Lowrider Librarian

[I was just informed this 'review' was taken down by Amazon because of racism.] A recent Amazon.com reviewer of the book I co-edited--Librarians With Spines--took the opportunity to degrade me in public and to even try to humiliate be because I don't speak Spanish. I'm publishing this hear because this is a perfect example of of librarians of color are harassed by anonymous flamers. By stellabooon October 19, 2017 This is an unnecessary book. I am a MLS librarian with years of experience. I cry for my profession when new librarians trip over themselves trying to out-radicalize each other. Trust me: ALL librarians believe in intellectual freedom and collection development policies that promote alternative views. That is as old as libraries. Max Macias, the editor, is considered a kind of joke we tolerate in Oregon. A POC quien no habla Espanol. I welcome new library minds that push our profession forward. Unless you are truly radicalized and want ...

Buy this book for your Library An American Genocide: The United States and the California Indian Catastrophe, 1846-1873 (The Lamar Series in Western History)by Benjamin Madley is a book that should be in every library in the US.  This book covers an essential history that has heretofore been neglected save for a few works such as Murder State . Series:  The Lamar Series in Western History Hardcover:  712 pages Publisher:  Yale University Press (May 24, 2016) Language:  English ISBN-10:  0300181361 ISBN-13:  978-0300181364 Product Dimensions:  6.1 x 1.8 x 9.2 inches The book covers the history of the genocide of Indigenous peoples in the state of California from 1846-1873.  During this time, the book traces the beginnings of the genocide from scattered massacres to full scale state and federally sponsored militia and military massacre campaigns.  The sheer brutality and callousness against the indigenous people of Califor...

Whiteness tells us our story through the lens of our oppressor? What does this do to truth, validity, information and the construction of knowledge?

Source: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Star_Trek_uniforms.jpg Kael Moffat Information Literacy Librarian, Saint Martin’s University As librarians, one of our many hats could be expressed as “identity formers.”  At first glance, this may seem like a grandiose claim, but if we look at aspects of our profession in light of Georg Simmel’s concept of the web of group-affiliations, we can see that we do play such an important role.  Simmel was a late nineteenth-century, early twentieth-century German sociologist and philosopher who wrote on such broad topics as the history of philosophy, philosophy of money, and social structure.  One of his influential shorter works, “The Web of Group-Affiliations,” published in 1922, can be used as lens through which we can look at how librarianship affects identity formation. Simmel points out that an individual’s identity is initially imposed on them through the “web of circumstances” of family and oth...

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...

This is a story I wrote in my 20's on identity and more: The Bridge Any comments would be helpful and appreciated.