orders, and, as a result, spent over two years in various prisons and wartime incarceration sites. His case went to the Supreme Court, and in 1944 the Court ruled against him, claiming the mass incarceration was a “military necessity.” Nearly 40 years later, the government finally issued apologies and reparations to the camp survivors who remained, and in 1998 President Bill Clinton awarded Mr. Korematsu the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States.

Pictured is a children’s book we have in our collection in the California History section of the State Library.

[toss-a-coin-to-your-stan-account]

Hoopla my FUCKING beloved

[damonalbarn]

2011, Chetham's Library, Manchester - photos by Tim Sinclair [X]

[queerliblib]

It’s May Day

you know what that means. it’s also international workers day!

highly recommend picking up the following books from our collection!

Out in the Union: A Labor History of Queer America by Miriam Frank

My Desire for History: Essays in Gay, Community, and Labor History by Allan Bérubé

Queer Career: Sexuality and Work in Modern America by Margot Canaday

[basicallyanotherwitchesthing]

Caren Caraway - The Tarot Design Coloring Book - Stemmer House - 1980 (design by Barbara Holdridge)

[herosplatling-replica]

man the service at this library sucks, the people here keep trying to kill you

[josis-teacup]

Is there anything more "chaotic academia" and "authentic studyblr" than falling sick at uni, having to cough while sitting in the library and accidentally spitting your tea at your textbook?

[airanke]

Pro-tip: use tools you're familiar with!! Tomorrow I will draw Abiteth 💙💙

[wizardysseus]

it's hard for me to describe the dread i feel about my job as a librarian—a job i love, which brings me so much joy—because people perceive book banning as a local issue, or an issue of certain states, but it operates on a much broader level, too. if you love your library, you should know what's happening in libraries and how much worse it could get.

yes, on the local level, it matters that you know who is on your library board and what they stand for, even though you might have only indirect control over who those people are. (my library board, for instance, is not voted in but appointed by the mayor, a position that doesn't technically run on partisan lines but in practice absolutely does.) your library board is probably who makes the final call when a book is challenged about whether to remove it from the hands of the people. and if the board is not committed to serving the community the library serves, they can take the freedom to read and access certain information away from people. which is, as you probably know, fascist.

and if you care about your local library, you should care about preventing conservatives from taking positions of power at every level, obviously including the national level. project 2025 explicitly seeks to shut down public institutions and criminalize librarians who distribute "pornographic" material — that is, queer and especially trans books. we have also seen a push to destroy works by authors of color banned for "teaching critical race theory," which means speaking to racism at all.

maybe there's no guarantee that a democrat being president means your local library won't be gutted. but there is every sign that if trump is reelected, public schools and libraries will be defunded, queer literature will be classed as pornography, and librarians will be registered as sex offenders. that affects me as a librarian and a queer person, but i'm white and present female in a field that is still overwhelmingly white and female. we have no shortage of work to do within libraries to change that, but punishing queer librarians and librarians of color will only set us back and make librarianship more hostile, if it remains a viable profession at all. and all of this rebounds for the worst on our most marginalized communities.

i care about our rights, and i care whether you vote.

i recommend book riot's literary activism newsletter to learn more.

[uispeccoll]

Happy #InternationalCoffeeDay!

In honor of International Coffee Day, we are highlighting a few of our favorite odes to the delicious beverage. Whether through documenting the rich history of coffee – legend says it all steps from some energetic goats - a simple print of coffee cups, or a diary of one’s daily cup of joe, coffee has been a source of inspiration for centuries.  

Pictured:

[Coffee], Smith Miniatures Collection N8217.C463 A88 2000 

The Coffee Diary : a daily journal of consuming to-go for one year, N7433.4.M3637 C6 2007 

Kleine Kaffee-Visite, Szathmary TX415 .T74 1960 

---Kaylee S.

[sincerely-sofie]

Was bored and rereading TPiaG as I sometimes do

And I read a line about the librarian Swadloon in Verdant village having a crush on Kip, and since I don't Think you have any art of that yet, it was too enticing for me to not ask you to please draw something of them. Please?

