Awesome Tumblr of Awesome People Reading

In the eyes of many, picking up a book is not a cool activity. Just think about the connotations of "bookworm," a term that's usually not given as a compliment. To say that someone is a "bookworm" is pretty much the same as calling that person a "geek," "nerd," or "nerdlinger." Reading just isn't cool ... or is it? Take a look at the Tumblr Awesome People Reading.

Bettie Page curls up with a magazine amid the comforts of home.
Image via http://awesomepeoplereading.tumblr.com

Awesome People Reading is a Tumblr comprised of tons of photographs of, well, awesome people reading. There are movie stars and directors, graphic artists and painters, musicians and athletes, activists and philosophers, heads of state and astronauts, models and photographers, magicians and Muppets, all caught on camera reading. And they're not always reading books. Some, like Albert Camus and Lenny Bruce, are holding newspapers. Others, like Boris Karloff and Paul Newman, are poring over film scripts. Then you have some, like Muhammad Ali and Tom Waits, gripping comics. While others, such as Beck Hansen and Charlotte Gainsbourg, are eyeing pages of song lyrics. And many, including, Richard Avedon and James Dean, are absorbed in magazines.

There are currently 125 pages filled with black-and-white and color photographs of Awesome People Reading. (The prolific person behind this Tumblr has obvious favorites, as there are many different images of Marilyn Monroe, Gregory Peck, Neil Gaiman, Bettie Page, Bridget Bardot, David Bowie, Louise Brooks, Patti Smith, Bob Marley, Michael Caine, Elvis, and various Stones and Beatles reading.) You can check them out HERE.

A Visit to the Zine Library at VCU

If you love zines and ever find yourself in Richmond, Virginia, you should really swing by Virginia Commonwealth University. The university's James Branch Cabell Library, at 901 Park Avenue, houses a wealth of local and national zines.

VCU's zine library is part of the Special Collections and Archives at Cabell Library.

Photo via Matt Carman on Flickr

Just prior to the Richmond Zine Fest, held earlier this month, the people behind the Brooklyn Zine Fest decided to visit VCU to check out these zines. The zine collection is part of VCU's Special Collections and Archives, located on the fourth floor of Cabell Library. Two smiley librarians, Leila Prasertwaitaya and Celina Williams (who also helped organize the Richmond Zine Fest), gave the people of the Brooklyn Zine Fest a grand tour of the Special Collections and Archives, which, in addition to zines, also includes comics, artist books, and even a sword(!).

Librarians Leila Prasertwaitaya (at left) and Celina Williams are happy to help.
Photo via Matt Carman on Flickr

The zine library at VCU currently encompasses more than 700 zines, which tend to focus on feminist and socio-political issues, art and punk rock topics, and personal/autobiographical matters. Many are also of the mini comic variety. The collection also contains resource materials on the history of underground publishing and ephemera from past Richmond Zine Fests.

Gotta keep things organized! Zine files at Cabell Library's Special Collections and Archives.
Photo via Matt Carman on Flickr

Coinciding with this year's Richmond Zine Fest is an exhibit of the work of Aijung Kim. The creative output of the Richmond-based artist and zine collector will be on display on the fourth floor of Cabell Library until November 2012. 

You can see the zine collection and the Aijung Kim exhibit at Cabell Library Monday through Friday, 9AM to 5PM or by appointment. If you'd like more information on either, you can reach someone at the Special Collections and Archives by email, at libjbcsca@vcu.edu, or by phone, at (804) 828-1108. I'm sure they would love to assist you...and appreciate donations to the zine library!

Representatives from VCU's zine library man a table at this year's Richmond Zine Fest.
Photo via Matt Carman on Flickr

Also look out for zine nights at VCU's Special Collections and Archives. These collaborative workshops on zine making are free and open to the general public.

An Infographic on Modern Librarianship

John Waters Reads from 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'

On the occasion of Banned Books Week, which runs from September 30 through October 6 this year, John Waters appeared at a San Francisco bookstore to read from an often-banned book, D.H. Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover.

John Waters with more wholesome reading.
Photo source: http://www.thefader.com

The cult filmmaker, compiler of quirky CD collections, and occasional voice actor was at City Lights Bookstore, itself no stranger to controversy over books deemed obscene. (In the most famous instance, City Lights was targeted by both local and federal authorities in the late 1950s for printing and selling Howl, a slender and subversive book of poetry by countercultural icon Allen Ginsberg.) On Wednesday, October 3, 2012, Waters sat down to read from Lawrence's sexually frank literary masterpiece at City Lights. You can watch a video of the in-store reading below.

Meet the 'Boardwalk Empire' Librarian

In 2006, when Heather Halpin Perez began working at the Atlantic City Free Public Library in New Jersey, little did she know her name would one day be connected to one of the most critically acclaimed shows in cable television history.

Image source: http://www.imaginaryforces.com via HBO

Perez works as an archivist in the library's local history section, the Alfred M. Heston Collection. In the course of a usual day, she assists people in piecing together their family histories, helps authors who are doing research for their books, and answers research questions asked by city officials. But then she gets a phone call from Ed McGinty, a native of Atlantic City and the lead historical researcher for the HBO show Boardwalk Empire.

"The archive is an incredible resource," McGinty told the Press of Atlantic City. "Heather is just so knowledgeable about what's in there. Whenever I need some specifics, say a photograph...anything I can't find anywhere else, I call her."

Heather Halpin Perez, at right, offers her expertise for HBO's Boardwalk Empire.
Image source: http://www2.newsadvance.com

Perez is often called on to locate a photograph or provide a newspaper article or historical account so that McGinty and others on the Boardwalk Empire staff can make the show as historically accurate as possible. But "it's historical fiction," Perez told the News & Advance. "So they've taken some liberties."

For her contributions to Boardwalk Empire, Perez sees her name among the show's end credits; she's listed as "historical consultant." However, she insists that she's not on the show's payroll and that she "doesn't do anything for Boardwalk Empire that she wouldn't do for anyone else who calls or visits the library with questions on Atlantic City's past," according to the Press of Atlantic City.

When Perez decided to go into library science, she "didn't do it for the glamour," she told the News & Advance. "I've always been interested in old stories and working with old photographs and scrap booking. It was an opportunity to do something I really enjoy."

On assisting the makers of Boardwalk Empire, Perez said, "It was a chance to let Atlantic City shine, and that's really what my job is about."

To read more on Perez, the "Boardwalk Empire Librarian," go HERE and HERE.

A Library the Site of First Civil Rights Sit-In in U.S.

One August day in 1939, five young men entered a public library in Alexandria, Virginia. Wanting to use the bright new facility, the men requested library cards. But they were refused. Why? They were black and the library, the Barrett Branch of the Alexandria Library, was for whites only. This was the segregated American South, where Jim Crow laws dictated there be separate facilities for black and white citizens. However, there wasn't a library for blacks in Alexandria in 1939.

The Barrett Branch of the Alexandria Library in the late 1930s.
Photo via http://www.thedctraveler.com

The five men were undeterred. Otto L. Tucker, age 22; Morris L. Murray, 22; Edward Gaddis, 21; Clarence Strange, 21; and William Edwards, 19, quietly made their way to a bookshelf, picked out some books, entered the library's reading room, and sat down to read. "Because their presence [at the library] caused embarrassment to the white patrons," according to the September 2, 1939, edition of The Afro-American newspaper, the librarian on duty, Catherine Scoggin, walked over and asked them to leave. The men didn't. Promptly, the police were called. Arriving at the library, the police officers confronted the men, ordering them to leave the facility. The men silently stood up and started to leave the library, but as they reached the door, the police arrested them for disorderly conduct.

This brave action on the part of five young men who simply wanted to use the public library is widely considered to be the first civil rights sit-in in the United States, predating the much more well-known lunch counter sit-in in Greensboro, North Carolina, by 21 years.

The five men being escorted from the Barrett Branch Library by police in August 1939.
Photo via http://www.thedctraveler.com

Tucker, Murray, Gaddis, Strange, and Edwards contested the charge of disorderly conduct with the aid of Attorney Samuel W. Tucker, who was the older brother of Otto L. Tucker. The elder Tucker had organized the sit-in at Alexandria Library's Barrett Branch for its refusal to issue library cards to the black citizens of Alexandria, Virginia. (Ironically, the branch is named for the physician and social reformer Kate Waller Barrett, whose philanthropic efforts benefited black Americans.) During the trial, Attorney Tucker got the police to admit that "being colored was the true basis of charges of disorderly conduct laid against five young men who entered the local public library," according to the aforementioned Afro-American article. Ultimately, the charges against the men were dropped.

One year after the 1939 sit-in at the Barrett Branch, the city of Alexandria, Virginia, opened a library for its black residents, the Robert H. Robinson Library. Today, that library is the Alexandria Black History Museum. All libraries within the Alexandra public library system were officially desegregated in the 1950s.

In 2000, Out of Obscurity, a 40-minute documentary on the 1939 sit-in at the Alexandria Library, was released by California Newsreel.

Voltaire on the Egalitarian Nature of Books

Image source: http://undergroundnewyorkpubliclibrary.com/post/26115074180