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jessamyn

@librarian.bsky.social
12K followers 500 following 3.4K posts

Vermont librarian. Technology hobbyist. I love the post office. Fix your hearts. Live in hope if you can.

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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
Feminize a band name Mrs. Bungle
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 25/09/2026
"Are You A Librarian: The Untold Story of Black Librarians follows the librarians who kept the doors open when the law said they shouldn't-from segregated reading rooms to freedom libraries to the branches serving our communities now" Rentable/streamable 📚 www.historysplayground.com/are-you-a-li...
historysplayground.com
Watch Are You a Librarian | History's Playground
Rent the Are You a Librarian documentary for $3.99 and stream it for 72 hours on History's Playground.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
My state library association is writing a letter to the Governor to suggest using some of our Meta settlement $$ to set up a Youth and Teen Library Spaces Grant Program, administered through the Department of Libraries. Here's the letter, if you want to copy it. vermontlibraries.org/vla-proposes...
screenshot of the first paragraph of the letter showing the VLA logo and the words "Dear Governor Scott, The Vermont Library Association respectfully asks that as you and your team work to develop recommendations for the use of Vermont’s Meta settlement funds, you consider directing a portion of these funds to the Vermont Department of Libraries for grants to improve youth and teen spaces in public libraries across the state"
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
It was just a really nice day to work (a few hours) in the library today. I know this marks me as a librarian of a certain age, but I always hear Jackson Browne in my head when I'm closing up on a day like today. 📚 www.youtube.com/watch?v=scsJ...
The interior of my public library which has a nice carpet, a leather couch. some stained glass windows, and some bookshelves and wooden columns which are all sort of glowing in the late afternoon sun.
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Librarian by Day 🏳️‍🌈 @librarianbyday.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Beloved friend and colleague JJ Pionke, librarian, library and information studies educator, and advocate for people with disabilities, has died. jj-pionke-memorial.org/in-loving-me... #skybrarians #medlibs
jj-pionke-memorial.org
In Loving Memory
JJ Pionke 1978 – 2026 JJ Pionke, librarian, library and information studies educator, and advocate for people with disabilities, has died. JJ was born in suburban Chicago to Wayne and Rita Pi…
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
@jtkantor.bsky.social I have a local friend from my town here in Vermont who is turning 98 soon and is going to the Red Sox game on Friday with a group of friends. I don't think Goodnight Irene is appropriate but is there either a birthday song (Stevie?) or another song you'd suggest or could play?
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
"Hiring a “litigation consultant” to conduct a market study certainly suggests... that rather than collaborate with libraries ... the publishers’ primary trade organization instead appears to be gearing up for a court battle" Read this, and demand better. Excellent work, Guy.
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In the Library with the Lead Pipe @libraryleadpipe.bsky.social · 11/09/2026
No Soft Cops, No Saviours: Abolitionist Notes Against Social Work in Libraries by @gossippractice.bsky.social
In this article, I look at the idea of hiring social workers into public libraries through the lens of abolitionist librarianship. Often presented as an obvious answer to make libraries more inclusive, there is little evidence within the published literature that this model is more effective than others. I argue that rather than expanding care and support for patrons, this model replicates dynamics of soft carcerality and saviourism within our organizations. Using principles of police abolition as my theoretical grounding, I offer alternative models and fields that we can instead draw on as we work toward more inclusive and liberatory public libraries.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
Name a non-LOTR character who could resist the one ring.
static.klipy.com
Fire Moss
Alt: Richard Ayoade playing a character called Moss in the show The IT Crowd is typing at a computer while a small fire burns at his desk. He glances at the fire and then continues typing.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
I got paid $250/month plus free rent to be the live-in caretaker of an Odd Fellows Hall in Seattle (no, not that one) in the 90s. I got to manage hall rentals for groups like the Loyal Order of the Golden North, Girth and Mirth, and the Modern Woodmen of America.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
Today is my birthday; I am 58. Some privacy goes out the window when Wikipedia tells everyone how old you are. I did this last year and enjoyed it: suggest a book for me, or just send me a fun GIF? If you want to know if I've already read a book, list back to '97 is here jessamyn.info/booklist
Me at one year old sitting in front of a cake with my mom and dad in a photo that seems like a very long time ago.
