#library sciences

[racefortheironthrone]

Please innumerate for us the specialized problems of the library sciences.

Let me start with the caveat that my information is based on my experiences at the National Archives more than a decade ago, and policy has definitely changed on this front as we can see from this graph of recent digitization - apparently NARA wants to get to 85% digitization by 2026. (Even still, I'd note that the records of the WPA are <0.001% digitized.)

However, back when I was doing the research that would eventually become my first book, I remember being at the National Archives II building in College Park, Maryland (Go Terps!) and getting really frustrated that all the records of the WPA were only available in their original physical form and that all the guides and indexes were also in paper only and were all from the 1970s, and I asked the archivist why the hell the National Archives hadn't been digitized already.

This is what they told me: if it's handled correctly and stored in the right environmental circumstances, paper can last a thousand years. Carbon copies can last even longer, if they don't rip. (Seriously, the bastard things are like onion skins, they'll split if you look at them funny.) Microfilm is slightly more technologically advanced than paper, but it only lasts 500 years in the right conditions.

We've only had computers en masse since the 1980s, and already there's a huge amount of records (especially from the early years) that we don't have any more, because the hard drives got re-formatted due to higher costs of storage space back in the day, or because old computers got thrown out when they were replaced by newer models and the hard drives are all rotting in landfills somewhere, or because backwards compatibility broke down and we just can't read those file types on our modern computers, or because the actual data got corrupted on the disc, or because some legacy company is asserting copyright against a video game museum, or because some political hack and/or president of the United States decided to violate the Presidential Records Act.

While we thought that the internet would cause an explosion of written records from ordinary people on the scale of the advent of mass literacy, there are vast swathes of the early internet that simply do not exist any more because the servers got switched off when Geocities et al. folded in the dot-com bubble burst or when everyone migrated to Web 2.0, and the Internet Archive tries its best (bless its heart, affectionately) but it can't be everywhere and save everything.

As a result, the archivist told me, digitization is a fraught question: what file format do we use? How do we know that file format will still be compatible and backwards-compatible in 50 years? 100? Longer? Do we keep everything locally or store it on the cloud, and how do we ensure that the storage mechanisms won't fail if there's a blackout or a virus or whatever? Do we digitize everything now, or do we wait until optical character recognition improves enough to the point where digitized records can be searched for words and phrases? Etc.

Keep in mind, I am a public policy historian who studies the 20th century U.S - I work primarily with the official records and the central archives of the richest government in the world. From a library sciences perspectives, this is kind of an ideal scenario, and it's still kind of fucked up. (Let me tell you, the rage and grief I felt when I learned that most of the General File of the Public Works Administration was thrown away by the National fucking Archives and Records Administration in the mid-1950s because they were running out of shelf space in the D.C location and didn't think these records were important...)

Now imagine what it's like at a local historical society or a small liberal arts college, or the national museum of a developing nation for that matter, who do not have the resources for the kind of grand digitization project that NARA started doing five years ago. Think of the sheer scale of historical records that sleep, unseen and untouched perhaps for decades and perhaps for ever, in little cubbyholes all across the world. Among professionals, historical records are measured in linear and cubic feet - think about that for a second, how many pages of paper there are in a foot when you stack them up, and how many hundreds and thousands and millions of feet there are across the face of the world. Think of all the millions of feet of pieces of paper that have been lost to us because of fire or rot or war or time itself.

This is why Peter Turchin is a quack. Historical records are not a standardized little database for social scientists to plug their fucking spreadsheets into; historians don't play that kind of bullshit t-ball, with all our data neatly packaged and handed to us on a silver platter. Our profession is not a social science, it's a goddamn treasure hunt through boxes that were never catalogued or categorized (or that were re-catalogued so many times no one remembers how they were put together in the first place) to find writing that no one has read since the authors died. All of us know that our work, our understanding, will always be partial and limited, because memory is infinitely fragile and the very idea of historical preservation is a mad existential defiance of entropy itself. These records are real, they are fragile - to hell with the Library of Alexandria, remember the National Museum of Brazil? - and they are all that is left to us of the dead.

