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A Matriarch With Many Sides: Contextualizing Oregon’s First State Librarian
Get PDFAnother pivotal point in societal consciousness is brewing. Statues, plaques, and other representations of the controversial values of times foregone have tumbled and awareness of the transgressions of historical figures is at an all-time high. Increased awareness has awakened a reexamination period, an acknowledgment of the necessity for a holistic narrative about the people and events we choose to honor. With this modern lens of cultural value being used to highlight the actions of past leaders, the State Library of Oregon has begun its own introspection on who we venerate and how.
Contextualizing Cornelia Marvin Pierce’s actions is the first step toward recognizing that the State Library has, through indirect association, contributed to the furthering of these movements against equity that occurred in the past, regardless of whether those attitudes reflect our values today. Our newest planning efforts include a vision to provide “equitable access to library and information services for all Oregonians” (State Library of Oregon Strategic Plan, 2020). A key step in realizing this vision is recognizing and addressing the inequities fostered by our past leaders as we commit to equity, diversity, inclusion, and anti-racist practices going forward.
Note: A new version of this article was posted on Nov. 6, 2020, to include the author's updated State Library of Oregon email address
Connecting a Community: The Black Pacific Northwest Collection at Multnomah County’s North Portland Neighborhood Library
Get PDFJune 19, 1865, referred to as “Juneteenth,” celebrates the date when the official word of President Lincoln’s 1863 Emancipation Proclamation reached Texas, the most remote state of the former Confederacy. On June 19, 1987, the North Portland Neighborhood Library was buzzing with excitement at the official opening of Multnomah County Library’s Black Resource Center. There were speeches, music, activities for kids and families. The culmination of a community-led process nearly 20 years in the making, the Black Resource Center was a dedicated space holding a collection of materials of interest to the County’s African American community. On June 19, 2018, North Portland Administrator Kirby McCurtis and Regional Librarian Lee Catalano spent the morning unpacking the new and recently recataloged items that will initially comprise the Black Pacific Northwest Collection (BPNW Collection). A prominent display space is carved out and the Collection is unveiled as the Library’s regular patrons enter at opening time. An official notice that the BPNW Collection was available to library patrons was shared on Multnomah County Library’s social media channels and in a press release. The creation and opening of the Collection was an important milestone in North Portland’s 30+ year history of thoughtful and intentional service to its African American patrons
Side 1: What Revolves but Does Not Circulate?
Get PDFIn May of 2019, the Eugene Public Library purchased a 1971 Panasonic record player and a collection of 30 vinyl records spanning many genres of music. Our Tech Services team cataloged and tagged each record. We planned to offer them to the public for in-house use and an immersive listening experience. With this in mind, we created a Record Listening Station. Any person who walks through our doors, with or without a library card, is welcome to sit back and listen to records through library headphones. We also offer a headphone splitter so patrons can listen with a friend. At the core of this endeavor were two priorities: our library’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) and the goal of building community through the collection. The process of building community begins with communication. There are many ways of discovering what patrons want and what they think. A blue binder at the Record Listening Station serves as an interactive User’s Guide so patrons can contribute ideas. Our DIY Guide includes everything from simple instructions on how to use the turntable to magazine ads from 1971 featuring our vintage record player. Patrons can also find concise album reviews for most of the albums in the collection and blank space for them to write their own reviews. A handy purchase suggestion sheet was how we ended up with a headphone splitter and many new albums. So far, patrons have made more than forty album recommendations and one has written a review. I included the patron review on our Record Listening Station LibGuide to enhance community participation
Developing Special Collections of Interest to Local Communities
Get PDFIn the late 1950s, Oregon Technical Institute (OTI) in Klamath Falls, Oregon, was facing an uncertain future in its hometown. The former marine barrack facilities hosting the Institute were at the end of their lifetime and there was an offer to move OTI to Portland or Corvallis. Due in part to the concerted effort of the local community the Institute, now known as the Oregon Institute of Technology or Oregon Tech, is still located in Klamath Falls, on its geothermally heated campus. The Institute continues to maintain connections with the local community as an integral part of the university’s existence. The Special Collections and University Archives strive to strengthen the relationship with local researchers by collecting and preserving materials of vital interest to the local community. This article covers community usage of the Oregon Tech Libraries’ Special Collections: the Shaw Historical Library (SHL), The Klamath Waters Digital Library (KWDL) and the University Archives Geo-Heat Collection (print and digital)
