Since the Goodreads Choice Awards were posted last night, here's a reminder of how white these awards are (& why): bookriot.com/the-unbearab...

Notes and slides for my talk "Strategic and tactical decisions for positive engagement during challenging times" which is less dry than its title might suggest. Links: www.librarian.net/talks/videot... Read the talk including slides with alt text: www.librarian.net/talks/videot...

This is a nice story about how libraries change lives.

I do not regret to inform you that we are going to win

If you're looking for a group of library workers who understand the power of labor organizing, social justice, & anti-racism, consider applying for the Library Freedom Institute. It's a 15-week program in privacy, intellectual freedom, & critical technology. libraryfreedom.org/institute/

The Grokipedia article about me omits my middle name which is Charity. It also calls me a rabble-rouser which is a phrase not in my Wikipedia article. So on balance, okay? I am kidding, it is not at all okay. But I had a fun 10 minutes reading it and being mad.

Librarians or others, would you like a helpful one-pager zine that you can print to let people know how to report ICE? Available for Chicago, DC, Philly, Portland, NYC, CA, CO, FL, DE, MA, MD, RI, VA, WA, WI, WY & other metro areas. Thanks @meganpiont.bsky.social drive.google.com/drive/folder...

Four. 1. Design is a Job by Mike Monteiro 2. Six Centuries of Type & Printing by Glenn Fleishman 3. Blades of Fury, Volume 1 by Emily Erdos and Deya Muniz 4. The Heist of Hollow London by Eddie Robson

We should all be so lucky to be memorialized like librarian Robert Resnik. May his memory be a blessing. www.sevendaysvt.com/arts-culture...

"Cryptographic science, he argued, could not solve Kryptos — 'but library science could.'"

Are you considering seeking appointment or running for a seat on your local library board? Are you on the Left(s)? Apply to join FTP's Library Board Candidate cohort which will launch in Feb 2026: forms.gle/RuTxVLjvnX8K...

Arthur Sze, the twenty-fifth US Poet Laureate, has written a poem about the Library of Congress. Oh my heart. 📚 www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...

There is no such thing as a good book. Every book should find its readers and the canon is basically used to reinforce cultural hegemony to this day and it's a problem.

#AskAnArchivist Day is coming up this Thursday, October 16, and we want YOU to participate. Join SAA and archives across the country to promote the work of archives. Participate across social media, with #AskAnArchivist. For more information, see our announcement: https://ow.ly/Hhr950X1LYR

In honor of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand. "The bathroom. It's... bad."

relaxed saturday evening reading through "women designers of book plates (1902)" and flipped past a couple of beautiful professional designs only to see this perfect plate by a young Miss Page

A Banned Books Week love letter to libraries from blind/gay romance writer @weirdwriter.caneandable.social.ap.brid.gy "Its only goal is to take the most valuable things in the world-stories, knowledge, ideas, a quiet place to think-& give them away for free" sightlessscribbles.com/posts/202509...

A Short Bright Flash by Theresa Levitt, a history of lighthouses and the way the Fresnel lens revolutionized all of it. More dramatic than you'd expect!

. @404media.co is investigating book bans. They could use your pointers on where to be looking. You can do it anonymously. "We need help deciding... which school districts and cities to seek public records from and... where we should point our reporting efforts. " www.404media.co/help-us-inve...

“the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa”

Calais. Or if you're writing things down "creemee"

New Blog Post. Library of Congress & Flickr Commons: Analysis of user interactions on 40,000 images thisismattmiller.com/post/lc-flic... - Organizing 95K photo comments. - Viewer to explore user georectified images - Folksonomy tagging vs LCSH Vocabulary - Placing into the Wiki* knowledge graph

Explain your username: Jessamyn was taken. I am a librarian for a job and I use Bluesky slightly more for work stuff. I'm also on Mastodon at @[email protected]

On this day where librarians consider the closing of Baker & Taylor, I would like to remind you that Sandy Berman still walks this earth and today is his birthday. www.sanfordberman.org

Last week I was scheduled to give a presentation on grassroots activism at a university conference on censorship. That conference was censored to the point of being cancelled. So in honor of banned books week, here is some of the info I would have shared on fighting book bans at a local level:

Baker & Taylor appears to be shutting down. A post on the r/libraries subreddit from an employee of B&T breaks the news and there appear to be other employees in the comments confirming the situation.

