“If I didn't define myself for myself, I would be crunched into other people's fantasies for me and eaten alive.”
--Audre Lorde

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Hackers on Planet Earth (HOPE)



Yet another conference this summer! I think that hacker interests in privacy and librarian interests are not too far off (or as M claims, growing closer and closer--I hope so). I'm excited for these talks (in addition to seeing a sea of hackers all together):

Zine Libraries: Policies and Documentation

I've been working on a few projects surrounding zine libraries and underground press collections. One thing I noticed (and posted to the Zine Librarians email list) is that there isn't a centralized repository of shared documentation for folks who are starting to start up their own collections (often people are happy to share the info, there just isn't a central location for it to live). While creating that repository is a larger project than I can handle at the moment, I did want to share my own work.

I'm posting the SLIS Library Workers Zine Collection Collection Policies and Guide here.

It was originally a booklet of information about the Library Workers Zine Collection that I started at the SLIS Laboratory Library in 2006. I've attached a copy of the document and pasted it here so that you can read most of the text on this site or download the PDF version with full cataloging information (!!!). Hope it is helpful!

Back from Detroit


I am back from Detroit but still processing all that I took part in at the U.S. Social Forum. The Forum was amazing and I was so happy to participate and to help it to happen. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to be a part of the smaller as well as the larger organizations that I worked within.

Detroit itself was a lesson. One that I am still thinking about. I think we all appreciated the wide, desolate roads for our bikes, but the ghosts of industry and capital seemed caught in much of the city. It was difficult to ride through, despite the bike-able streets. More thoughts and reports-back to come.

New York Libraries in Crisis

Sad things are happening to each of our borough's public libraries. Major staffing cuts, branches will soon close. There are a few campaigns to combat the cuts, and a 24 Hour Read-In today that will happen on the steps of the Grand Army Plaza Brooklyn Public Library. Daunting library times.

Do It Yourself Zine Definition

As I am doing a bit of schoolwork and other projects related to zines and print culture, I dug up an old piece that I had originally written for the Madison Zine Fest's website in 2005. I thought it might be useful to share here. Re-reading it again in combination with another survey of the literature has likewise inspired me to create more comprehensive list of definitions, so stay tuned for that.

(click through for)
Rhymes with Bean: A Do-It-Yourself Zine Definition

Critical Pedagogy and Library Instruction Report Back

Writing after a thorough brain workout at the Critical Pedagogy and Library Instruction session held here at home base in the Brooklyn College Library yesterday.

Ira Shor, presenting the first portion of our event, was really enlivening. I appreciated how he infused discussions of class, social consciousness and context into all what he spoke about. A few notes that I jotted down from his talk follow below.

Bloggers Throughout Time and Space

I just clicked over to the Utne Reader for this post: Rare Photo of Early 20th Century Bloggers

The Rights of Readers and the Threat of the Kindle

Today is our first talk about readers' rights and ebooks, at the LACUNY Emerging Technologies event at Baruch College. I thought folks might be interested in the website that Matt and I have created to store information about our talks (as well as the presentation slides): it's over at readersbillofrights.info

Are you going?


I'm thinking of trying to swing it...

Documenting Struggle Redux: Radical New York City Archives

http://radicalreference.info/radicalarchivesredux

Radical Reference presents a second evening about how community history is documented and celebrated. Archivists and activists will present parts of their collections and discuss how their work keeps the struggle alive. (Details about our first "Documenting Struggle" can be found at http://radicalreference.info/radicalarchivesevent.)

Monday, April 26
7:30pm
Brecht Forum
451 West St (between Bank & Bethune Sts), NYC
$6/10/15 sliding scale (no one turned away)

April 23rd LACUNY Program: Electronic Books and Electronic Readers: Emerging Issues and Questions

Title: Electronic Books and Electronic Readers: Emerging Issues and Questions
Sponsor: The LACUNY Emerging Technologies Committee
Date: Friday, April 23rd
Time: 2:30 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.
Location: CHANGED ROOM! Baruch College Vertical Campus--room 11-150 on the 11th floor.

Speakers & Presentations

*******************
Alycia Sellie & Matthew Goins - Brooklyn College

"The Rights of Readers and the Threat of the Kindle"

Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods

This might be a *little* late, but Critical Library Instruction: Theories and Methods is out(!), and my copy is on the way(!), and you can get your own here(!).

This is definitely one of my most highly anticipated library texts to come out post MLS!

Upcoming Events

Lots of upcoming news and events for the Spring semester, most notably:

I'll be speaking with Matthew Goins at two upcoming events about eBooks and readers' rights:

I'll be participating in ACRL's Immersion Teacher Track program this Summer in Burlington, Vermont. I wrote in my application that I am
interested to examine how critical pedagogy fits into library instruction, so I am excited to see how this can be discussed within the larger frameworks of the program. I'm also excited to get the chance to focus on teaching for a bit and to share what I learn with my colleagues.