Mirant al cel (Eyes on the Sky): The (Im)possible Expiation of the Spectral Other
Get PDFAquest article analitza la contribució del nou cinema documental català al procés actual de reivindicar la memòria històrica col.lectiva que fou reprimida pel franquisme i pel pacte de silenci establert durant la transició política a la democràcia després de la mort del dictador. Aquesta anàlisi s’emmarca en un seguit de pel.lícules que s’estructuren a partir de la metàfora familiar entesa com a al.legoria nacional per representar la lluita de la nació catalana. La tesi central d’aquest estudi és la de subratllar la necessitat de reparació quant als crims comesos pel franquisme durant i després de la guerra civil i el fet d’indicar que aquesta reparació mai no s’ha produit ni de manera fictícia ni en termes històrics. Aquest assaig empra com a marc teòric el concepte postderridià de “hauntology” per tal d’estudiar els encontres textuals de caràcter espectral que il.lustren els símptomes d’un procés de dol ininterromput que interpel.la la nostra memòria històrica a la recerca de la dignitat i el tancament. Metodològicament, aquest treball ofereix una lectura atenta de la pel.lícula Mirant al cel (2008) de Jesús Garay, entesa com un cas d’estudi perfecte on el conflicte espectral entre víctimes i botxins és representat en el context de Barcelona i de Catalunya sotmeses a una sèrie de bombardejaments urbans massius perpetrats per la Legió Reial Italiana sota la supervisió directa d’Il Duce Benito Mussolini. La rellevància especial de la pel.lícula de Garay rau en el fetde ser l’únic documental comercial que s’ocupa de revisitar aquells tres dies dramàtics del març de 1938 que esdevingueren un assaig tràgic dels grans raids aeris urbans de la segona guerra mundial.This article analyzes the contribution of the new Catalan documentary in the current process of reclaiming the collective historical memory repressed by Francoism and by the Silence Deal established during the political transition to democracy after Franco’s death. This analysis will consider some films that use the family metaphor as a national allegory to represent the plight of the Catalan nation. The main thesis of this study is to underline the need for reparation regarding the crimes committed by Francoism during and after the Spanish Civil War and the fact that such a reparation has not taken place neither in fiction nor in historical terms. This essay relies on the post-Derridian concept of “hauntology” as a theoretical framework to study the spectral textual encounters that mark the symptoms of an uninterrupted mourning process that appeals to the historical memory in search of dignity and closure. Methodologically, this study offers a close textual reading of Jesús Garay’s film Mirant al cel (Eyes on the Sky 2008) as a perfect case study where the spectral conflict between victims and victimizers is acted out in the context of Barcelona and Catalonia and the series of urban mass bombings carried out by the Italian Royal Legion under the direct supervision of Il Duce, Mussolini. Garay’s film special relevance lies in the fact of its being one of the few documentaries that revisits those three dramatic days in March 1938 that became a tragic rehearsal of the massive urban aerial raids of the Second World War
Unsheltered: Visions of Future Scarcity in the Past. Pablo Berger's Blancanieves and Jesús Carrasco's Intemperie
Get PDFThis article connects the dehistoricized pasts in Pablo Berger's film Blancanieves(2014) and Jesús Carrasco's novel Intemperie (2013) to the present economic, cultural and ecological crises occurring within Spain and at a worldwide level. Both film and novel can be linked to contemporary anxieties: Blancanievesto an image-obsessed society of consumer abundance facing a present and future of increasing scarcity; Intemperie to the threat of environmental collapse. Their invoking of the past suggests that economic and ecological strife bring back the specter of past violence and misery, unleashing the negative affects that pervade an individualist society based on competition and inequality. The aesthetics of verbal silence in both texts encourage a raw affective engagement and are analyzed here as a critical response to the individualist culture at the root of current crises, proposing alternative ethics of empathy and intersubjectivity. The social-political projects underlying these texts can thus be related to the 15M movement in Spain. They construct similar landscapes of anguish and hope, and they confront the same destructive ethos of fear, envy and domination that operate simultaneously on a societal level and within the self.Este artículo conecta los pasados deshistorizados de la película Blancanieves (2014) de Pablo Berger y la novela Intemperie (2013) de Jesús Carrasco con las actuales crisis económicas, culturales y ecológicas que ocurren en España y a nivel mundial. Tanto