I’ve tried in past years to share out book reviews about individual books or even compile lists of what I’ve read but… I read too much, and I never post anything. So this year, I’m imitating a friend at The Living Room by just posting a brief list: January: Shannan…
1. on library demographics Soon after my $20,000 library degree, I surveyed other grads about their experiences. Starting salaries in the Library Journal’s annual Salaries & Placements survey looked great… but they seemed to be missing half of all graduates. Perhaps, I thought, they left out the MLIS grads…
When Virginia Eubanks starts off Automating Inequality by describing 19th century poorhouses… I was surprised to find my own hometown included! With automated social welfare systems, she argues, we’ve created a ‘digital’ poorhouse that tracks and controls citizens, assessing their need and value before providing them with assistance. The book is…
When I picked it up, I assumed Ilana Gershon’s Down and Out in the New Economy would be about the gig economy. It’s not. Instead, Gershon observed job seminars and spoke with job seekers and hiring managers in the Bay Area, trying to figure out how workers respond to…
Because I’m a librarian at a research university, authors and publishers often email me to promote their books… and article collections… and digital archives… and films… and even chapbooks of poetry or local history (!). I also get lists of new books from our vendors, and catalogs from academic…
In No Exit: What Parents Owe Their Children and What Society Owes Parents, Anne Alstott argues that those who choose to parent are ethically obliged to provide stable, continuous care until the child reaches adulthood. This benefits society—so what support does society owe parents who sacrifice their future security to…
Who doesn’t love a creepy wedding photo on the cover of a book? In Breaking the Marriage Idol, evangelical professor Kutter Callaway challenges American Christians to develop a new “theological anthropology,” or vision of who we are as people and what a good life looks like. Tearing down the…
Recently, someone asked me for good books for her nonfiction book club. As an academic librarian, I don’t usually get asked for broad recommendations—instead, it’s specific research requests like where do I find site reports on shell mound archaeology or I need academic articles on ancestral genetic testing among…
I’m a big pusher for libraries. “Did you know they have free stuff?” I say. You roll your eyes. Yes, you know. “I mean, they have books, but did you know they have other free stuff?” *** It’s easy to take the free thing for granted, but many early…
I’ve been interested in genealogy ever since a childhood 4-H project, where I carefully wrote each person’s names with colored rhinestones on a poster. Even now, I enjoy exploring historic records and helping others find out more about their families. But genealogy can appear expensive — so this piece…