And finally, I am really excited to be a part of the upcoming Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America's Library History Seminar XII: Libraries in the History of Print Culture. I can't wait to hear Janice Radway speak and to spend some time in Madison talking about print culture (whilst also enjoying some New Glarus!).

Queens Librarian Talk

Jenna and I will be presenting "Zines 101" tomorrow at the Queens Public Library. I'm excited to spend some time looking at works with our librarian audience as an attempt to define them (an illustration of my DIY Zine Definition). For slides you can see Jenna's post.

CHANGED DATE! - Critical Pedagogy and Library Instruction Event

Library Association of CUNY Instruction Committee Spring Event "Critical Pedagogy and Library Instruction"

Saturday, May *8*, 2010
Brooklyn College Library
1:00pm-4:00pm

This event is free and open to the public.

Please RSVP by April 9th via the webform at: http://tinyurl.com/ycj239j

Click through for more details...

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Currently Reading

Zines in Third Space: Radical Cooperation and Borderlands Rhetoric



Alycia's favorite books »

Daily Reading Log

May 24, 2013

  • This morning I was reading and enjoying: Barbara Tomlinson and George Lipsitz. "American Studies as Accompaniment." American Quarterly 65.1 (2013): 1-30. Project MUSE. Web. 24 May. 2013.
  • And I'm also back to reading See Now Then in bits and pieces on the train and in coffee shops. It's pleasant but has an underlying rage, which gives it a unique feel.

May 23, 2013

  • 11 years. RIP.

May 12, 2013

  • Lots of reading, amidst the cracks of life as it goes, changes. Halfway through E. Biella Coleman's Coding Freedom, started David Graeber's Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology, and wanted to start, but probably have to wait until after the thesis, bell hooks' Where We Stand: Class Matters.

April 24, 2013

  • A piece in the New Yorker about Noah Baumbach, a person whose work I have a lot of sympathy for somehow, but in this piece he sounds like he wants to be a vampire sucking the energy off of his girlfriend's ideas. Is that a great way to have a relationship, or a terrible way?
  • I've also been reading Living Anarchy on the train, while very tired lately.

April 23, 2013

  • Zines from the Brooklyn Zine Fest: Alex #4 and #5, Deafula #5, and Indulgence #11.

April 22, 2013

  • Jeppesen, Sandra. "Becoming Anarchist: The Function of Anarchist Literature." Anarchist Developments in Cultural Studies 2011.2
  • Imhorst, Christian. "Anarchy and Source Code - What does the Free Software Movement have to do with Anarchism?"

April 19, 2013

  • Going to try to finish In Praise of Copying today. This book has pleasantly surprised me in many ways and I'm greatly enjoying it. Highly recommended if you would like to think more deeply about copying (and its mimetic, ever-present nature) on a philosophical level.
    Many of the books about intellectual property I've looked at recently discuss the absurdities of various IP situations, or examine IP clashes via specific (often outrageous) legal cases. This book, on the other hand, talks more about the practices and traditions of copying, collaging or appropriating through many different perspectives, going back to the work of philosophers who are long dead but also looking for the mimetic in religious practices, theory, art, and even inside the human body. Totally fascinating.
  • Also this article on drone, also by Boon.

April 11, 2013

  • More Moonwalking with Einstein, enjoying the history of the book (as related to memory) section.

April 10, 2013

  • Inching my way through Moonwalking with Einstein, which I've only read over BC lunches in the office.
  • Insomnia had me reading Fosterhood in NYC

April 9, 2013

  • About half of In Praise of Copying by Boon, which I am enjoying.

April 8, 2013

  • Read the introduction to Common as Air by Hyde.
  • Last week watched the documentary, Kind Hearted Woman. Among many powerful scenes, was struck by those where Robin took family to go walking through the U of M, and how looking at the university and thinking about what it offered was a powerful activity for them.

April 1, 2013

  • While fighting some kind of bug finished Please Kill Me and ripping through Cometbus Omnibus and Straight Edge: Hardcore Punk, Clean Living Youth, and Social Change

March 23, 2013

  • Been reading Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk. Not sure if it will help the thesis, but it's a good pick up/put down at random book.
  • Also still moving very slowly through Moonwalking with Einstein, my official over-lunch-at-work book of the moment.

March 13, 2013

  • Still finishing up Getting Things Done
  • Thesis reading: Living Anarchy by Jeff Shantz
  • Democracy Now! and WBAI, who could sincerely use your help.