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ReadingDanger @readingdanger.bsky.social · 03/09/2026
Do you wish there were a printable pamphlet that quickly explains the Harry Potter boycott to people who are out of the loop? Well now there is! Free to print for non-commercial uses. (TLDR Rowling proudly funds anti rights lawsuits with your purchase.) www.friendlyexplanation.com/storage/329/...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
An AI scambot of some kind, confusing me with an author who died in 1984, discussing her book which was published in 1953. Literally any living librarian would not make this mistake 📚 "I want to start by saying, Cress Delahanty is one of those rare books that arrives at exactly the right moment..."
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
Libraries being bad for capitalism is good for society, actually. #SorryNotSorry 📚 www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/...
publishersweekly.com
Study Says Library E-book Lending Hurts Industry Sales
Amid new attempts by states to legislate e-book agreements between publishers and libraries, a new report from the AAP and Authors Guild found that increased e-book lending at libraries is threatening...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
I am chilling at a public library in MA. The library's lore is that a rich guy from Harvard left a bequest and some books for a library. The truth is, he died without a will and his sister inherited automatically and said "You know, this town could really use a library." I've fixed Wikipedia. 📚
Back and white historical photo of the Randall Library in Stow Mass, a brick building with a little turret area and a rounded arc over a wide front entrance.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
Nirvana was playing in my college's dining commons in 1990 and it was $3 and I'd never heard of them and I thought their drunken smiley face logo looked goofy so I skipped it.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
Are you in #Vermont and anywhere near Middletown Springs? If so, consider signing up to be in their Great Book Brigade on September 12 where they will be using a chain of human volunteers to move their 6500 books from their old library to the new one. Sign up here. 📚 docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F...
docs.google.com
The Great Book Brigade 2026
Sign me up! I want to take part in the Middletown Springs Public Library's Great Book Brigade 2026.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
Quote skeet with a game released in the year you were born
A screenshot from the Internet Archive's version of the text-based game Hamurabi. The game gives stats about a simulated city and then asks how many acres you want to buy, how many bushels you want to feed to people and how many acres you want to plant with seed. I, apparently, picked the wrong numbers and it told me I starved 95 people in one year. And then it says I have been impeached, tossed out of office and declared "National Fink" which sounds bad.
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Flickr Foundation @flickrfdn.bsky.social · 20/08/2026
A cool project that was possible thanks to the Flickr Commons presence of the British Library. 🥰
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
If you have not read Ben Passmore's graphic novel Black Arms to Hold You Up A History of Black Resistance, it just won an Eisner and I highly recommend it. As Passmore says "Black liberation is your fight too." Thanks for this @benpassmore.bsky.social
Cover of Black Arms to Hold You Up A History of Black Resistance showing two Black men, one older wearing a beret with pins on it and a younger man in a white tshirt and pants running away from what look like giant guns with grey-on-white skulls in the background.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
My dad brought a CD player back from a trip to Japan and along with it brought Wish You Were Here (Japanese release, ~1982) which we played on repeat frequently marveling at how crisp it was. The first CD I ever owned was the Misfits, maybe didn't require high fidelity, but sure was loud.
CD cover of Wish You Were Here showing a man shaking hands with a man who is on fireCover of the Misfits self-titled CD showing a close up of a skull over a neon green background with the Misfits band name on the top in red
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 18/08/2026
The USPS has a podcast about free books for the blind featuring Vermont's former state librarian and current head of the National Library Service for the Blind, Jason Broughton. Transcript available. Good for library and postal and accessibility nerds 📚 usps-mailin-it.simplecast.com/episodes/fre...
usps-mailin-it.simplecast.com
Why Millions of Books Travel Free Through the Mail | Mailin’ It! - The Official USPS Podcast
In this episode of Mailin’ It, we explore one of the nation’s oldest federal accessibility programs, Free Matter for the Blind. For over 90 years, USPS and the Library of Congress’ National Library Se...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
I work for the Flickr Foundation and every so often a new Flickr Commons image shows up that I think the librarian folks here would like to see. This one is from Grace Paull and was published in 1934. 📚 www.flickr.com/photos/libra...
