Feminist+Librarians+on+the+Web



= Feminist Librarians on the Web =

Perhaps it will not come as a surprise that there are a number of blogs by librarians who also declare their feminism. Most of these women write about their own lives and interests; rather than focusing on librarianship, the fact that they are librarians is simply a part of their daily experience. When they do write explicitly about topics related to their profession, their perspectives are interesting and highly personal.

 The most prominent feminist librarian voice on the Web is Anna, who blogs at **Future Feminist Librarian-Activist**. From the "Who Am I" section of her blog: //Since I'm a bad activist but a feminist th eory geek, find institutional education stressful but love to be involved in learning, I decided feminist librarianship and/or some job involving the care and keeping of feminist activist history might just be a niche in the world I could manage to fill. So here I am: currently a graduate student at Simmons College (Boston, MA) working toward my dual Masters' degrees in Library Science and History. My scholarly interests include the history of feminist movements and history of education. My thesis for the history side of the dual-degree program is (tentatively) titled "How to Live?: The Oregon Extension as Communal Experiment in Living, 1975-19 80."// The blog was started as a way to keep friends and family informed as she pursued her library degree but expanded as her own feminist librarian consciousness expanded. She says family and friends occasionally voice the desire for more personal, less political postings, but the rest of us will much of interest in her wide-ranging commentary. June postings include [|why "gay" shouldn't be the default term] and [|future feminist teatime, otherwise known as "i'm really not as scary as I pretend to be!"]

 **The Subversive Librarian**, subtitled No Shushing Allowed, comes from a Georgia librarian interested in " Recovery. Parenting. Politics. Middle-aged lesbian stuff." Although Subversive Librarian reveals little about herself in her blog profile, the postings themselves are often highly personal. Comments are logged under a "Noisy Library Patrons" link at the end of each posting.


 * Opinions of a Wolf** is written by "a 20-something, librarian, libertarian, vegetarian, originally from Vermont, living in Boston, yoga-doing, book-loving, tentatively urban gardening with a historic brown thumb, heterosexual female." Her comments focus on comment on current events, American culture, libraries and librarianship. Her January 13, 2010 post, Why I, A Boston Librarian, Am Not Attending ALA Midwinter, criticizes ALA for, among other things, ignoring special libraries, charging exorbitant membership fees and offering misleading programs. Her May 6, 2010 post, Librarianship is a Service Career, discusses her experience of "librarians not wanting to actually have to work at work." "Wolfie" declares herself a feminist and provides a definition in her March 9, 2009 post, Feminism.

Emma Carbone is the voice of **Miss Print**, a blog about "books, libraries, writing, quotes, and some other stuff besides." Carbone is a recent recipient of a master’s degree in library and information science at Pratt, with a desire to speciale in youth services. Begun as a site for the book reviews she enjoyed writing, Miss Print is also a repository for Carbone's creative writing and musings on life and "anything else I deem appropriate." While not explicitly feminist, her comments on children's book awards in her May 5, 2010 post Rapunzel's Revenge: A Chick Lit Wednesday (Graphic Novel/Comic Book) Review are among those that will be of particular interest to feminist librarians.

Christina K. Pikas is a science and engineering librarian in a special library, doctoral student in information studies and author of **Christina's LIS Rant**. In general, Pikas's postings are less personal, with more of the content related to her work as a science and engineering librarian and doctoral student in library and information science. In her post Is the run away from “librarian” and “library” a conflict between 2nd and 3rd wave feminists? Pikas (who refers to herself as an "early-career feminist librarian") discusses the SLA name-change issue. Finally, check out Antoinette, a part-time elementary school librarian and self-described feminist who blogs at **Social Dispatch** and the unattributed blog **Artist in Transit: Artist, Librarian, Feminist, Commuter**.