#history #library sciences #archives #digitization #historiography

[musicalanthrop]

Been working on my senior capstone project for music history! I'm working with one of my university's special collections archives about Jewish American music in the 40s and 50s!

#studyblr #jumblr #archives #librarian #academia #college #lexi in college core #music history #music major #library sciences

[ahb-writes]

It seems I yet again underestimated your passion for books.

"Ferdinand" (in Acendance of a Bookworm #13 (4.1) by Miya Kazuki)

#ascendance of a bookworm #ferdinand #honzuki no gekokujou #本好きの下剋上 #high priest #miya kazuki #royal academy #books #bookworm #librarian #library sciences #captain obvious

[possumgirlbulge]

i want to vault over a guard rail slide down the banister of the stairs run over to my library bookshelf to pull a wall sconce opening a secret door behind the bookshelf run into the cave system proper to throw a giant lever that activates a glowing large brass-cast machine that sizzels with green lightning, everytime i want to send a txt message (or SMS)

#library sciences

[impossibleobservationkryptonite]

I know it's been a Year since I've been gone

But I'm here!!! I'm alive!! I've been working as a Full Time Professional Librarian for the last 15 months, and I have a lot of catching up to do to put out on here. I am so ready. Hit me with questions because if not, I'm just gonna be info dumping to my hearts content.

#library science #just wandering here #library sciences #send help #librarian #libraries #support libraries #public libraries

[cloama]

My public library offers lots of stuff but new free services were added in the pandemic years

-Mango, language learning app

-Brainfuse, interview coaching and resume lab

-Creativebug, art and craft tutorial similar to skillshare

-Freegal music

-Scholastic GO and Scholastic teachables

-CLEP exam prep!!!!!

#I've been testing my way through CLEP exams ALONE. NO ONE TOLD ME THE LIBRARY HAD ONLINE EXAM PREP #just raw dogging exams like a fool #library sciences #please go to your library #or just get a card and look online at all the resources

[saramerkinwriting]

Shelf Life

There’s one security guard at the library that’s been talking to me. He used to be cute, I’ll admit. A small but strong build, with big eyes and a tangled mess of curls on his head that fell across his forehead, almost touching his eyebrows. For a month he’d say good morning to me, and I’d feel a flash of excitement. Me? This cute boy is saying good morning to me? Wearing my lumpy work clothes and a Covid-19 mandated mask that covers the attractive parts of my face as if to highlight the dark circles that absorb my eyes? Me?

 But then, he dyed his hair. 

The security guard who was cute dyed his hair like a teenager in a 90’s beach movie. He frosted his tips, clearly trying to get a bleached blonde look. Instead, it was like he went through a bad breakup and thought, this’ll bring her back, but halfway he realized she was never coming back, because she ran off with his best friend, and now, even if his hair was cooler, nothing would bring her back, so why even bother.

I’m not one for half-dyed-hair boys, so I lost interest. His daily hellos became a chore.

Then, he started fist-bumping me. 

Every.

Single.

Day.

I don’t know about you, but I haven’t actively initiated a fist bump with someone since middle school. Aside from, of course, with the super cool handshake I have with a friend, where we whip into a fist bump and nae nae away (everyone in the group is jealous of it). 

The security guard who was cute but then dyed his hair and isn’t cute anymore just loves a good fist bump. I never see it coming. He’ll sneak up on me in the stacks, unintentionally I’m sure. It’s the library, we all try to be quiet. I’ll glance up upon sensing the presence of a body above me, and his fist will already be out, just hovering there in mid-air waiting for me to bump back. It makes me uncomfortable. 

