Blog Archives

Latest Posts

Monthly

Categories

All Posts in Book Club

June 13, 2019 - Comments Off on LAAC Book Club No. 18

LAAC Book Club No. 18

7/10/2019, 6:30-8pm

Join us for our eighteenth reading and meeting of the LAAC Book Club--where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives, or in this case, libraries.

The group will meet on Wednesday, July 10, 2019, from 6:30-8 pm at Alcove Cafe (1929 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles 90027). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email hello@laacollective.org to reserve a spot.

This time we delve into local history with The Library Book by Susan Orlean.

On the morning of April 29, 1986, a fire alarm sounded in the Los Angeles Public Library. Raging through the stacks, the fire reached 2000 degrees and burned for more than seven hours. It was the largest library fire in the history of the United States: it destroyed four hundred thousand books and damaged seven hundred thousand more, and shut the library down for seven years. The mystery remains: did someone purposefully set fire to the library—and if so, who?

Orlean’s The Library Book is an encyclopedic study of the Los Angeles Public Library from its founding to the present, as well as a love letter to libraries in general. Sparked by the mystery of the great fire, the author explores pertinent questions facing the institution of the library broadly, such as how to best serve the public, and what the library can do for homeless patrons, immigrants, children, and those who want to learn to read.

Read an interview with Susan Orlean about the book here.

Let us know if you can’t get a copy of the book, we can help get you one.

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the book? Let us know!

July 3, 2018 - Comments Off on LAAC Book Club No. 17

LAAC Book Club No. 17

8/29/2018, 6:30-8pm

Join us for our seventeenth reading and meeting of the LAAC Book Club--where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives.

The group will meet on Wednesday, August 29, 2018, from 6:30-8 pm at Alcove Cafe (1929 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles 90027). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email hello@laacollective.org to reserve a spot.

We will be reading the book, Vivian Maier: A Photographer’s Life and Afterlife by Pamela Bannos.

Excerpt: The story of the Vivian Maier phenomenon has been told so many times that it can now be reduced to a few short phrases:

Her storage lockers went into arrears.
 A young man named John Maloof bought a box of her negatives.
 He googled her name and found that she had died a few days earlier.
 He discovered the woman known today as the mysterious nanny street photographer.

But rarely is a story as simple as the filtered- down version that results from multiple retellings. Each link in the chain of the Vivian Maier story branches to reveal a much more complex and nuanced saga. Our current lack of understanding of this woman and her passion for photography stems from oversimplifications of her emergence and packaged versions of the story. Ethical issues have largely been glossed over in favor of a heroic narrative that benefits the people who have been selling her work. We are told that they have saved Vivian Maier from oblivion and have allowed us to own pieces of her legacy.


Let us know if you can’t get a copy of the book, we can help get you one.

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the articles? Let us know!

Featured Image

March 9, 2018 - Comments Off on LAAC Book Club No. 16

LAAC Book Club No. 16

April 18, 6:30-8 pm

Join us for our sixteenth reading and meeting of the LAAC Book Club--where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives.

The group will meet on Wednesday, April 18, 2018, from 6:30-8 pm at Alcove Cafe (1929 Hillhurst Ave, Los Angeles 90027). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email hello@laacollective.org to reserve a spot.

We will be reading the book, Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Umoja Noble.

From NYU Press: In Algorithms of Oppression, Noble challenges the idea that search engines like Google offer an equal playing field for all forms of ideas, identities, and activities. Data discrimination is a real social problem; Noble argues that the combination of private interests in promoting certain sites, along with the monopoly status of a relatively small number of Internet search engines, leads to a biased set of search algorithms that privilege whiteness and discriminate against people of color, specifically women of color. 

Let us know if you can’t get a copy of the book, we can help get you one.

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the articles? Let us know!

October 18, 2017 - Comments Off on LAAC Book Club No. 15

LAAC Book Club No. 15

Join the LAAC Book Club for a meeting on Wednesday, November 29 from 6:30-8 pm on the back patio at Stories Books and Cafe in Echo Park (1716 Sunset Blvd, 90026). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email hello@laacollective.org to reserve a spot. 

 

We will be getting into the development of modern historiography by reading Dust: The Archive and Cultural History by British historian Carolyn Steedman, setting a backdrop for discussion of more recent efforts guiding inclusive historical interpretation and community archive practices with some postmodern theory and semiotics thrown in. Hope to see you there!

 

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the articles? Let us know!

August 8, 2017 - Comments Off on LAAC Book Club No. 14

LAAC Book Club No. 14

Join us for our next reading and meeting of the LAAC Book Club--where LA-area archivists and friends read and discuss publications exploring all matters archives.

The group will meet on Wednesday, Sept. 13, from 6:30-8 pm at The Faculty (707 N. Heliotrope Dr). Participants to the Book Club will be capped at 12. Please email hello@laacollective.org to reserve a spot.

We will continue our articles streak with A Labour of Love: The Affective Archives of Popular Music Culture, by Paul Long, Sarah Baker, Lauren Istvandity & Jez Collins, Archives and Records, 38:1, Spring 2017 and "Revolutionizing the Archival Record through Rap," by T-Kay Sangwand, Through the Archival Looking Glass: A Reader on Diversity and Inclusion, 2014.

Image: [Patron listening to a record in the Music Department at the Main Library], [n.d.], San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, San Francisco Public Library. Source: Calisphere.

You can access the “A Labour of Love” here and we will coordinate “Revolutionizing the Archival Record through Rap” after you RSVP.

Can’t make the meeting, but are still reading the articles? Let us know!