An illustration of a man and a younger girl riding a white horse with a golden bridle. The horse has a  basket along its side which is full of books. There is a bright yellow background behind them. Caption reads Ride the Book Trail, to Knowledge and Adventure.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 13/08/2026
95-99% of smart phone users will have a better user experience with their phones if they change the default settings to things they prefer. Most default settings on phones range from gently coercive to downright predatory.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 04/08/2026
Dear #Vermont voters, there are two amendments to the Vermont Constitution which will be on the ballot in November. One is about the right to collective bargaining, the other is about equal protection/treatment under the law (which it should have had already). governor.vermont.gov/press-releas...
A woman in a voting booth in a black and white photo. She is wearing a long fur-lined coat and a bit hat with a feather. A caption at the top reads "Ready to Vote"
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
I've mentioned in the past that I sponsored a local female race car driver and put pro-library messages on the car. They did a "pit party" where kids could come through, see the cars, etc. Andrea got book stickers made so all the kids could sign her car. Truly some of my best library outreach work.
Hood of a white stock car. It has a woman in a purple superhero outfit with a cape flapping. The car reads NO BOUNDARIES. NO LIMITS. KNOW YOUR LIBRARY. There are many small stickers that look like open books on it which are signed by kids.Back of a white stock car used for racing. It says BURN RUBBER NOT BOOKS. There are some small stickers that look like open books on it which are signed by kids.
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Alex Segura @alexsegura.com · 03/08/2026
We are seeing an increased ICE presence in NYC - making it imperative that NYers KNOW YOUR RIGHTS. I wrote a comic with @mayor.nyc.gov @nycimmigrants.bsky.social @davidhahn.bsky.social @elllewrightart.bsky.social @tayloresposito.bsky.social to do that! DOWNLOAD: www.weteachnyc.org/resources/co...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
I work at a public library. People who want to use AI seem to have no trouble doing so. People who don't want to use AI have a harder time. I crowdsourced and then finalized this document "How to disable or avoid intrusive AI" and then gave it a short URL: notoai.org Please pass along if it's useful
An aircraft passenger oxygen mask: a drop down passenger mask with air bag and yellow plastic mouth and nose cover, oxygen tube has been cut; Demonstration model used by flight attendant crew for passenger instruction. Has text on the side indicating that it's non-functional.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 28/07/2026
"There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible"
static.klipy.com
Better Off Dead Dinner Monster Scene
Alt: Better Off Dead scene where the mom in an apron is trying to control a large tentacled thing in the pot in her kitchen which is waving its arms about wildly. She is shaking the beater from a mixer at it
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 26/07/2026
Does anyone know how I can get ahold of Charlie Bailey to see if he'll share his slides? (yes I've tried his workplace website, the usual socials, checking to see if he had a website, yes I've seen his LinkedIn, we have no mutuals). If so, please let me know. And check out this library program idea.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 24/07/2026
The Queer Liberation Library is looking for a Collections Volunteer to do reader's advisory in the QLL discord. Sound up your alley? Apply here. www.queerliberationlibrary.org/volunteer-op...
queerliberationlibrary.org
Volunteer Opportunities — Queer Liberation Library
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 23/07/2026
"Media Bias/Fact Check purports to quantify the bias, credibility, and factuality of reporting for roughly 10,000 media sources... used in misinformation research... we show that MBFC's methodology does not meet basic standards of rigor for academic research." arxiv.org/abs/2607.12108
arxiv.org
Stop using Media Bias/Fact Check in research
Media Bias/Fact Check (MBFC) purports to quantify the bias, credibility, and factuality of reporting for roughly 10,000 media sources, and the resulting data is commonly used in misinformation researc...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
I won a social media contest on Twitter and the prize was a year's worth of Cabot cheese. Did an AMA about it on /r/Cheese and wrote about it on Medium www.reddit.com/r/Cheese/com... jessamyn.medium.com/cheese-accou...
reddit.com
From the Cheese community on Reddit
Explore this post and more from the Cheese community
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 21/07/2026
I did an interview with Prairie Fire. Listen to me talk about libraries and how we're the government, but in a good way. A text interview, also available as a YouTube video with a full transcript. 📚 www.newsjunkie.net/article/jess...
