A mysterious librarian, archives, and much more!
This week's newsletter will highlight two recent pop culture reviews I've written, while recounting recent news about archives, libraries, and more.
Hello everyone! I hope you all had a great week. This week’s newsletter will focus on libraries, archives, and much more, mainly genealogy/family history topics. Without further ado, let me begin this week’s newsletter.
I’d like to start by mentioning another review I wrote for I Love Libraries, this one titled “A Mysterious Librarian is the Breakout Star of Netflix’s "Hilda".” It took nearly a month for it to go through the works, but I’m glad it was published. I note how the librarian is one of the most positive depictions of librarians in popular culture and her importance to the show as a whole. Apart from that, there were some articles I read this week about public libraries expanding their digital community outreach, furloughs in Birmingham, Alabama, hitting the city library hard, seed libraries sprouting up across NAPA valley, people sharing why they love their library cards, and how libraries are responding to COVID, whether with virtual festivals or book bikes! I also enjoyed looking at the Library of Congress’s online exhibit, “Rampaging Invisible Killer Stalks the Entire Country!” which focuses on the 1918-20 flu pandemic and articles in Hack Library School. In the latter, writers talked about distance learning, job hunting in the time of COVID, and digital literacy.
That brings me to the archival field. First, I built upon my I Love Libraries review to look at archival themes within Hilda, building upon SAA resources and discourse in the archival field as a whole. I currently have another review in the process and a post looking at archives on a prominent fan fiction site. I found interesting stories about NARA’s plans for re-opening, the Alabama Archives coming to terms with its White supremacist past, government transparency (and FOIA), and Constitution Day. At the same time, of note are articles about how the Internet Archive is working with Cloudflare to ensure that websites never go offline, an intern describing their experience in preserving a digital collection of cartoons, and the October 1st event where archivist will share “true stories about their unique, moving, serendipitous, mysterious, and often humorous encounters in the archives.”
Finally, I’d like to give a special mention to the review of the book titled The Stranger in My Genes: A Memoir, the newsletter post on the genealogy-themed newsletter about the Battle of Morgantown, and two new resources on the SAA’s website, one about engaging history majors and the other about teaching with primary sources remotely.
In closing, I hope you all have a great weekend and week to come.
- Burkely