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A
NOTHER year gone, and another few thousand words from Mediawatching Towers to enrich your lives.
So as the year draws to a close, it’s time to enjoy the final instalment of Mediawatching. And breaking with tradition at this time of year, we don’t take a look back at some of the biggest stories of the year. (Unfortunately, our archive of Mediawatching notes has been scrumpled up and thrown on the fire, so we have no way of knowing what happened in 2022). Instead, we plough on with the tried and tested method of regurgitating other people’s news (keep them coming for 2023). First off, we have the tale of ‘strange things left in a library book’, thanks to Ray Ward who submitted the piece from
Euronews.com (
https://bit.ly/3W1Sd5i). As we all know, anything vaguely flat will do as an impromptu placeholder when you can’t find your personalised monogram Louis Vuitton bookmark. Unfortunately for library staff, the choice of replacement is not always the most salubrious item and often these makeshift bookmarks end up back at the library. Mediawatching has previously reported on slices of bacon, socks and worse. However,
Euronews.com reports on Oakland Public Library worker Sharon McKellar’s collection of items forgotten between the pages of returned books, and she explains: “I wanted to share something that was really interesting to me that I had a feeling would be interesting to other people. It tells a story of our community and our city in a different and sort of unexpected way and ties back to the library.”
Bookmarks in the display include letters and children’s pictures but, so far, no food items.
December 2022
The preferred Bacon in your book.
Next, we head to 1940s New York and the story of Ronald Clark, who grew up living in New public library. Ronald narrates his own story, over the backdrop of an animation at Aeon (
https://bit.ly/3Y415ZT). Titled “Ronald grew up in a New York City library. It was as strange and wondrous as it sounds”, we hear how the young Ronald would wander the stacks and read long after the library had closed its doors to the public.
He describes living in the “temple of knowledge” after his father got the job of library custodian, saying: “If I had any question about anything, I would get up in the middle of the night go down, get out a book and read until three o’clock in the morning. I began to realise how great I had it, because the library gave me the thirst for learning and that has never left me.” Not only did Ronald become the first person in his family to graduate from high school, he also became the first to go to college – and eventually ended up as a university professor. The power of the library distilled into a three-minute video.
The Russian war against Ukraine has dominated news this year, and the plight of librarians working in the country has been highlighted by CILIP through various acts of support. In our next entry on the Mediawatching pages we turn to The Observer (
https://bit.ly/3uDQoj2), where Stephen Marche talks to “warrior librarians” working in Ukraine. Marche points out that modern wars are about more than firepower, writing: “The wars of this century are wars over meaning. As American forces learned in Iraq and Afghanistan, if you lose on the cultural front, military and economic dominance swiftly erode. “The terrible battles for Kyiv and Kharkiv, the destruction of Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure, Europe’s struggle to heat and feed itself this winter, spiralling inflation, the brutal material horrors of the struggle, might make any cultural reading of the conflict seem fantastical or glib. But at its core, and from its origin, this Ukrainian conflict has been a war over language and identity. And Ukraine’s libraries are the key.”
Finally for this year, it is worth remembering that even away from war, there are battles being fought by librarians everywhere. Vice (https://bit. ly/3VWz18Y) reports on a move by the attorney general in Louisiana, who launched an online form to enable “concerned citizens” to report their local librarian or library for stocking books they don’t agree with. (It’s the American right, so that largely means books that support the LGBTQ+ community). Attorney General Jeff Landry previously tried (and failed) to find library books that broke state laws, but is clearly not about to give up without at least one more attempt to criminalise library workers. Here’s hoping for more Ronald Clarks and fewer Jeff Landrys in 2023! IP
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