Screenshot of the front page of Prairie Fire showing the YouTube video on a still page which says "Libraries remain trusted civic spaces and local institutions can help communities understand themselves"

Underneath it says "In the government but for the community" and then "Librarian Jessamyn West on why libraries are targeted by authoritarians and how they will survive anyway"
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 17/07/2026
NASA Archivist Colin Fries (left, with John Logsdon) retired in 2019. He wrote the definitive history of Nasa Wakeup Calls. Fellow archives nerds please enjoy this 89 page PDF of NWC history from 1965 until 2015. 📚 www.nasa.gov/wp-content/u... Want that data? I got you. nasawakeupcalls.github.io
two men look at boxes containing files in the stacks of an archive)
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 10/07/2026
Look, your taxes could go to the military or...
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Jack Phoenix (a comics librarian) @comicslibrarian.com · 07/07/2026
📚 The worst library job I had was as a manager at a branch with A LOT of problems, including a daily creepy caller. I demanded we take action to protect the staff, but I got no support from the administration. He only wanted to speak to the women, so I implemented a new rule... 👇
americanlibrariesmagazine.org
The Creepy Caller Problem | American Libraries Magazine
“That guy” occupies a position between acceptable behavior and overt sexual harassment, making effective response difficult.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
Hidden Barriers: The Experience of Academic Librarians and Archivists with Invisible Illnesses and/or Disabilities. A good article with a good list of resources at the end of it. crl.acrl.org/index.php/cr... Learn about this flag. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disabil... #DisabilityPride
A charcoal grey flag bisected diagonally from the top left corner to the lower right corner by five parallel stripes in red, pale gold, pale grey, light blue, and green.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 30/06/2026
Dear quilting/library community, please enjoy this bookshelf quilt made as a fundraiser for the new library (in Belleville ONT). The books are all named after local people and organizations. 📚 www.flickr.com/photos/cabhc...
flickr.com
2026-053
Photograph of a bookshelf quilt made as a fundraiser for the new Belleville Public Library building in 2004. Names of local residents and organizations are sewn into the quilt as titles of books. The...
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Thomas Maluck @maluckamuck.financialflock.com · 28/06/2026
TIL that the Library of Congress has a credit union, membership is open to all ALA members, and eligibility can be extended to state library association members after minimal paperwork from the organization. www.lcfcu.org/about-us/mem... #ALAAC26
lcfcu.org
Who Can Join - Library Of Congress FCU
Proudly Serving America’s Library Community Since 1935, the Library of Congress FCU has been honored to serve America’s library community including employees of the Library of Congress and members of ...
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 28/06/2026
Your World Cup/library overlap. Erling Haaland donated a rare 16th-century manuscript of Viking ​sagas by Snorri Sturluson to his home library in ‌Norway. 📚 “Books give so many more people the chance to dream big, see new possibilities and find their own path.” www.time.kommune.no/aktuelt/engl...
time.kommune.no
ENGLISH VERSION: Erling Braut Haaland gives the royal sagas and reading to his hometown
… or, if you like, “The Viking gives the story of the Vikings to his hometown”:
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 24/06/2026
Mike will not waste your time. You will learn things that help. Discounts for self-employed folks & people in unions. This is a lot of solid content from a guy who knows his stuff. If you are in libraries and want to present better at library conferences (let's be honest, most of us should), do this
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
"My goal is to recall my past lives and be free in each. My strength is being scattered and rooted at the same time.... My kink is a copless land where no one hoards anything." A belated Solstice picture, poem and song to you and yours. homemadejam.org/mix/summerso...
homemadejam.org
Summer Solstice 2026
I want this job because it sounds like something I could do and I’m hungry, physically.