He’s also taken to saying my name melodically when he passes by. He’ll be like “SarRraAAaaa,” and the sound trails off and lingers in his wake. He says my name like a New Yorker, whining the syllables. Sah-ruh, he says. I go by SAr-uh. It’s bad enough that people consistently spell my name with an H; when they pronounce it with one, I can’t take it. I’ll email someone, sign my name Sara, and get back a response saying “Hi Sarah,” like they were reaching out to me for the first time, never having seen my name on paper before, except that it was in the email right there, directly below it. 

Anyway, I don’t know his name. 

||||||||

When I tell people I work as a library page, they usually comment on the pun. 

“That’s funny,” they’ll say. 

“What is?” I’ll ask. 

“Your job title is page. In a library. Libraries have books. Books have pages.”

“Wow,” I’ll say, “I never thought of it that way before.” Let them think they were clever. 

Then, the follow-up, “What does the job entail?”

“I’m a reserves page,” I’ll say. “You know when you place a book on hold to pick up at the library? I’m the person that finds that book for you. I love it.”

“Oh, cool,” they’ll say. 

Sounds boring, they’ll think. 

||||||||

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts in Lincoln Center (LPA) is unlike most libraries. Instead of novels and comics, the shelf space is dedicated solely to performing-art-related content, which includes: movies, music, plays, screenplays, performing-arts history, and sheet music. Plus, there’s a massive archive hidden upstairs that can be accessed by asking nicely, and filling out tons of paperwork. The building is pretty, I think. The shelves are made of light wood with a carpet sprinkled in black and brown below them. The walls vary between a rough earth-toned stone-like tile, and slate blue paint that feels depressing in the winter and calming in the summer. They stone walls smooth, but there are some cuts along it that are jagged, risky. My friend told me that the library’s bathrooms are the nicest public bathrooms she’s ever seen. I didn’t really understand that. The toilet seats are black, a strange contrast to the white base below them. It makes me wonder what dirt the black is masking. But maybe it’s just not a design choice I like. 

There is also an area called ‘The Internet Station,’ where thirty-six computers are set up to give people internet and printing access. Somedays I get assigned to sit at the desk for an hour. I mainly spend the time writing or mindlessly playing 2048. 

The employees consider themselves curators of the art world. The people browsing are called ‘patrons,’ as if they all were wealthy musicians coming to spend their time searching the stacks for a CD copy of their first album, the one they put out before they got big, because Spotify just isn’t cutting it anymore. 

I’ve been working there for nine months now, and I haven’t seen a single famous person. Though, there is one woman who comes in every day at exactly 11am and sits at Media Computer 06. I’m thinking of asking for her autograph. 

||||||||

In the beginning, I used to wonder why people were still using a library to consume digital media in 2021. Books make sense to me. All the new releases cost over $25. Used bookstores are becoming the only affordable buying option and they don’t have new books. But books aside, who doesn’t have a music streaming subscription, Spotify (Apple Music if you’re a bad person), or even YouTube access? I assumed it was only older people placing holds for pickup. Maybe they couldn't figure out how to use modern technology. Though, I’m not sure why anyone above the age of thirty would want to listen to Olivia Rodrigo. I’ve seen her album Sour on the hold list at least three times already. Still, every day I search through the pop CD section, finding holds of Justin Beiber and One Direction. I guess there’s an old woman out there who’s a die-hard Belieber. Respect. 

||||||||

A petition to include ‘Sports’ as a performing art. 

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Let me explain. Take a sport like football. Each play is thoroughly planned out and practiced by the team. A choreographed dance, if you will. And we look at athletes as celebrities in the same way we do singers or actors. Everyone knows who Lebron James is, hell, The Rock got his start as a wrestler on WWE. I also just think it would be so funny to have a whole sports section in the Performing Arts Library, generally seen as a safe space for theater nerds and artists, now overtaken by their biggest nemeses; athletes. So consider signing, tell your friends. Your contribution to the cause is very much appreciated.

||||||||

I find my time in the stacks peaceful. I wander them, scanning the shelves for the holds I need. A typical day gives fifty to eighty holds to find. The stacks are usually empty so I get aisles all to myself, walls of books hugging me. 

||||||||

Early on, I made the job into a game, setting challenges for myself to complete, a scavenger hunt.

