"Libraries to the People" Berman

First, I really loved the physical feel of this article, I loved that the title was hand-drawn, it was typed on a typewriter, there are hilariously placed cut-out art within the article, and the jarring language that Berman uses to wake us up. Besides the physical effect, though, Berman has some really good ideas in here and opinions that at the time would have been completely in line with the beliefs and hope of the radical leftist librarian generation. He pointed out that there is a serious lack of anything controversial in the periodical lists of most libraries, the most wild it gets being Ebony magazine. When he was listing off the real alternatives to the common periodical lists, I found myself wondering a) where the publications are now and b) where the editors of those magazines are now. I have to assume that a large number of the alternative upstarts have either gone extinct or simply petered out as their movements lost momentum. One point that we talked about in class is that the author is giving this vision of alternative lit that wasn’t true to the reality of the times-all these movements were not working together or presenting united fronts like he made it seem, and that excludes the other alternatives like radical right periodicals. I don’t think that it was inappropriate for him to present the alternative lit and the people who read them as somehow connected. The author of Gays in Library land said that those groups within the ALA, at least, were supportive and connected to each other and helped each other out in getting attention. So, I think he represents a time when people really did feel a strong connection between different movements and social groups that were developing, and there’s nothing wrong with him writing in a way that reflects his experience. Also, it is true, he does not include the other alternative lit that would have been radically right in his lists. But does he have to include them? If I were him, I would assume that someone else is already fighting for a radical right agenda and that they don’t need or want a “madassed” hippie writer like myself helping out their cause.