The Read/Writer

The Read/Write Library is a new model for open, location-specific archiving of independent and small press media. We are always seeking books, magazines, zines, journals, broadsides, newspapers, and art books of all types, genres, and print runs from the Chicago area. Find out more about us at readwritelibrary.org

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A Surprise Book Donation from Sandra Cisneros

Since The Reader feature came out, we've had a surge in new submissions and they're all spectacular. (Want to see new arrivals? Follow us on Instagram! Want to submit yourself? Go for it!) But one package stood out — it was big, heavy and came all the way from Texas. The feature mentioned that we didn't have a copy of The House On Mango Street, so Ms. Cisneros graciously corrected that — and then some. It's an honor to have these books available for the public in both English and Spanish-language editions, just a few blocks from Humboldt Park's real "Mango Street."

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Introducing ‘Hungry for Stories: A Chicago Book Club’

“People are hungry for stories. It's part of our very being. Storytelling is a form of history, of immortality too. It goes from one generation to another.” - Studs Terkel

It doesn’t get any more Chicago than Studs — or does it? Building on the tradition of the “Chicago voice,” Hungry for Stories is a book club that seeks to update the perspectives that frame Chicago’s narratives and explore what stories we value as a city.

Early bird subscriptions are on sale for a discount through October 31st and the first book, Zoe Zolbrod’s “The Telling” will begin shipping out to subscribers in late December. Our slate of chapbooks, short stories, comics, art books and more for each month of 2017 spans neighborhoods, generations and genres and is available by mail or locally for in-person discussions.

Book club discussions will take place at Read/Write Library monthly beginning in January (when the fireplace will be in full bloom). We hope that as this program grows, we can introduce locations across Chicago as book club sites to expand the geographic reach (and convenience) for our subscribers.

The best way to help ‘Hungry for Stories’ grow is to purchase a subscription upfront, but you’ll also have the option to pay monthly. The first 20 subscribers to purchase a 12-month upfront subscription by mail will receive a special Welcome Kit, and ALL local 12-month upfront subscribers will receive one.

Learn more and subscribe to Hungry for Stories book club here

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Read/Write Library Chicago has had tons of inquiries into replicating our model over the years, even hosting the National Library of Singapore in our tiny 600 sq ft space. We’re super excited to propose a package of open source software and complementary IRL toolkits to help libraries of any scale implement this model in their own community for this year’s Knight Libraries Challenge. Check it out, and share any comments, questions, or support in the comments on the page. Thanks!

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Where We’ve Been + The Next 10 Years

A lot of people have heard me tell the story of Chicago Underground Library’s creation — an invite for coffee to see if this could be a viable idea snowballed into 40 people, most of whom I’d never met, trekking through a Chicago winter to seed the collection and sign on to bring it to life. That was in the tundra of February 2006.

Despite having to move almost every year for the first six years, we somehow managed to keep the plates spinning and keep the collection open to the public. Even when we were knocked out by an actual blizzard in 2011, that was an opportunity to begin our Pop Up Libraries in earnest, an experiment that is now a core part of our programs. Later that year, we settled into our home in Humboldt Park and changed our name to Read/Write Library to better reflect the spirit and intention of the broad collection we were developing. It wasn’t just about the underground, it was about breaking down the binary between professional and community media and acknowledging that all creators play a role in shaping their city’s culture.

I was proud of our resourcefulness, the incredible commitment and support that our volunteers had for the library and for one another, and that it seemed we’d found a way around top-down nonprofit models. We had designed a system of experimentation, creation, and shared governance that allowed anyone to participate and have a hand in determining what the organization would become. And have fun while doing it. I had always rooted the Library in open source and DIY principles with a focus on creating programs that could be replicated by communities with any scale of resources, so it made sense to me that we should live by those principles ourselves. In fact, one of the things that I remain most proud of is becoming a place where volunteers, especially recent library grads, could learn and develop their skills and confidence while making real impact, leading to dozens of jobs over the years even though that was never a formal intention for us.

A couple of years back, a very wise person tried to warn me that we were setting ourselves up to hit a wall. At the time, we’d probably just overcome Surreal Unexpected Disaster #317 (you’ll find most of them in the index under “B” for “bus accidents,” “blizzards,” “bike thefts,” “bleeding walls,” and “bacteria, flesh eating”) so I figured that we could tackle pretty much anything. After all, I and most of our core volunteers had already been working full time while managing the library; we had training systems in place for new volunteers; we had structure; we had new programs we were developing and presenting at conferences all over. Not only did the new model seem to be working, other people were interested in trying it, too.

In May 2013, I bought a building that I thought was going to free me up to work fewer hours so that I could concentrate on the Library. Instead, it ate my life for two years. Even then, our amazing volunteer community picked up my slack and put together some of the best programs we’d ever run in the form of our Self-Preservation workshops and they got the Bibliotreka on the road to further our outreach. When the Bibliotreka was stolen in August 2013, I was still months away from moving into my building where the walls were literally crumbling. A year, three new walls, and nonstop 90-hour workweeks to cover the costs later, things were finally starting to stabilize for me — right when most of the core volunteers who’d kept everything running were also headed for huge life changes like moving across the country or starting families.