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Marc Fischer @marc-fischer.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Last month two library workers reached out to Public Collectors to ask about making a booklet version of Fobazi Ettarh's essay "Vocational Awe and Librarianship: The Lies We Tell Ourselves" for a Celebration of Life event. We did, and it is now available for all: halfletterpress.com/vocational-a...
This booklet is a standalone print publication of Fobazi Ettarh’s essay, in which she defined vocational awe as the ideas, values, and assumptions librarians have about themselves and the profession that result in notions that libraries are inherently good and sacred, and therefore beyond critique. Fobazi first presented on vocational awe at the Identity, Agency, and Culture in Academic Libraries Conference in 2017. Later on, she fleshed out the idea into this essay, which first appeared in the journal In the Library with the Lead Pipe on January 10, 2018. It sparked immediate rippling conversations about dynamics of systemic underresourcing, undercompensation, job creep, and exploitation across the library profession. It was cited more than 500 times in her lifetime, and she presented dozens of invited presentations and keynotes on it. In 2020, she was named a Library Journal Mover & Shaker; true to her own values, she voluntarily revoked the award to protest Library Journal’s awarding of a Library of the Year that had been widely protested for hosting an event with a virulently anti-trans organization earlier in the year. In this time, public scholars and intellectuals in fields such as social work, teaching, nursing, and technology began to engage with vocational awe, including Cory Doctorow in Enshittification, Anne Helen Petersen in Culture Study, Simone Stolzoff in The Good Enough Job, and more. At the time of her passing in January 2026, Fobazi was a PhD student at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, furthering her research on vocational awe across domains, with a specific focus on tech work. May her memory politicize us all.

— Anastasia Chiu 

The proposal to publish this text as a booklet came from library workers Mimosa Shah and Jorge López-McKnight. With the cooperation of Fobazi’s widow Elena Maris, Public Collectors has designed, printed and published this essay for that celebration, as well as more widespread readership.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 22/06/2026
Be rainbow, not beige. The library is for everyone, even these shitheads (and activists, and unhoused folks) but THEY HAVE TO SHARE WITH EVERYONE. Get back to being a library? What did you think a library in 2026 was? (replaced stock news image with a better one) www.chronline.com/stories/trl-...
A heavyset person with short purple hair and sunglasses wearing a rainbow shirt which says QUEER AS FUCK on it. The shoulder of this shirt has the colors of the trans flag and says "Trans rights are human rights" There are other people with rainbow clothing behind them.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
Explain your @ Jessamyn was taken and this is what I do for a job.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
What does it mean to be the world's oldest library? A BBC story about the lore behind the Merton College Library in Oxford with a few other notable mentions. 📚 www.bbc.com/culture/arti...
bbc.com
'A remarkable time capsule': The enchanting history of Oxford University's 750-year-old medieval library
Predating the Aztec Empire, Merton College Library in Oxford has been used by everyone from celebrated 14th-Century mathematicians to JRR Tolkien.
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 18/06/2026
My state's Department of Libraries partnered with the Vermont Library Justice Project to create short, informational videos in eighteen languages to inform people about how US public libraries work. They're straightforward and can be used by any library. 📚 Playlist: www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...
youtube.com
Welcome to the Library - YouTube
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jessamyn @librarian.bsky.social · 16/06/2026
Look, we can't all be Beatrice Lumpkin, joining her first union in the 1930s and organizing and fighting fascism and injustice ever since then, dying this month at the age of 107, but we could try. Rest in power 👑 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beatric...
en.wikipedia.org
Beatrice Lumpkin - Wikipedia
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Count Melancholia @lillyh.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
[via @cmconseils@mastodon.social]
A storefront window of a bookstore displaying a large black sign with white text that reads, "FUCK SOCIAL MEDIA. MARRY BOOKS. KILL AI." Inside the store, wooden tables and shelves are filled with various books. Reflections of the street and buildings are visible on the window glass.
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