Lowrider Librarian

I love comics, hip-hop, history and beautiful books.  All these things helped form who I am today. As a librarian I still love comics, hip-hop, history, and beautiful books. I feel it is important to cover these aspects in a library collection. Rarely do all these categories come in one work, but this series has it all.  I was stoked to receive this collection as a gift, but didn't get around to reading it until now. Amazingly beautiful slipcase! The Hip-Hop Family Tree by Ed Piskor Vols. 1 & 2 exceeds the bar of comics, art, hip-hop, history and beautiful books standards. It will make an invaluable addition to your library collection.  This comic is published by the amazing Fantagraphics press . Buy it now --your community will appreciate it.  Vol. 1 traces the history of Hip-Hop from the 1970's to 1981.  It is filled with little vignettes about seminal figures and events in Hip-Hop history.  The stories it tells begin in the bronx with kids ro...

Yes, that is a Grumpy T-shirt.   Here is a link to an short interview I did for a multicultural librarian graduate course: https://goo.gl/r93L4g These are the questions I covered:   Questions for 825 Interviews   1. Will you please introduce yourself to the class and briefly describe your current library and position as well as the path that led you to librarianship?   2. In this course, we are exploring how libraries can best meet “the recreational, cultural, informational, and educational needs of African American, Asian American, Latina/o, Native American, and bi/multiracial children, young adults, and adults.” In what ways does your racial/ethnic identity enable you to meet these needs in your library?   3. As a patron in libraries throughout your life, you have probably had both positive and negative experiences related to access and collections. How have these experiences shaped your work as a professiona...

Information and knowledge are diffused via artistic expression in Hip-Hop culture among other methods. Here is a very brief sketch of some ideas on this topic. ANY and ALL comments will be answered and are valued.  Graffiti and Tags There is a lot of metadata here!   Tags and other graffiti carry metadata. for instance, when one sees a tagger's tag--and one is familiar with the the tagger, then one will know about them--how brave they are--by where they throw up their tags--the more dangerous, the braver. One would know much about their style oftentimes. If they are a local, they might have legendary status, people might know much about the tagger from the metadata derived from their tags, yet they might not even know the tagger's real identity. Murals Political Information Hip-Hop Mural Hip-Hop murals tell stories. Sometimes the story is that of the local neighborhood. The art will be done by someone who intimately knows the neighborhood's charac...

I was was gazing at some train tags--some nice bombs in the train yard with my littler brother, who happens to be a graffiti artist.  He interpreted the tags and bombs I could not read.  He and I read me all kinds of information from throughout the country, from LA, to Chicago, to Seattle and other places.  Then a train yard cop came and chased us away. Tags in Denmark My brother Jaimie used to be well known throughout San Jo as Daze2000 back in the 80's, then went on to LOVE and other names throughout the years.  He's retired now. For those unfamiliar with tagging--here is a sufficient definition from Wikipedia: Some of the most common styles of graffiti have their own names. A " tag " is the most basic writing of an artist's name, it is simply a  handstyle . A graffiti writer's tag is his or her personalized signature. Tagging is often the example given when opponents of graffiti refer to any acts of handstyle graffiti writing (it is by far the...