Librarians

Interesting history of an early Vassar grad who later became a librarian:

Anita Hemmings was a black woman who was passing for white, and it almost got her kicked out of Vassar on the very eve of her graduation in 1897. Hat tip to Robin Bradford @Tuphlos

Safely graduated from what was perhaps the most prestigious women’s college in the nation, Anita went on to join the staff of the Boston Public Library as their foreign cataloguer, doing translations and bibliographies. She was proficient in seven languages, including Latin, French, and ancient Greek.

By 1914 she was listed in Woman's Who's who of America: A Biographical Dictionary of Contemporary Women of the United States and Canada. That listing noted that she “favors woman suffrage.” She also became a friend of African American civil rights activist W. E. B. Dubois.

via PUB-LIB: SKYPE/ZOOM WITH A 3-TIME IDITAROD MUSHER AND HER IDITAROD LEAD DOG!

Karen Land, writer, oral historian, public speaker, and three-time participant in the 1,150-mile Iditarod Sled Dog Race across Alaska will be Skyping/Zooming with students across the globe this Winter/Spring 2015. E-mail [email protected] for more information and to set up a date! (the Iditarod starts March 7, 2015)

For those of us over 35 (and some of us that are younger), it is well known that when you needed to have some critical information, you asked a librarian. NPR has a lovely story about questions patrons asked in the olden days (pre-Google).

In a word, yes. Here's the straight scoop from librarian/writer Roz Warren on what's going going gone in the world of magazines.

I love magazines, which is why I am alarmed and dismayed by the fact that they’re doomed. How do I know?
I’ve read about it, of course. In magazines.

Not only that, but I process the incoming periodicals at the library where I work, which means I can actually see them dwindling before my eyes. What once were fat monthly issues are now alarmingly thin. Monthlies have increasingly resorted to publishing double issues. “New York,“ always my favorite weekly, now comes out every other week.

When I grew up, I looked forward to having my own “McCalls” subscription. (And, with any luck, my own “Playboy“-reading spouse.) Some periodicals still manage to thrive. The last issue of “Vogue” was so big I could barely lift it, as fat with ads as the models within were skinny. (And so pungent with perfume ads you could smell it across the room.)

“People“ will endure. We’ll never grow tired of celebrity gossip. “Sports Illustrated” is still going strong. And “Martha Stewart Wedding” will undoubtedly be around as long as women dream of finding both Mr. Right and a fabulous gown to marry him in.

But “U.S. News and World Report?” “McCalls?“ “Newsweek?“ Gone.