Find a full page (twelve holds). ✓

Don’t find any on a full-page. ✓

Find the CD with a 0000 code on it. ✓

Note: It was Ray Adam’s “Prisoner.” Upon discovering this CD, I took it to Canva and covered an image of it with emojis. It hung on the wall of the page room for two months before it was mercilessly torn down by a mysterious assailant for reasons I cannot begin to understand. I’m forced to assume it was based on jealousy that I discovered the CD first. 

Find the strangest film there. 

Note: Not sure yet, but I think “Oy Vey! My Son is Gay” is a definite contender.

Find an ancient hold. 

Note: Some holds have been missing for months. Sidney Lumet’s “Making Movies,” for example, has been on reserve since October. It’s February. But every time I’m assigned books, I check for it. 

The day when I found the CD with the code 0000, I almost cried. The first call number, the perfect beginning. A unicorn in its prime. 

||||||||

Once every two months, the supervisors gather all the pages into a room to restate everything we already know. It’s an hour spent not working, getting paid to sit and listen to a repetition of my job duties. Nothing much comes out of it, aside from the reminder that pages shouldn’t be wearing headphones during work. 

“If a patron tries to get your attention and you can’t hear them, it’s bad customer service,” they say. 

For a week, we all pause wearing headphones. Then we resume until the next meeting.

During a recent headphone drought, I spiraled a bit in the stacks. Without music, my mind would drift to thoughts of Oliver. I needed a distraction. I started marching up and down the aisles, as I scavenged for holds. I took to stretching every time I leaned down until I developed a charley horse. I sought out the security guard who was cute but then dyed his hair and isn’t cute anymore for a fist bump. Me. 

I pulled out a book. The kind of book with a small build, no larger in perimeter than a postcard, but thick with hundreds of pages. 

I held the book in my hand, fighting against its weight, and I said,  “Well, well, well, aren’t you a big boy.”

I really needed to start using headphones again. 

||||||||

One time, a large man I’d never seen before with a thick Russian accent passed me on his way to the computers, tipped his hat, and said, “It’s good to see you again.”

||||||||

NYPL uses a program called Sierra to catalog and keep track of materials across all the branches. Once every three months or so, the system will glitch. Normally the first thing I do when I arrive, after a healthy few minutes of sprawling out on a chair and chugging coffee to wake up, is head up to the third floor offices to get my list of holds for the day. The list is filled with call numbers and barcodes, in order of category. Usually, I’m given CDs and TV with a splash of foreign films. But when Sierra glitches, everything is out of order. The pages are organized by branch, rather than material, so I’m given a list with everything from scores to biographies to feature films. It is chaos. Absolute chaos. 

This is where my brilliance comes in though, and yes I will brag about it. I came up with a system to create a sense of organization for the muddled list: a highlighting session. To date, it is the most accomplished I have ever felt at a job. Essentially, I highlight the various categories of materials in different colors so I can follow one color at a time and not have to run around the entire library, jumping between them. Yellow is usually feature films, blue for nonfeature (concert tapings, foreign, TV…).  Pink for CDs and if I’m feeling wild, I’ll do Blues-Pop in orange, R&B-World in pink. Books are green, and I use a blue pen to circle the ‘B’ to identify the biographies. 

I taught the other staff members my ways, and on glitch days, we all sit together for a little coloring session. Yes, I know, brilliant.

||||||||

I’ve ranked the various media at the library by urgency. 