la película como la novela pueden vincularse a ansiedades contemporáneas: Blancanieves a la sociedad de hiperconsumo, obsesionada con la imagen, que enfrenta un presente y futuro de escasez creciente; Intemperie a la amenaza del colapso ecológico. La invocación del pasado en ambos textos sugiere que los conflictos económicos y ecológicos resucitan el espectro de la violencia y la miseria del pasado, desatando los afectos negativos que impregnan una sociedad individualista basada en la competencia y la desigualdad. Tanto en la película como en la novela, la estética del silencio verbal subraya la relación afectiva que los personajes mantienen con sus entornos. Dicha estética se analiza aquí como una respuesta crítica a la cultura individualista que es la causa de raíz de las crisis actuales, proponiendo éticas alternativas de empatía e intersubjetividad. De esta manera, los proyectos sociopolíticos que sustentan estos textos pueden relacionarse con el movimiento 15M en España. Como el 15M, se enfrentan a las dinámicas de miedo, envidia y dominación que sustentan el individualismo
Militancia femenina contra la dictadura de Pinochet: Legitimación memorística de La mujer metralleta
Get PDFThis essay analyzes the representation of female activism in La mujer metralleta, a documentary by Chilean Francisco López Balló that reconstructs the biography of Marcela Rodríguez Valdivieso, a guerrilla who has succumbed to the oblivion in Chile. It is necessary to highlight her anti-dictatorial fight in order to recover her name and that of so many other militants. My study aims to eliminate the prevailing silence around the exiles who also contributed to the redemocratization processes in Chile and participated in the resistance against Pinochet. Despite their constant political activism, women have been excluded from official historiography. This essay claims a place in the world to one of the many activists who experienced the process of Chilean exile and whose biography contributes to a better understanding of female activism. This documentary offers a new approach to the past is constructed that questions the relations between the State and the revolutionary position of women, despite the fact that women have historically played a marginal role in war conflicts. My paper points out the relevance of this guerrilla, how this documentary contributes to reconstructing history and how exile affects the transmission of memories.Basándonos en las premisas de que un documental es una herramienta persuasiva con la que posicionarse ideológicamente en torno a un aspecto del pasado, en este estudio se analizará la biografía rescatada por Francisco López-Balló sobre una mujer chilena que muestra la persistencia del activismo femenino contra la dictadura de Pinochet incluso desde fuera de los límites geográficos de su nación. La mujer metralleta, de 2008, expone elocuentemente la mitificación y demonización que experimentó la figura de Marcela Rodríguez Valdivieso, conocida como “la mujer metralleta” a consecuencia de su militancia activa en un grupo de extrema izquierda. Este documental rescata su imagen para que no caiga en los anales del olvido, porque según su realizador, era necesario hacer un homenaje que ensalzara a una figura exiliada prominente de la lucha clandestina contra el régimen de Pinochet y contra la continuidad dictatorial en democracia. La mujer metralleta constituye así una herramienta mediática y discursiva que contribuye a reflexionar sobre el pasado y posicionarse con respecto a la historia reciente chilena. Mi estudio examinará de qué forma este documental mantiene una clara agenda ideológica que se confirma en las últimas palabras estáticas que aparecen al final del filme: “Dedicado a la memoria de todos los caídos en la lucha por nuestra libertad y derecho de expresión y a quienes siguen en las prisiones, reivindicando un país sin desaparecidos ni represión militar"
Consistency, Not Cookie-Cutter: Maintaining Individuality Within a Library System
Get PDFJackson County Library Services (JCLS) is celebrating its centennial this year, and in 2020, we will be transitioning away from a contract with Library Systems and Services, and moving into our own library district. With this transition comes a lot of discussion about where we have come from, and how we want to represent ourselves as a system for the next 100 years. Jackson County is 2,802 square miles and has 15 libraries to serve its 11 incorporated cities and 34 unincorporated communities. That is a lot of kids and families wanting quality library programming. However, what the kids and families want in our Applegate branch could be very different from what the kids and families an hour south at our Ashland branch would want. It’s also important, though, that no matter which of the 15 branches is closest to you, you can walk in there and find not only relevant materials, but also experience a variety of fun, educational, and meaningful programming. This is why I look for “consistency, not cookie-cutter” when coordinating library services at our many branches. So the question for me, as the district youth services coordinator, was “how do I make sure that all 15 branches are providing the same level of service, that they are all working towards the JCLS mission, but also not take away from their individuality?