You’re right that I haven’t drawn anything of her! Everybody meet Elwood! :>

[uwmspeccoll]

Easter Moralized

This Easter (which, btw, in 2024 is also International Transgender Day of Visibility) we explore the gilded pages of the Vienna Bible Moralisée (moralizing bible), of which we hold the first full-color facsimile published in 1973. The Vienna Bible Moralisée is also known as Vienna 2554, referencing its current place of residence at the Austian National Library in Vienna. One of only three 13th-century moralizing bibles still in existence, this manuscript is an excellent example of the of the ways in which Christians worked to simplify the lessons of the Bible for those that were not theological scholars. Even though they were made to be more accessible, these types of manuscripts were only created for the wealthy class; they needed to understand the Christian Bible and its lessons to ensure that they were (theoretically) promoting moral behavior. Vienna 2554 is thought to have been commissioned by Phillip II Augustus, for his son, Louis VIII or his bride, Blanche of Castile.

The Bible Moralisée is curious for two reasons: it does not actually contain the entire text of the Christian Bible, and it is mostly filled with images, rather than with words. These specific attributes contribute to the accessibility of Christian morals by abbreviating biblical stories and using illuminations to visually represent them.

Interestingly, the designs on the pages of these bibles imitate stained glass representations at the time: the eight medallions placed in columns of four; the inclusion of quatrefoils in between these medallions; the use of vivid colors. This reflection of architectural design in the illuminations may have allowed people to visualize themselves in a church and may have led to more contemplative readings of the text that emphasized the teachings of priests and theologians at the time. One of the most well-known images in these types of bibles is Jesus as architect and creator of the universe. This type is seen on the frontispiece of this moralizing bible: Jesus is holding a compass as he focuses on the creation of the world. Geometry and astronomy were often associated with the divine in the Middle Ages and this viewpoint is well explained in Vanderbilt's Divinity Library website: "God has created the universe after geometric and harmonic principles, to seek these principles was therefore to seek and worship God."

The creation of the moralizing bible also inspired later moralizing versions of books and poetry, like Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These types of moralizing volumes edited and changed parts of the works to make them conform to Christian teachings oft the time.

Our facsimile was published in 1973 by the Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt in Graz, Austria in an edition of 3,000 copies at the manuscript's original size. To see the original manuscript, you can visit the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Vienna or view the entirety of the manuscript online on their website here.

View more manuscript posts.

– Sarah S., Special Collections Graduate Intern

[barnabyboppins]

Hopefully lukewarm take (i haven’t checked)

I recently finished reading the Heroes Of Olympus series (having read pjo immediately prior) and I think it’s pretty shitty that the worth of all of our good guy characters are, to a notable degree, measured by their ability to find and engage in romantic relationships and are then greatly defined by those relationships. (Disclaimer; I don’t think I’m in a justified position to discuss lots of the racial criticisms for HoO but I do agree with a lot of em and that aspect does factor into this topic)

7+ important recurring characters is quite a lot of people to balance, even in a five book series and all of the non-pjo characters suffered immensely for it. But one character arc I anticipated over and over again that never ended up happening was any one character finding fulfillment from the non-romantic relationships around them by de-prioritizing the idea of a perfect someone in favour of accepting the support of their friends/comrades/campers/family/etc. (Second disclaimer: I don’t expect a novel saga from 2010 to have characters declaring their orientations (or lack thereof) aloud but the idea of a character learning to define themself by or through something outside of romance isn’t a new one)

I think Percy and Annabeth are very cute and work well as a couple (are they the only white couple?) and I don’t really see any chemistry between Piper and Jason (I feel like they’re on very different paths from each other and Piper stagnates greatly in favour of supporting jasons development) but I think literally every other Good Guy character had the potential to not need romance in their arcs. Frank could have been raised to praetor by consensus and recognized by his peers and grandma, actively validating his growth rather than him achieving great feats and no one noticing or really caring except for Hazel. Hazel could’ve been shown learning about the modern day with Frank and Nico during downtime and reconciling her identity and trauma with the diversity of today while discovering a new freedom in acceptance (from the Seven) of who she is from back then and who she may yet want to be (and also not dated a 16 y/o at 13).