"PEN America identified 2,520 book ban cases... out of those, only 3% of the bans were triggered by a law requiring the removal of a book—the rest, 97%—came from bans caused by the fear that districts had of being out of compliance" #DontComplyInAdvance www.wordsandmoney.com/pen-america-...

Everyone makes a big deal about autumn in Vermont and I'll be the first to admit that it's lovely. But there's a darker side to this annual seasonal occurrence, marked when I send this now sixteen year old video around to all my local complaining friends 🌬️🍂 #HolyHoly www.youtube.com/watch?v=qh3o...

Occurred to me that I should not presume everyone knows the history of public library service in the US, especially the formerly-segregated US, and how white library leaders could have acted sooner and done more than they did. Further reading on that topic. www.librarian.net/talks/whiten...

Post a fictional comedian who definitely would accept an invitation to the Riyadh Comedy Festival.

Exceptional news, library folks. 📚

Age yourself with a film you saw in cinemas as a kid.

List 3 things you can talk about for 3 hours with no prep. 1. Public libraries in the US 2. Vermont's 251 Club (for its 252 towns, don't @ me) 3. Wikipedia

Ruin a band with a Supreme Court Justice: Frankfurter Goes to Hollywood.

The public library would never do you like this.

I want library leaders who can conceive of resistance, who can imagine different futures, not who say "welp, this is the world, guess we have no choice" at every single turn of politics or technology.

In non-apocalyptic news, this happened. You can set your Bluesky preferences so that you have to add alt text before it will let you post a picture. Turn on that feature, and you can’t forget alt text - and your posts will be more accessible. Check out your own score below... cred.blue/alt-text

Age verification? I wore parachute pants. To school.

“You can tell [the book] was made by some early-gen AI bot, because it can’t even spell monetization correctly” Clayton Cheever, Sarah Manning, @tuphlos.bsky.social @sonderbooks.com & others talk about the thorny problem of LLM-made books in libraries. americanlibrariesmagazine.org/2025/09/02/b...

My real question about the Anthropic copyright settlement is how good their is authority control? Like, can I claim damages for the OTHER Jessamyn West also? I wouldn't be me if I didn't at least try. Authors: get your money. 📚 www.anthropiccopyrightsettlement.com

Always bet on books.

Today is my birthday. I am 57. Send GIFs, if you're the type to do that. I always enjoy them.

Drop an old person you’re going to turn into. (if I am lucky)

My first job (not babysitting )was at the coffee shop in the local tiny airport. I walked to work, and on weekdays after school I would be running the entire place by myself - grill cook, waitress, cleaner. I was maybe 15? $2.10/hour, plus tips. Home after a 3 hour shift with less than $7 some days.

Very happy to read about these young, principled, and interesting librarians working in various places in Philadelphia 📚 www.phillymag.com/news/2025/08...

I found a postcard in a thrift store with a cryptic message/address and decided to try to find out more. Please enjoy my research quest to find out more about "Miss Crabb, Librarian" 📚 (and stick around for the LLM's answers if you're up for a good eyeroll) www.librarian.net/stax/5702/mi...

Someone has "re-googled" the fire hydrants in my neighborhood (it was done once a long time ago, before my time with only one still googled) recently and no one will fess up to it. I have been asking lots of people and they mostly say "I thought YOU did it!" #vermont

Heads up library workers, Overdrive is shoving AI into Libby. It will be making book recommendations and they are rolling it out over the next few weeks. Smoke is pouring out of my ears. 📚

Polaris. But don't update it *too* much.

"Bricks for the Blind is a non-profit organization that brings the joy of building Lego sets to blind people." As someone who works in one of the many libraries with a hefty Lego collection, this is RTMI bricksfortheblind.org More about the man behind it www.cbc.ca/radio/asitha... #Lego