Sheet Music

Books/Plays

Non-Feature Films

CDs

Feature Films

I’ll be honest with you, I know that feature films should probably come before CDs. It’s much easier to find music for free than it is to find films. And, most of the time, the film requested is a 1930’s screwball comedy that’s difficult to come by elsewhere. But there are just so many feature films and they take forever to look through. So for my sanity, we’ll pretend like CDs are more important. If it’s a day where the list is long and I can’t get to everything, oops. I guess someone isn’t gonna be watching Jurassic Park III tonight with their grandchildren. But hey, at least someone else gets to read Eve Ensler’s “The Vagina Monologues.”

||||||||

I like to run my fingers gently across the books as I pass, feeling their different textures. 

||||||||

After I find the holds, I get to play with the scanning laser. Checking in the holds is a fairly simple process. For books, it’s just a matter of scanning and pressing the ‘fulfill hold’ button. For discs, there is an additional step of unlocking the case to check that the correct item is inside and locking it back up afterward.

Recently I’ve started timing myself to see how many discs I can do in a minute. Right now my average is nine discs per minute, so it takes about seven seconds for each one. I’m working on getting faster. 

Some days, I count how many holds I’ve collected, so I can know around how much time it will take me to finish scanning them all in, adding some extra time for complications that may arise. Other days, I remember that I’m paid by the hour, and if I finish scanning early, I’ll have to shelve books until my shift is over. I try to avoid shelving at all costs. Too much movement in picking up books, reaching to put them away. I always end up sweating.

In other discoveries, the farthest I’ve ever scanned a barcode from is seven inches. 

||||||||

 The security guard who was cute but then dyed his hair and isn’t cute anymore came up to me and told me he was high at work today. No fist bump though. I wish he got high all the time.

||||||||

I think I helped a woman fall for a scam. She was an elderly, first-generation American with slow English. She showed me an email about a prize she’d won that was supposed to be delivered. She wanted me to email them back saying, I am waiting for you at the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library.

“Are you sure this is real?” I asked.

“Oh, yes. I won a prize,” she told me. 

I shrugged and helped her send the email. My time at the desk was up five minutes later. I still wonder what happened to her. 

||||||||

“I spent two years in Vegas after college,” my co-worker Henry tells me. 

He’s a clerk, one level higher than the pages, a full-time position that isn’t so far off from what I do. Most clerks begin as pages and angle for a promotion after a year or two of working at the library. Henry was my favorite of the clerks. In the mornings when he saw me, he did this little wave, leaning back forty-five degrees, bending the lower half of his arm up to his chest, and shaking his open palm. I made the mistake of commenting on it once and now he’s self-conscious. 

“Aren’t you from the Bronx? How did you even get to Vegas?” I asked.

“Oh, it was where I went for my mission,” he said as if I was supposed to already know this information about him.

“Like a ‘we love God, so should you,’ mission?”

“Yeah, I’m a Mormon.”

This must be what it’s like when people meet their first Jew. In my mind, Mormons were either Broadway characters or the waspy white women on Real Housewives of Utah. But then again, there are people in this country who think I, and my Jewish brethren, have horns, so I guess this was less of a shock.

“How observant are you?”

“Well, I only really took on the religion about ten years ago when my mom got sick. We were Catholic before then, but she connected with Mormonism at that time in her life, and I clicked with it too.” 

“So how was Vegas? Did you just spend the whole time living it up?” I asked, like an idiot. 

“I don’t drink or gamble,” he said. 

At this point, I began to question our similarities.

“Oh. Why not?”

“Mormons don’t believe in adding unnatural substances to the body. No caffeine either.”

The caffeine addict in me was shocked. “Not even tea? Isn’t that natural?” 

“No, we don’t want to develop a reliance on something outside of ourselves and God.”

I wanted to ask him why if he believed in God’s power of creation, he didn’t believe that consuming caffeine was a part of God. But I figured I’d save that for when we knew each other better. 

“How long have you been working with Henry?’ I asked Sonia, one of the other clerks. She intimated me a bit, somehow exuding resting bitch face through her Covid mask.

“Years. We started here as pages together. I’ve probably known him for at least six or more years,” she responded.

“Did you know he’s a Mormon?” I asked.

