I Like The Video (especially The Puppies!), And I Can Definitely See Where They’re Going With Emulating

I'm continuing on with more monster poetry for National Poetry Month.  Sometimes you need to drag the terrible voices in your head out so you can really get to know them.  my therapist says make friends with your monsters by José Olivarez 

This explains the situation of e-books in libraries much better than I did.  It’s incredibly frustrating for librarians, most of whom just want to connect people with books!

It’s been an increasing source of frustration for many library users: waiting weeks, sometimes months to get to the top of the waiting list for a popular eBook or e-Audiobook.

Why does it take so long? After all, it’s not a physical object, it’s a digital file that lives in the “cloud”, why can’t multiple people access it simultaneously instead of only one at a time? Barring that, why doesn’t the library just buy more copies so that the waiting list is shorter? Getting people access to books and information is what libraries are all about, but the struggle for acquiring lendable e-content is very real, and it’s getting harder all the time. Why? What’s the big hairy deal? For that answer, you have to look to the “Big 5” Publishers, who are responsible for close to 80% of trade book sales. 

Publishers have been extremely wary about allowing library users virtual access to their books. After all, digital copies of books never wear out or have to be replaced, and are more vulnerable to unauthorized copying (“pirating”). Publshers were afraid if they allowed libraries access to their books digitally, they would be losing money. Individual publishers came up with their own sets of rules for libraries to access their e-content, and they have been tweaked many times since 2006.

In addition, the prices libraries must pay for ebooks and e-audiobooks is very high. Libraries must pay up to 4X the retail price for digital versions of books (which only one user can have access to at a time).  Meeting the library patron’s needs for downloadable content is a very expensive enterprise, indeed! Take a look at this comparison of the prices for various versions of the same book:

It becomes easy to see that acquiring ebooks for public use is a very expensive endeavor…

Read more on The Cheshire Library Blog.

Yet another thing where I can’t understand why it is controversial.  Yes, men can be raped.  Men can also be sexually harassed and sexually assaulted in other ways.

Just an experiment. Reblog if you actually give a fuck about male victims of domestic violence and rape.

Of fucking course

What sick bastard doesn’t

I think most of the people following me know me well enough to know that I’d be fine with questions, but I’ll reblog just in case.

I feel like a lot of people don’t want to ask questions they have about gender/sexuality to LGBT people because they don’t want to offend them because we talk about cishet people asking stupid or intrusive questions a lot

But actually when you’re questioning it’s really helpful to be able to ask some ‘stupid’ questions although you’re too afraid to

So can y'all LGBTQIA+ people reblog this if you’re totally fine with people asking questions about your gender/sexuality, as long as they do so respectfully

Pride dragons (part 1) -- SWOON!

The pride dragons are back for pride month again (now with more bc there was a few I didn’t get around to last year heck)!! Happy pride month everyone!!!!!!!!!

(Part 2) (Stickers available Here) (Last year’s posts: X X )

Wow!  This has expanded considerably since I saw it last.

“A house I pass on the way to work has this sculpture in its yard. Its about 8 feet tall.”

(Source)

This is an excellent set of explanations of many of the dangers of making abortion illegal.  If you don’t believe that these things will happen, take a look at the laws currently on the books, being written and shoved through conservative legislatures, and being proposed now.

It’s lovely to say that “mainstream pro-lifers” don’t support certain things.  However, the fact is that the people who are writing and preparing to enforce the laws do.  Or at least, they support using the “pro-life” movement to build their power and tear down other people.

Another thing everyone needs to remember is that the medical term for a miscarriage is a spontaneous abortion, and they will try to criminalize that, too.

As many as half of all pregnancies end in spontaneous abortion. Oftentimes the pregnant person does not know they have been pregnant.

I have been pregnant 13 times that i know of, and have required a D&C for a couple of them so I didn’t go septic and die. (Celiac disease causes spontaneous abortion in many people, and we didn’t know i had it, only that I miscarried a lot). I have had one live birth. One. The other 12, they’d like to make crimes.

So. You know. Been thinking about that a lot today.

