The Desk Set presents: QUE(E)RY

libraryjournal:

nypl:

The New York Public Library is facing a $47 million city budget cut that would force cutbacks to key free services that the public relies on, such as programs, classes, library hours, and more. We need your help to stop these cuts! Go to nypl.org/speakout to sign a letter and tell the City that you and your communities need your library (it only takes a few minutes, and you don’t need to live in NYC)! Spread the word, support NYPL, keep libraries strong, and thank you! 

Come on folks, sign! You don’t have to be an NYC resident.

Happy Library Week! Que(e)ry’s friends in San Francisco just had a successful party fundraising for the Center for Sex and Culture last Thursday. So we can’t wait to announce Que(e)ry’s next stop on our cross-country tour! We’re Chicago-bound for ALA Annual (and Chicago Pride), and we’re co-hosting a party with Chances Dances on Monday July 1 at Subterranean. All proceeds will benefit the Critical Fierceness Grant and the Leather Archives & Museum. More info soon!

thelifeguardlibrarian:

With all the excitement, here’s just a note on the history of librarianship and the gay rights movement:

While I did know a bit about librarian activist Barbara Gittings (pictured above and featured here in My Daguerreotype Librarian) and I knew about the American Library Association’s GLBT Round Table, I did not realize the GLBTRT was founded as the very first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender professional organization:

From Wikipedia:

In 1970, the ALA founded the first lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender professional organization, called the “Task Force on Gay Liberation”, now known as the GLBT Round Table. In the early 1970s, the Task Force on Gay Liberation campaigned to have books about the gay liberation movement at the Library of Congress reclassified from HQ 71–471 (“Abnormal Sexual Relations, Including Sexual Crimes”). In 1972, after receiving a letter requesting the reclassification, the Library of Congress agreed to make the shift, reclassifying those books into a newly created category, HQ 76.5 (“Homosexuality, Lesbianism—Gay Liberation Movement, Homophile Movement”).”

Today, from ALA:

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender (GLBT) Round Table of the American Library Association is committed to serving the information needs of the GLBT professional library community, and the GLBT information and access needs of individuals at large.  We are committed to encouraging and supporting the free and necessary access to all information, as reflected by the missions of the American Library Association.

I’m feeling pretty decent about being a librarian today. And a member of ALA, at that. Let’s keep being allies. Let’s keep trying. Let’s try harder. OK?

(And h/t to John Chrastka over at EveryLibrary for enlightening me to all this good stuff.)

(Source: eronaut)

theartofgooglebooks:

Circulation slip stamped “WITHDRAWN / WITHDRAWN.”

From the back matter of Early Childhood by Margaret McMillan (1900). Original from the New York Public Library. Digitized June 17, 2008.