Leo, Reyna and Nico were the main ones I was thinking would forgo the need for a partner at least as a necessity for their growth/healing as all three have severe familial trauma, are distanced from other demigods socially somehow, and all were explicitly ousted from conventional romance in-writing.

Initially with Leo I had hoped he would confront his struggle being the “seventh wheel” by expressing how he was feeling overlooked as a friend (and as the ONLY shipwright) in favour of everyone’s romantic interests, which would lead into further emotional vulnerability in the party but, that never happened save for a few stoically non-communicative gestures of support to Frank and otherwise weird hang-ups on Hazel before he fucked off to Calypso, letting his friends think him dead for weeks. Leo lacked connection and felt inferior and less important than the rest of the Seven and the narrative validated that by only fulfilling him through an a Rapunzel-like hot babe trapped on an island who is physically dependent on his emotional dependence on her. That’s not a recipe for healthy relationship! I related to Leo initially as an aromantic person with 9 siblings, half of whom are already coupled so it was very disappointing when I realized by the third book that RR just didn’t take what was to me the most obvious arc for a character who is vitally important to a team but least noticed. Also the Hazel-Frank-Leo pseudo-love shape didn’t need to happen, at least in the way it did, and I think the Leo-Hazel-Sammy weird love thing was stupid.

I think Nico and Will are a very cute couple and I’m looking forward to reading their book when I come around to it but I felt unsatisfied that the thing that got Nico to stay at camp after 5 books was a guy who had little significant presence until the last book and not like, any of the other deeply important connections he made during his journeys? Nico’s been talking about never returning to either camp for a while and none of the Seven or Reyna (I think) thought to check in with him? I get that Will is supposed to be like the first person to insistently want Nico around but if Will really is the first then that’s kinda fucked up given the whole like, eight books worth of people he’s met. It’s a bit fucked up that after years of Nico’s presence, seemingly the first connection to anchor him down is an unspoken suggestion of a romance

Reyna’s character journey confuses me because I don’t if I missed or forgot it but I don’t remember her having a conclusion to her internal struggles. Aphrodite telling her she’s doomed to singledom gets brought up again and again and it’s mostly just to make you feel bad for her. She doesn’t tell anyone else. She doesn’t seek fulfillment in the platonic or familial connections she has. They visit her house, trauma dump about her abuse AND fakeout her sisters + the hunters + the amazons deaths just to have Reyna be even more hurt. Reyna and Nico come to understand each other while they’re travelling but by the conclusion of the series she’s just gone back to her isolating and stressful role as the praetor, but now with more work to do! Aphrodite’s words are never explained and their veracity is never tested and all it serves is to give Reyna more misery porn.

I guess what I’m saying is I think the story would have been better if The Seven & Co had a little more connection with each other and not just with their respective partners and if we could have seen some internal growth come from that.

[cappurrccino]

one thing they never tell you about having a job is that you WILL, at some point, end up making a mistake that feels like the worst and most unforgivable thing in the world where the only solution is to pack your bags and move to a different country and start a new life under a new name

[elizmanderson]

head's up for all my international peeps: Book Depository announced on Twitter that they're closing on 26 April 2023.

per their tweet: "You can still place orders until midday (12pm BST) on 26 April and we will continue to deliver your purchases and provide support for any order issues until 23 June 2023."

preorders for books that come out before April 26 should be okay. preorders for books that come out after that - or whose dates are pushed back by their publishers - you may want to cancel, but they do say they'll refund you if they're unable to ship your order when the day comes.

for more details, see their FAQ page about the closure

the good news is, it looks like Blackwell's (UK) now offers free international shipping. here's their shipping page for details.

hopefully this means Book Depository closing won't hit as hard as it otherwise would have. free international shipping makes books so much more accessible to so many more readers.

here's the link to Blackwell's main site