Life Update: "Seoul" Long, and Thanks For All the Fish Tacos!

So this post is a little late (by about a month and a half), but I didn’t want to miss out on posting about this exciting event!

On March 26th, the Jennie King Mellon Library at Chatham University took part in the International Edible Books Festival, a celebration of food and literature which was created by Judith Hoffberg and Béatrice Coron in 2000. This year marked Chatham’s 7th year participating. The goal of this event is to “unite bibliophiles, book artists and food lovers to celebrate the ingestion of culture and its fulfilling nourishment.”

This year saw a number of delicious literary dishes, including some meat pies based on Sweeney Todd, a Matilda-inspired cake, and The Crepe Gatsby. My boyfriend and I submitted a creation of our own this year — a yummy Korean kimchi-slaw fish taco dish inspired by The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Universe. Our dish was entitled “Seoul” Long and Thanks for all the Fish Tacos. We ended up winning “most sustainable” for these tacos, as many of the ingredients were locally-sourced and the dish was completely gluten-free and dairy-free!

It was so much fun to see how creatively everyone interpreted the prompt for the festival. The only real rule is that all foods must be in some way related to books either in shape or content, which leaves room for plenty of creativity and pun-tential. We had some desserts, some savory dishes, all deliciousness. There was a variety of skill levels present, and some dishes interpreted their source material more literally (like replicating the book cover) while others went for the puns. All in all, I was so impressed by everyone’s fantastic submissions — and my stomach sure was, too!

2018 Winners of the 7th Annual Edible Books Festival

Check out the official post about the 7th Annual Edible Books Festival on the JKM Library’s blog here: http://blogs.chatham.edu/library/2018/03/28/7th-annual-international-edible-book-festival-read-em-and-eat/ 

Book Review // BINGO LOVE by Tee Franklin & Jenn St-Onge

My Rating: ✰✰✰✰✰

Hazel and Mari form an unshakeable bond when they meet at church bingo in 1963. They become close friends but quickly fall in love with one another. Their families do not approve of their relationship and force the girls to part. Hazel and Mari meet once again -- 50 years later -- at bingo, but by this time they both have families of their own. Will they throw everything away to be together? Or have they missed their chance at true love?

I found this comic at a library conference and was so excited to get to read it. I immediately fell in love with Hazel and Mari and wanted so badly for them to find happiness in one another. It's not a perfect story, there were parts of the story that felt a little rushed or unrealistic to me, but at the same time, as a queer woman I realize that this is such an important book in terms of representation. It's so rare to have a romance between two women that doesn't end in utter tragedy -- let alone one featuring two women of color or two elderly women. The story isn't overly saccharine -- there is some struggle and hardship woven throughout Hazel & Mari's stories, but the ending is bittersweet, satisfying, and very fitting.

I also just wanted to applaud the artist, Jenn St-Onge, because the art style is adorable. I appreciated how the characters actually looked like real people -- they have all different body types, skin tones, and are even depicted with stretch marks and imperfections. All in all, I think this is a cute, important comic and I would recommend it to any LGBT youth (or, heck, even adults) looking to see themselves represented in media.

Review originally published to Goodreads.com.

Life Update // An MLIS student's thoughts on PLA 2018

My friend Tricia and myself (right) happy to be in our element!

At 11 o’clock Wednesday night, my friend from library school and I embarked on an all-night road trip from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia. We weren’t about to let a freak spring snowstorm stop us from attending our first professional librarian conference as MLIS students, so we timed our departure to avoid dangerous driving conditions.

Once we got there, I was overwhelmed by excitement — and by the sheer number of librarians and other like-minded professionals I got to meet.  I was quite happy with most of the program sessions that I chose to attend, and I felt as though I got a lot of great, practical ideas that I will be able to take with me into my future career. I learned that the Department of Justice provides an accreditation program that allows librarians to provide immigration services in the public library, and I learned that Drag Queen Storytimes are a great way to get children comfortable with the complexity of gender and gender expression. I was especially pleased by a session on creating programs for teens about “How to Adult” —  it really made me appreciate how libraries are in a great position to teach practical life skills that young people may not be learning either at school or at home. The presenters gave us a great framework for several programs that I wish I would’ve had at my library growing up. Another session on Maker Mobiles produced a lot of great ideas for successful maker programs in the library and the community at large.

One of the most interesting ideas that I took from the conference was something that was said by the presenters of a session on supporting patrons of color in libraries. They discussed how a police/security presence in public libraries could potentially be a barrier of access for some patrons of color, and although there are situations where action by security may be necessary and that following library policies are important, we need to be sure that the enforcement is not disproportionately and overly punitive. Like, do people really need kicked out of the library for eating food or being a little noisy? Or could we have a conversation with them before involving security? The presenters also proposed the idea of training contracted security staff in the library code of ethics so that security does not inadvertently detract from the library’s role in making education and information open to everyone. As librarians, we don’t want our patrons, and especially marginalized patrons, to feel that our library is a hostile environment or that they are not welcome.

Aside from the programs, I gotta say all the free swag was pretty cool, too. I am a little intimidated by the stack of 20+ free books and ARCs (advanced reading copies) I got that are now perched atop my nightstand in my room, but so many of the books look like awesome reads. I’m very excited to sink my teeth into Tee Franklin’s comic Bingo Love (about two girls who fall in love at church bingo, break up because of disapproving families, and are reunited 50 years later at a nursing home!), as well as The Universe is Expanding and So Am I by Carolyn Mackler (the long-awaited sequel to The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big, Round Things), who I also got to see speak at the Books that Work for Teens and Adults author panel. Perhaps I will start publishing some reviews here since I have such a hefty stack of books to get through!

After such a whirlwind week, I came home yesterday a little exhausted and a lot more energized going into the last couple semesters of my LIS program. I think I definitely have a clearer idea of the kind of librarian I want to be and the diverse, community-oriented services that I see myself supporting in the future. I am certainly glad I was able to make the time to make this trip while I was still in school, so that I can put my best foot forward from the beginning of my career.

A list of program sessions I attended at PLA 2018:

• Providing Immigration Services in Public Libraries: Making It Possible is Not Impossible

• Millennials Take Over the Library

• Push Comes to Shove: Supporting Patrons of Color in Your Institution

• Libraries Aren’t Neutral: Programming and Resources for the Political Climate

• Drag Queen Story Hour: Reading Fabulously

• MakMo: The LA County Library’s MakerMobiles

• How to Adult: Teaching Life Skills to Teens

• AAP Crossover Appeal: Books that Work for Teens and Adults

If you attended PLA 2018, what was your favorite program you attended? What is the one piece of information you found to be the single most helpful thing that you will be taking back to your library? Feel free to comment if you would like to connect and chat about your experiences!