Kimberly Hirsh

🔖🍿 Read Greta Gerwig’s Barbie is a Fascinating, Spectacular Philosophical Experiment by Olivia Rutigliano (Literary Hub).

Well, I was already interested in seeing Barbie, but now that I know it’s about existential crises, I really want to see Barbie.

🔖📚 Read IN A WAVE OF GREEK MYTHOLOGY RETELLINGS, WHERE ARE THE GREEK WRITERS? by Lyndsie Manusos (Book Riot).

Lots of exciting recommendations in here.

So I’m on Bluesky. (If you’re seeing this on Bluesky, it’s thanks to Micro.blog cross-posting!) If they ever actually federate, I’ll follow folks on micro.blog. For now, I’ll just be checking in there whenever I remember to, which will probably be infrequently.

I recently listened to Katie Rose Guest Pryal on Camille Pagán’s podcast, You Should Write a Book, talking about how she found the throughline in her work and life. (Just listen to her articulate it on the podcast. I am afraid if I try to sum it up, I’ll get it wrong.)

At the time I listened to it, I was like, “I don’t know what mine is. Maybe I’ll never find it. Waaaah!”

But as I sat and let the idea marinate for a while, and I think I’ve figured it out.

I recently bought the above sticker and several other library-themed stickers, as well as a Read Free or Die t-shirt, from its creator.

One of the possibilities I was considering for after my postdoc was going back to being a school librarian. I don’t think that one’s going to pan out, but it did sort of launch me in the direction of identifying my throughline.

In May, several folks working on different grants funded by the Institute for Museum and Library Services, including myself, met and talked about what we’d learned from our work and what our capacity was for working on connected learning in libraries moving forward. All of the other academics indicated that they had to move on to other work, which might incorporate connected learning, but would not focus on it.

I found myself heartbroken.

This is what I want to work on. And nobody else, nobody with an institutional affiliation, was going to be able to work on it anymore?

Well.

Over the course of many weeks, I decided that I would still work on it. That I would find institutional partners who were willing to do a little bit of the work, so that I don’t have to have an institutional affiliation myself to get the work funded, but that I would be happy to do the bulk of the work so long as I could get a consultant’s fee for doing it. Enough to pay my student loans, mostly.

I’m in the process of refining this vision.

But the throughline, I’ve got that now.

Fine, it needs refinement, too, but here’s the basic idea:

My work builds libraries' capacity to facilitate learning and connect with their communities. The two modes I use to do this are research and professional development.

This describes so much of what I’ve done for the past 8 years. And more than that, it describes what I want to do going forward. It’s expansive enough for me to take on a variety of projects, and narrow enough that I can continue to establish my areas of expertise and grow my network.

What’s your throughline?

I should really stick with my watch-mostly-Star-Trek plan. 🖖🏻

I love how the Web works. I post that I want to read Jillian Hess’s book, How Romantics and Victorians Organized Information. Anna Havron reads it and blogs about personal information management. Tracy Durnell reads that post and writes about the value of taking notes. And then I read that and find a choice quote like this:

Like leisure need not be earned, neither must learning be driven by purpose or need.

Was too busy actually celebrating my 14th wedding anniversary yesterday to blog about it. A thoroughly Durham date: browsing & picking up orders at The Regulator and Hometown Apparel, breakfast anytime at Elmo’s, and dessert at Locopops.

💬📚 “Why is it that I must always worry about tomorrows?” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

💬📚 “Sometimes silence was the loudest thing of all.” T. J. Klune, The House in the Cerulean Sea

Finished reading: Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston 📚

Listened to the audiobook. Super adorable. Super hot. Super made me teary with it’s AU 2016 election that a woman won. Highly recommend.

Finished reading: Nimona by ND Stevenson 📚

Weird I waited so long to read it. A lot going on here and I’m always delighted by the way ND Stevenson’s art reminds me of Quentin Blake’s.

Finished reading: Ana María and The Fox by Liana De la Rosa 📚

🔖📓 Read Six Ways of Looking at Crip Time by Ellen Samuels (Disability Studied Quarterly).

🔖📚 Read Let the Kids Get Weird: The Adult Problem With Children’s Books by Janet Manley (Literary Hub).

It’s my birthday!

As I’m 42, I understand that according to Douglas Adams, I myself am the answer to life, the universe, and everything. (I am the one I’ve been waiting for all of my life.)

The person I wanted to be at 40 is the person I wanted to be at 41 is the person I want to be at 42:

1. I want to be a loving and mostly gentle mother.
2. I want to take care of my own body, including making clothes built to fit it.
3. I want to keep trying new things and growing as a self-employed person.
4. I want to be aware of my impact on the earth and do what I can to make it gentle.

Photo of my lovely husband W & myself in front of Ferris Bueller singing in the parade! Thanks to Retro Film Series!

I have a (relatively subdued thanks to new meds) migraine (3 hormone shifts a month cause these for me whee!). I also went and had 3 fillings all on the left side of my mouth. So my brain is not in its finest shape right now, which is why I sent 3 emails with factual errors.

Finished reading: The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna 📚

What a sweet, cozy cup of tea of a book. This one made me so happy. And for the first time in a while, I feel like writing a full review. Stay tuned.

Okay it’s not noon and my library’s collective daily borrow limit for Hoopla has been reached which… I feel like we must have a really low collective daily borrow limit.

💬📚 “It was always irksome when an idea went nowhere, but Mika knew by now that there would always be new ideas.” Sangu Mandanna, The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches

It’s my birthday Friday! I’m keeping Kimbertide low key this year. If you want to play along, watch Ferris Bueller’s Day Off or The Muppet Movie, play an arcade game, or eat some pizza.

Finished reading: Hana Khan Carries On by Uzma Jalaluddin 📚

Another sweet romance set in the Toronto Muslim community from Uzma Jalaluddin. This one has Shop Around the Corner/She Loves Me/You’ve Got Mail vibes. It includes a community dealing with racial hatred and coming through in a joyous way. Highly recommend.

🔖🎭📚 Read It’s Getting Hard to Stage a School Play Without Political Drama by Michael Paulson (NYT, gift link) via Book Riot’s Literary Activism newsletter.

When I was in Europe reading censorship news from the US, I kept thinking, “I just want to fight censorship and make theatre.” Turns out these two things are related.

I’m signed up for Threads. I’ll actually use it when it implements ActivityPub and/or is available in-browser.

Finished reading: You Made a Fool of Death with Your Beauty by Akwaeke Emezi 📚

I read this start-to-finish in about 8 hours. It’s a romance that illuminates grief and what can come after. It made me cry. It made me hungry. Highly recommend.