“Henry’s a Mormon? Damn.”

||||||||

Recently, school groups have been coming into the library on field trips. It’s usually middle schoolers with the occasional elementary school group. In the age of Spotify and Netflix, they try to excite the students about the use of CDs and DVDs with a scavenger hunt. 

I always feel like I’m on display when they come to visit. A real live library employee skulking around the stacks in search of materials. Some of them stare at me, others push past to find their favorite pieces of media. They always leave a mess. 

||||||||

On slow days, I’ll grab a random sorted cart and scan whatever media is on it. It’s a way to make sure the items that haven’t made it to the shelves yet, either because there wasn’t time or there’s no space, still get checked for holds. 

Some carts will be filled with reserved items, usually the ones carrying feature films or rock CDs. But, there are times when I’ll scan one hundred DVDs and not get a single hold. 

In those moments I like to give myself a pep-talk. 

There are people out there, art-deprived people. All they want is to listen to their favorite Beatles album, probably ‘Abbey Road,’ and feel better about the idea of Miami underwater. You have the power to give them happiness. They could be depressed and the Beatles are their only hope. Who cares if not a single other CD scans as a hold? This is a matter of life or death.  If you just find one, one single CD, it will have been worth it. All you need is one. All you need is love. Well, all they need is All You Need Is Love, but you haven’t seen the ‘Magical Mystery Tour' album on the shelf for months. Come to think of it, the library may not even have it in circulation at all. Stop. Forget that. All you need is one. Make someone’s day. Life or death. Find the one.

||||||||

I’ve been trying to get some of the other pages to play bumper carts with me, but none of them are into it for some reason. 

||||||||

The security guard who was cute but then dyed his hair and isn’t cute anymore gave me a high-five instead of a fist bump yesterday. 

I think we’re dating now.

#creative writing #non fiction #mfa #the new school #dating #jewish #relationships #personal essay #memoir #love #judaism #shabbat #library #nypl #library sciences #mlis #mls #stacks #books

[nitewrighter]

#librarianship #libraryblr #bookblr #libraries #information sciences

[pyjamacryptid]

Feeling like the ultimate nerd niche right now. I’m studying information science, specifically cataloguing, while in a library. Immersive experience. Like a 4D movie.

Self-portrait on Lined Notebook Paper, c. 2023

#ren rambles #library #libraries #information science #library and information science #cataloguing #my art #ren doodles #doodle #doodling

[anxi0usgh0st]

if you see this I’m taking you on a date to the planetarium then we’re going to a cat cafe and a library. best places on earth criticism isn’t taken

#concerts are also up there on the list of charlie’s favorite places #and science museums I fucking love science museums. #ever been to california academy of science? insane #first date I’m being a nerd you get what you see #science #cats #cat cafe #cute cats #books & libraries #safe space #date night #date ideas #planets #planetarium #space #outer space

[ikiprian]

Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School is a popular YouTube series. Tucker Foley is a star student.

Barbara Gordon's Cram School posts free online courses for both coding and computer engineering. Think Crash Course in terms of entertainment, but college lecture in terms of depth. Hundreds of thousands of viewers flock to it— students who missed a class, people looking to add new skills to a resume, even simple hobbyists. It’s a project Barbara’s proud of.

Sometimes, when she wants to relax, she’ll even hop in the comments and spend an afternoon troubleshooting a viewer’s project with them.

User “Fryer-Tuck” has especially interesting ones. Barbara finds herself seeking out his comments, checking in on whatever this crazy kid is making next. An app for collecting GPS pings and assembling them on a map in real-time, an algorithm that connects geographic points to predict something’s movement taking a hundred other variables into account, simplified versions of incredibly complex homemade programs so they can run on incredibly limited CPU’s.

(Barbara wants to buy the kid a PC. It seems he’s got natural talent, but he keeps making reference to a PDA. Talk about 90’s! This guy’s hardware probably predates his birth.)

She chats with him more and more, switching to less public PM threads, and eventually, he opens up. His latest project, though, is not something Barbara has personal experience with.

