USC’s beautiful blog has lots of interesting images from their collections displayed polaroid-style.
A check from Aldous Huxley to the Sierra Club for $3.45. The check is from our Aldous Huxley Papers collection, recently processed as part of our NHPRC-funded Documenting L.A. project.
The librarians at Sarah Lawrence College’s Music Library post music reviews, library news, and more. Audio posts too!
Today we have another guest post from SLC Reference Librarian Kate Angell:
I sometimes wonder why Fifth Column has received what I perceive as such little attention in works chronicling the history of women in punk. Hailing from Toronto, they were together for around twenty years and released three albums.
My personal favorite album, 36C, was released in 1994 and features ten amazing feminist, queer-positive songs. Today I’m going to profile Don’t, a powerful song which takes historical fear tactics used against women and completely subverts them.
Speaking to a universal “you,” the song describes a woman making lists (e.g. shopping, love) only to be warned of what she cannot do (e.g. “don’t go in the underground parking”). Don’t ends by portraying this woman as a subject fully capable of defending and living for herself (“she’s got a knife/she’s got some scissors/she’s got a life”). In contrast, the narrator sets this woman against the universal “you,” snarling “and that’s more than I can say for you.” A listener can only imagine that she is singing about an oppressor whose status as the dominant inhabit of a binary has either been or is able to be toppled.
All in all, Fifth Column truly excels in taking sexist language and norms and inverting it to both critique and reclaim power. I wish I was in a band like this! Make sure to listen to 36C when you get the chance.
View high resolution
NYPL highlights a great photo from their archives, and celebrates the birthday of Radio City.
nypl:
HAPPY 79th BIRTHDAY RADIO CITY MUSIC HALL! (December 27, 1932)
This photo - found in the NYPL’s Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy - was taken by the Wurts Brothers two years after the legendary building’s opening and features the romance “One Night of Love” with the “Lovely Grace Moore,” a couple of classic cars and, if you look closely, tracks for a streetcar.
The Romulus (Michigan) Public Library Friends group uses Tumblr to publicize their advocacy efforts.
The Romulus Public Library continues to operate at a reduced capacity due to the financial situation in the city. It has been possible to do this because of hard working volunteers who generously give of their time. Right now the volunteers and staff are trying to plan an excellent Summer…
View high resolution
Portland Public’s teen librarian shows off the library’s tools and facilities for creating new music.
You can use our library to do some really neat stuff.
Getting together at the Hennepin County Public Library.
Minneapolis History Wikipedia edit-a-thonFebruary 25, 10-5 pm, Special Collections Reading Room, 4th Floor, Minneapolis Central LibraryWe invite the Minnesota Wikipedia community and local historians to edit and augment entries in Wikipedia on Minneapolis history. Please help us increase the depth of information on Minneapolis history topics by utilizing materials in the Minneapolis Collection. Find your own Minneapolis history topics to edit or work from a list developed by Special Collections Librarians.
A new-old idea for what to watch: silent films. From the Queens Public Library.
As true cinephiles, we’re glad to see silent films making a small, but significant comeback with the 2011 film, The Artist, a French-American production that has already won a number of accolades and looks poised to pick up a few Academy Awards as well. What makes The Artist unusual is…
Book suggestions from Bennington College’s library tumblr.
I was a first-grader on a routine visit to the neighborhood gas mart when I was first confronted by the newly installed tower rack of comic books.
Mail-Order Mysteries by Kirk Demarais
The Mistake is coming to stay for a while.
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham
