lower east side librarian

I think Marisa Meltzer is brave for writing this book. There are probably a lot of women out there that know its primary sources as well as she does and who will think she left out x or misinterpreted y. I am not one of those women, though. I have expertise in the zine side of riot grrrl, but know very little about the bands, so I was psyched to read this short, personable history with a certain amount of memoir thrown in.

I read this book when I stayed overnight with friend house in Boston. (Thanks again for the Bloody Marys Jake and Lisa!) Basically it's just photos of signs and things that have been improved with a FUCK sticker. You can get the idea from Fuck This Website.

The author quotes former ALA president Patricia Wilson Berger in her epigraph "Show me a computer expert who gives a damn, and I'll show you a librarian." I wouldn't say all librarians give a damn or that no non-librarian computer geeks don't, but I do think that sentiment is an appropriate way to launch into Johnson's 250 page mash note to librarians. What she likes about us is what I like about us—that we are dedicated to our user population and to our professional ethics. That unlike many other experts, our mission involves educating people and providing access to self-education tools without being snotty about it. At least to your face.

As it turns out, although it was the computer expertiness of librarians that made Johnson notice us, many of the librarians and library projects she profiles in this book are stronger in "give a damn."

Before I really get started, I need to contemplate for a moment that Johnson got interested in librarians, because in researching her previous book The Dead Beat: Lost Souls, Lucky Stiff, and the Perverse Pleasures of Obituaries she fell in love with librarians through their obituaries. She is a loving and generous writer, but we have to admit a little quirky, right?

I could probably write a 2,000 word review of this book, since it's on a topic so close to my heart, but I'll spare you. I made way too many margin notes anyway! As I said in regard to her article Why Zines Matter in American Periodicals, Piepmeier handles the zines vs. blogs argument and the materiality of zines with great finesse. She has truly changed the way I look at—and describe—zines, which is a big deal since I catalog and teach the suckers.

Excitement and Adventure is such a librarian zine! It's basically a fanzine about prohibition era gangsters, which Lacey researched with abandon at the Minnesota Historical Society.

Vikki Law, who also edits a zine by and for incarcerated women called Tenacious, has written a dense (664 endnotes!), but eminently readable chronicle of the struggles and travails of women in prison.

This book is ridiculously informative, but be warned it is also meant to incite. As Vikki inscribed in my copy, "Remember, prisons don't fall on their own--they need that extra push!"

I ended up with a second copy of this reluctant New Yorker's guide to New York City and so had to decide whether the second one would go to the Barnard zine stacks or come home with me. I've decided I need it on hand for all future house guests. In addition to providing excellent food, entertainment, art, and cultural recommendations, Amanda writes cute essays about helping tourists take better photographs and subway incidents (maybe a little less cute, but still somehow cuddly).

"Male like me" is the general idea of Ned/Norah Vincent's year and a half undercover as a man. Vincent is a tall lesbian, who has a masculine mien. After one night out in costume accompanying a drag king friend, and experiencing how differently people respond to men, even in passing on the street, she decided embark on an intensive research project. Dressed as a man, Vincent infiltrated a men's bowling league, strip clubs, the world of online dating, a monastery, some sales jobs, and finally a men's group.

First of all I love that Allison published this 1994 collection of essays with Firebrand Books, a feminist and lesbian press, rather than a large publisher, which surely she could have, based on the success of Bastard out of Carolina, published by Dutton in 1992. Instead of using her success, even to have a better platform for her message to advance her career, she used it to advance her community, to give back to the press that gave her a platform in the first place, with her first book, Trash. (A chapbook of poetry preceded Trash.)

Catherine "Jayne Manslaughter" Mabe's loving history of the roller derby's current female driven "by the skaters, for the skaters" incarnation is visually appealing--full of photographs, images of memorabilia, and other tidbits. The first two chapters offer a brief history of the roller derby, while the next four focus on today's version of the sport. She describes contemporary skaters: