lizbrarian

In addition to money donations to food banks & food aid for people, please also consider donating money or food & litter to pet food pantries. Many people who rely on SNAP to feed themselves will now need to redirect $ to buy groceries that they would have spent on pet food before.

Photo of Sal and Archie, a black and white cat and an orange and white cat, lying on top of a pink blanket that I've got over my lap. I'm holding a hardcover copy of the book "You Weren't Meant to Be Human" by Andrew Joseph White.

Sunday afternoon storytime with the whole family

Nah, he's just a Brewers fan who likes cats.

Photo of Sal, a black and white cat, holding one of his front paws close to his chest. He is standing on a small table underneath a lampshade, looking intensely up at something inside the shade.

Photo of Milwaukee Brewers player Sal Frelick. He's holding his glove close to his chest, like he's maybe planning to throw a ball. He has a crazed look in his eyes.

🧵It has been clear for years that a key difference between past instances of book banning and the present censorship cataclysm is that the banning happening now targets not only books, but librarianship as a profession and libraries as an institution. 1/4

A fluffy orange and white cat lying on a soft white blanket, staring curiously at the camera. My arm is behind him, holding up a copy of the book "A Mouthful of Dust" by Nghi Vo next to him.

A fluffy black and white cat on a fluffy white blanket on my lap. His toes are extended on one of his paws, because he is kneading the blanket. I'm holding a book open behind him.

A fluffy black and white cat sniffing a book, All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles, which I'm holding up next to him, showing off the cover, which is a modern version of the classic gothic novel covers - two men running away from a spooky big house.

Reading with the cats again (a very good stress-relieving activity, if you need one). Yesterday, A Mouthful of Dust by Nghi Vo, and today, All of Us Murderers by KJ Charles. Good spooky vibes for the weekend.

can't believe Archie did not win the Nobel Peace Prize for this

Archie, a librarian's son, spent some time trying to figure out the bookshelves this morning

Saw someone say, “Stop hoarding books, we don’t need paper books anyway” and I can’t express how misguided this is. Online libraries disappear, digital books can be altered, and with Big Tech seeking to destroy history and literacy, print media has never been more essential.

This would be why I am such a strident critic of digitization as a substitute for actual archival preservation. My sixteenth century documents are far sturdier and likely to survive another 500 years than the detritus on the internet. And digitization is not democratization.

Photo of two black cat ears poking out above a carpeted cat tree

Black and white cat looking over the side of his cat tree. He has a suspicious expression on his face.

My cat woke up immediately when I played this, lol. He was sound asleep but as soon as the purring started, I saw his ears shoot up.

Photo of a black and white cat, Sal, sleeping on my lap. I'm wearing a T-shirt that says "John Prine is pretty good," I've got a red fleece blanket over my lap, and the book "Plain Bad Heroines" by Emily M. Danforth is lying open on my lap next to Sal.

Saturday afternoon, amidst the doom scrolling: a good book, a cat, and my favorite John Prine t-shirt (my only John Prine t-shirt, but still my favorite)

Oh, for sure. I'm mostly thinking of the main architect's vision for wayfinding - the use of color, plus his opposition to signage, which the library installed a few years after it was built - but I don't doubt the library would have tried to gather as much input as possible.

My first FT library job was doing PR for SPL. The architect used color for wayfinding, but it wasn't explained anywhere explicitly. I loved that library (still do, although I haven't been there in a while), but it wasn't really designed with patrons in mind.

Also great! "That's why I think we should fund libraries more. It's not just because they're a great resource, it's because I don't wanna know what librarians will do if we don't give them a place to go."

Ha! This also shows that I am a terrible cataloging/metadata librarian. 😂

Ha, I've also got some sports photos:

A photo of an orange and white cat licking a black and white cat on the side of his face next to a photo of Gillian Anderson licking David Duchovny's face. The poses are the same.

I grew up in Waterloo and moved away in 2006, and I do like that the CF flag hasn't changed at all since then, lol

I would bet most libraries have an online form they can fill out, but it's always just a good idea to ask the library how they prefer to get requests. FWIW, every library I've worked at has tried to buy as many patron requests as possible. 🙂

How libraries handle this probably varies too. We don't purchase Libby requests that come in this way because the language isn't clear and not all our users realize they're actually placing requests, but we do purchase anything that comes through our regular form (as long as we can get it).

photo of dark storm clouds moving in over a residential neighborhood

photo of dark storm clouds moving in over a residential neighborhood

photo showing the downpour after the storm moved in

Good morning from already flooded Milwaukee

Outlaws, Rebels, & Vixens - Film and Storytelling | Seed&Spark This is more than a film- it's a reckoning with forgotten history. In an era where debates over what should be seen, said, and shared are intensifying, VIXENS offers essential historical context. It's...

A friend of mine wrote a book about the history of film censorship in Milwaukee and it's being turned into a documentary! The filmmaker needs at least 250 people to follow the project at the link below to ensure it will be available streaming. Donating is great too if you can do so!

Milwaukee Public Library’s Wisconsin Concert Poster Collection is pretty punk Milwaukee Public Library's Timothy Rush talks about the Rare Books Room's collection of almost 200 gig posters.

One of my favorite digital collections! I created this back when I got to do this kind of thing, and almost a decade later, the local NPR station interviewed my former colleague about it.

I tested it in Primo Research Assistant, not surprising, I got similar results since Summon Research Assistant is sister product and both work the same by using LLM to generate Boolean search strategy. Gaza war shows no results. Tusla Race riots get a scary error message but does generate answer(1)

Terrific thread, with wonderful specific detail, about why historiography matters.

the kind of guy who has not been inside a library since the 90s

Photo of a cat sitting in front of a closed door. His mouth is open. The person taking the photo is standing next to him; their feet are in the shot.

Second day with this incredibly needy foster kitty. Here he is screaming at me as I try to leave the room. I love him.

A lesson in de-escalation from Archie: when your opponent is ready to attack and pops up to strike, just start making out with him.

What is common knowledge in your field but shocks outsiders?

Digital resources, particularly eBooks and audiobooks, are going to bankrupt libraries if something isn't done to halt the extortionary pricing models of publishers.