FT: so if you found, hypothetically, a mysterious glowing substance that affects tech in weird and wacky ways that could totally have potential but might be vaguely sentient/otherworldly…. what would you do and how would you experiment with it. safely, of course. and hypothetically

BG: I’d make sure all my tests were in disposable devices and quarantined programs to keep it from infecting my important stuff. Dare I ask… how weird and wacky is it?

FT: uhhh. theoretically, a person composed of this substance once used it to enter a video game. like physical body, into the computer, onto the screen? moving around and talking and fighting enemies within the game?

FT: its been experimented with before, but not on any tech with a brain. just basic shields and blasters and stuff, its an energy source. also was put in a car once

FT: i wanna see how it affects software, yk? bc i already know it can. mess around and see how far i can push it

BG: […]

FT: … barbara?

BG: Sorry, thinking. Would you mind sharing more details? You said “blasters?”

Honestly. Kid genius with access to some truly wacky materials and even wackier weapons, she needs to start a file on him before he full sends to either hero or villain.

[OR: Tucker is a self-taught hacker, but if he were to credit a teacher, he'd name Barbara Gordon's Coding & Computer Cram School! He's even caught the attention of Dr. Gordon herself. She's full of sage advice, and with how she preaches the value of a good VPN, he's sure she's not pro-government. Maybe she'll help him as he studies the many applications of ecto-tech!]

#she does end up sending tucker a PC lol #and after she learns he has experience supporting a superhero team maybe pushes his name forward to WEs outreach program for r&d potentials #picks him up by the scruff and says MY coding buddy #also fun fact she had a phd in library science at one point. i like that about her i think we should talk about it a little more #also tucker was making a ghost reporting & tracking app for amity parkers #dpxdc #dcxdp #barbara gordon #tucker foley #prompt #kipwrite

[vintagewildlife]

A tree full of baby opossums By: Charles Philip Fox From: The Illustrated Library of the Natural Sciences 1958

#virginia opossum #opossum #marsupial #mammal #1958 #1950s #Charles Philip Fox #The Illustrated Library of the Natural Sciences

[ahb-writes]

Book Review: ‘Ascendance of a Bookworm’ #15 (4.3)

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Part 4 Volume 3 (Ascendance of a Bookworm by Miya Kazuki My rating: 5 of 5 stars It's good to be home. But what in the world is home to a bookworm stuck in an isekai narrative replete with scheming nobles, petty collaborators, persnickety royalty, and friends drifting further apart? ASCENDANCE OF A BOOKWORM v15 briefly returns to Ehrenfest, and upon apparating locally, Lady Rozemyne is beset with a multitude of responsibilities pursuant to resolving the many emotional burdens she had initially left behind. Ehrenfest is abuzz, but perhaps not in the way Rozemyne would prefer. The printing industry is taking off in fits and starts, while the young woman's socializing skills have left the aub a nervous wreck (Sylvester: "Rozemyne, when it comes to socializing matters, you make everyone want to leap off a cliff," page 82). As such, the biggest challenge rests in anticipating what's next: dissolving old contracts and signing new ones, adhering to protocol with end-of-year ceremonies at the Royal Academy, and negotiating terms of (the printing) business with regional giebes. ASCENDANCE OF A BOOKWORM v15 is a comfy volume. It's also a significant turning point in the protagonist's emotional journey. Is she leaving people behind? Is she being left behind by others? Will her caretakers prioritize her anxieties? Satisfy her intellectual curiosity? Will her prospective fiancé acknowledge her sensitivity to these needs? The author addresses these and other challenges through the novel series' trademarked humor and empathy. Rozemyne's socializing is only terrible because she's a compassionate person (e.g., honesty is discouraged among nobles). And the weight of building out the printing business is only so fraught because it can go wrong in so many ways. Intraduchy, Rozemyne must control and coordinate what might otherwise grow frenetic. Interduchy, Rozemyne's burgeoning relationship with Lady Eglantine (Klassenberg) is a delightful surprise, and serves as the support the young woman (sort of) receives in building up Ehrenfest's reputation. The novel's biggest hurdle concerns how Rozemyne pledges to move on from her connections to the Lower City. Bigger printing business means bigger magic contracts, which means nullifying and moving on from the older, smaller relationships. Ferdinand steps in and offers a bit of compassion in lieu of his usual tough love, but that doesn't make the young woman's emotional burdens any lighter at the outset. Rozemyne fears she's becoming a different person, or fears everyone else is simply moving on or maturing at a faster rate in their lives. Who will comfort her? ASCENDANCE OF A BOOKWORM v15 is fun and free of drama, but the book's closing chapters again position Rozemyne head-to-head with established noble culture. When apprentice layscholar Philine gets into a predicament of sorts, a debate ensues as to the responsibility of higher nobles to lend aid to those in need. The danger of leaving things be, and the precedent of adhering to those dangers, are not vicissitudes of privilege Rozemyne is willing to suffer under any circumstance. It would appear that for Rozemyne to overcome difficulties in class and status, she'll need a lot more practice and experience navigating the tribulations endemic to her own duchy.

