Charles Brodowicz, an attendee and participant in my recent series of Inkscape Workshops at Princeton Public Library, suggested this sketch, and I’m really glad he did!
Tag: Libraries
Host: Princeton PC Users Group
Artist’s Statement: https://lemasney.com/consulting/about-365-sketches/
Venue: Mercer County Library, Lawrence Branch, Lawrenceville, NJ
Date: August 30th, 2010
This is a series of wordmarks I’m working on to help brand a new venture called Act for School Libraries (Act4SL). I love the idea: advocacy for media expertise in school libraries so that transliteracy can be fostered in one of the most important places possible: school libraries. This is a work in progress, essentially just begun, and therefore has some roughness to it. That said, I love the directions that it is going in!
So foursquare can be used as a brand building tool, to let people know the venues you visit, the kinds of things you do, and in a way, the kind of person you are. If you check in to museums, coffee shops, and libraries, it says something, and if you check into other kinds of places, it sasy something different. However, going further, it’s a game.
It allows you to vie for control over spaces, even if it just means something to a few people. It can be a lot of fun. For instance, several months ago I created the venue “Moore Library” at Rider University which happens to be the building that houses my office. Dave Reynolds, who also works in this building, took the venue (became Mayor) after a long ongoing bout of checkins. In order to maintain your status you have to check in at least one day per month more than another foursquare user. He slowly crept up and rigorously overtook me after a few months of me sporadically forgetting to check in, and it was a friendly, but sobering, loss with much social fallout.
After a few more months of steady checkins, this morning I regained the Mayor title, when I saw the message depicted above on my phone.
And I plan to keep it.
A library in New Jersey has apparently removed a book from its shelves due to pressure from a political group. The problem, first and foremost, is that the protocol for the removal of the book was not strictly followed, and instead, a leader in the library decided to simply bypass the process of removal and just sort of make it disappear. The book is Revolutionary Voices: An Anthology of Queer Youth and the removal controversy is detailed at as well as , and http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/08/nj_public_library_removes_lgbt_book_after_request.php . My biggest concern is the cited reason for the removal: Child pornography, which is in response to the image that my image spoofs, available for your review at — Note that the image may not be suitable for all viewers, at least out of context, but certainly is reasonable enough in the context of art, sexual identity issues, and coming of age in the LGBT community in a world that generally does not accept nor understand it without help. In reality, it looks like a blurry picture of two wrestlers next to a blurry picture of a scout leader and a boy scout. Bad art? Maybe. Child porn? Hardly. Also, some of my favorite librarians in NJ are being given some negative focus for raising their voice about the issue: the unilateral removal of content without proper review. Meanwhile, the rest of my favorite librarians in NJ are showing their strong support for a book that’s being met with (in my opinion) homophobia and prejudice.
This is a public note to the renowned librarian and leader Peter Bromberg who was one of the original pillars of the Library blog Library Garden. He recently announced his amicable departure from the blog as an author. Peter invited me to join the blog about a year ago as a sometime author, and has (along with Janie Hermann) sparked most of my success in the New Jersey Library presentation circuit. I’m quite sad he’s leaving the blog, but I poked a bit of fun here because I’m not as a sad as I might be if I was likely to see Peter less. The fact is that he’s now working in Princeton, which means I’m more likely to see him now than ever. Cheers to you, Peter, and thanks for all the great work you’ve done and continue to do.