The government does not have the right to force me to use my organs to save someone else's life.

in light of the texas abortion ban here’s a reminder to stop debating what counts as a human, baby, or life with pro-lifers because that is not a debate you can win. you can not win a philosophical debate about what counts as a person, and you will not change their minds.

what can be proven is that in no situation under united states law is an individual legally obligated to lend their body or organs for the sake of another life. 

4.5 million people each year are in need of blood transfusion, the entire process of donating blood takes a little over an hour, it’s free, and a single pint of blood can save up to 3 peoples lives, but there is no legal obligation or requirement to donate blood in place. 

it is illegal to take organs from deceased peoples’ bodies without permission. CORPSES. bodily integrity is prioritized by law, even after death.

it doesn’t fucking matter whether a fetus is a person, whether a fetus is alive, whether a fetus has a soul. it literally doesn’t matter. pro-lifers set up the argument through that lens (hence their name) to evoke empathy and pity and take the focus away from the actual process of pregnancy, which changes a person’s body FOREVER. that is not an exaggeration. whether the pregnancy is complicated and high-risk or totally smooth sailing, the birthing person will physically never be the same. if they’re lucky, they’ll come out of it with weight gain, differently shaped breasts, and changes to the cervix/vagina. if they aren’t, there’s a fucking laundry list of potential complications that could arise, that may eventually fix themselves, need surgical or therapeutic intervention, or never go away, like varicose veins, separation of the abdominal muscles, incontinence, prolapse, diabetes, postpartum depression, and chronic pain, just off the top of my head. and this makes no mention of the very real possibility of income disruption, as well as the financial cost of giving birth, and the chance of fucking death, which is even higher for underserved communities like black women.

there is no basis for a governing body forcing an individual to lend their body or organs for the sake of another life. that is the argument. period the end.

If your library doesn't have the diverse books you want and you're comfortable talking with (usually very friendly and helpful) people, you can also talk with someone on staff. In addition to the purchase recommendation form, they may have an agreement with other libraries to borrow the books from them for you. This helps two libraries! Your local library learns that more people want diverse books, so they are more likely to buy them in the future. The other library gets check-outs, so they know people are reading their diverse books.

If you don't have time to read, look for diverse audiobooks, CDs, and DVDs! If it's hard for you to get to the library, look at their website or call/email them. They may have pickup lockers in different areas of town or even a delivery service. They probably have eBooks, eAudiobooks, and/or streaming music and movies that you can check out from home.

Friendly reminder that if you talk about how representation is important and how there's not enough diverse media, I implore you to seek out the media that already exists. And if you live in an area with a public library, go to see if they're available at your public library. And then go check them out.

As a librarian, it is demoralizing to see how low the circulation statistics are on lgbt+ books and books by BIPOC authors. I include them in displays and readers advisory, but people still don't check them out as much. Libraries only have a finite amount of resources, including space. We don't get a book then keep it forever. If not enough people check it out, we have to get rid of it to make room for more books. And when James Patterson Book #69 gets checked out 30 times in one year and cool, subversive Sci fi novel with a Black trans woman main character has never been checked out once, the librarian (me) has to make a hard decision.

If you're looking for something tangible and easy to do this pride month, look for lgbt+ books (there are millions of lists online that you can find. It's easier than it's ever been to find diverse books) and check them out from your library.

No time to read? Look for a short story or poetry anthology and just read as much as you have time for. Or just check out a book cus it looks interesting and read as much as you can. We have movies too.

As cool as it would be for me to just keep the books I want and get rid of the ones I don't, I have to listen to the community on matters of collection development. And the community tells me what books they want by checking them out and leaving the ones they don't want on the shelf.

If you think this doesn't apply to you because you live in a progressive area and obviously the books are being checked out, you're wrong. I once worked in a community with a large lgbt population. Those books were not getting checked out. If you want to tell me you live in a conservative area and your library doesn't have any diverse books, you are legally obligated to check the catalog before replying to this post. I currently work in a conservative community and we have lgbt+ and bipoc books. And if you still cannot find any, you are legally obligated to see if your library has a collection request form that patrons can fill out before replying to this post.

That looks good to me!  I’d add petting the cat and playing on the computer, but otherwise, I think this is about my ideal day.

If you’re an introvert, follow us @introvertunites​