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#ascendance of a bookworm #review #light novel #5 of 5 stars #goodreads #honzuki no gekokujou #本好きの下剋上 #miya kazuki #you shiina #quof #j novel club #lady rozemyne #library sciences #librarian #fantasy adventure #本好きの下剋上～司書になるためには手段を選んでいられません #honzuki no gekokujou shisho ni naru tame niwa shudan o erandeiramasen #ehrenfest is abuzz #Rozemyne pledges to move on #smaller relationships #you make everyone want to leap off a cliff #Philine gets into a predicament

[intheobituaries]

Islamic and Buddhist funeral customs are so interesting!

#minimalist #minimalist lifestyle #light academia #chaotic academia #study aesthetic #dark academia #dark acadamia aesthetic #uni life #mortuary science #studyspo #studying #study motivation #studyblr #bookworm #books #booklr #books and reading #books & libraries #aesthetic #intheobituaries

[loktauri]

Tma au where nothing is wrong ever and Jon gets to pet as many cats as he likes

#tma #the magnus archives #jonathan sims #tim stoker #sasha james #its just an office comedy at this point #idk the horrors are still there but now it's the horrors of genuinely needing a masters for archival sciences #BE SO FR what the hells is the point of a masters #listen this is my gripe about the educational ladder you have to climb in order to even think about going to library sciences #and getting some sort of guaranteed work off it #oh martin got through alright by lying but he got real lucky with this boss being a literal cult leader #but nooooo I have to finish my bachelors and get another 30k or so in debt BAR student finance #as if med school isnt already a scam!!! #and furthermore-- #oh old art tag

[archivist-dragonfly]

Book 472

Worlds Beyond Time: Sci-Fi Art of the 1970s

Adam Rowe

Abrams 2023

Another new book from Abrams. We’ve gotten to the point in publishing where, if you’re like me and like large-format art books, you need to get used to the idea of buying them when they are released. Fewer and fewer publishers are taking the risk of releasing art books, and they are staying in print for shorter and shorter periods of time. So, when I heard about this book, I made a point of getting myself a copy, and I’m glad I did. While my preference in vintage book cover art leans more toward the pulp era, it is the 70s covers that I find myself the most familiar and nostalgic. Featuring some all-time greats—Frazetta, Vallejo, Elson, Emshwiller, Mead, the Dillons, et al—and divided into subject categories such as spaceships, cities and landscapes, plants, animals, aliens, fantasy realms, and cryptozoology, this is a beautiful and very welcome look at an incredibly creative, experimental, and occasionally ridiculous sci-fi decade.

#bookshelf #library #personal collection #personal library #books #bibliophile #booklr #book lover #illustrated book #worlds beyond time #adam rowe #abrams books #science fiction #cover art #illustration