The model that we built could handle losing and then recruiting and training maybe one or two new staff members at a time, but when it broke, it broke fast. We’d been warned. Already on the threshold of burnout, I was at a loss for how to proceed. 

Until a couple of months ago, I wasn’t sure where we were going, or if we should still keep trying. Writing this now, the last year of uncertainty feels like a blip on the timeline of what we’ve all created, but while I was in it, it was a pretty dark blip. Cataloging manager Pat kept the doors open and the volunteer emails going; it was his faith in the Library and reassurance from so many others who I’ve spoken to in the last year that helped get me back on track. It was also being invited into the Creative Community Fellows program with National Arts Strategies, where I’m finally starting to embrace and learn how to navigate those traditional nonprofit models I’d thought we could circumvent.

In the next few months, we’ll be launching our largest Pop Up Library to date, Rewritable Wicker Park, and gearing up for our 10-year anniversary Stacks! celebration in February. We’re also restructuring with a new governing board while our current working groups will be transitioning into advisory boards. The community model we’ve built will still have a role in making advisory recommendations to the governing board and executive director — whether that’s still me in a year is a decision that will be left up to the new board.

I’ve been aware of Founder’s Syndrome since early on; the concept that one can get in the way of their organization more than help it by refusing to allow change. I’m excited to be leading the necessary changes we’re going through now, and excited to see where they take us, wherever that may be. The goal is to work toward paid staff that can support not only the delivery of our programs on a more consistent basis, but to still develop those programs and our catalog into open source tools and toolkits that can be used by others. We’re still committed to our ideals, but more realistic about what it will take to accomplish them well. And less willing to put all of our health and time and well-being on the line if there’s a better way that could actually lead to fulfilling work for the kinds of brilliant people who come to us out of MLIS school looking for a foot in the door.

We’re proud of all of the experiments we’ve done over the years and the small ways that we may have helped people rethink the role of community media in their lives and in their libraries. Thank you for your encouragement, support, patience, and advice as we try to grow in an ethical way that is true to our own community. — Nell Taylor, Executive Director, Read/Write Library

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Shelf-Reading: Images of America: Chicago Heights

“Shelf-Reading” is an ongoing series where we feature various items in the Read/Write Library’s collection of location-specific, independent, and small press media.

In 1833, the same year two hundred settlers organized the town of Chicago, another nucleus of settlers began gathering about thirty miles south. Their community grew into a miniature, parallel version of its northern neighbor: a Rust Belt boomtown with its own Louis Sullivan architecture and the nickname "Crossroads of America."

Images of America: Chicago Heights tells this story in photographs. Originally it was a farming village in southeastern Cook County called Thorn Grove, and then Bloom. The town took its third and final name in 1892 at the behest of some local real estate magnates, who called themselves the Chicago Heights Land Association. (Trivia: the association president was Chicago businessman Charles Wacker, who lent his surname to the Loop's Wacker Drive.) 

Thanks to the association's aggressive development incentives, "the Heights" evolved into a city on the make, an important manufacturing center for two world wars and a choice destination for immigrants. The location was prime, featuring the best railroad shipping facilities in the country and the junction of the intercontinental Lincoln and Dixie Highways (hence "Crossroads of America").

Chicago Heights acquired appropriate ornaments for its prosperity: a columned Andrew Carnegie library; an elegant art deco high-school building that is now a national landmark; a lavish movie palace; and the Louis Sullivan-designed Victoria Hotel, originally built to house overflow crowds from the 1892 Columbian Exposition. Chicago Heights suffered after heavy industry declined, but remains a pillar of the greater South Side.

Area preservationists curated the photos for the 1998 Images of America book. Subjects include railroad depots, old-time butcher shops, diverse and lively neighborhoods, the 1960 visit of Eleanor Roosevelt, horse-drawn fire engines, and...wakes and funerals. (A century ago, it was customary in the local Italian community to take pictures of the deceased and send them to relatives back in Europe.)

The co-authors are Dominic Candeloro and Barbara Paul. Candeloro, a historian who taught at Governors State University in south suburban University Park and worked in the Chicago Heights mayor's office, is now the library curator for Chicago's Casa Italia. Paul was the director of the Chicago Heights Public Library for forty years until her retirement in 2007. She died in 2009.

Chicago Heights is one of several local history books in the Read/Write collection from Arcadia Publishing's Images of America series. According to the back cover, the series "celebrates the history of neighborhoods, towns, and cities across the country. Using archival photographs, each title presents the distinctive stories from the past that shape the character of the community today."

--Justin Sengstock

[Justin Sengstock is a Read/Write Library cataloger and blog editor. In his non-RWL life, he is a south suburban writer focusing on social justice and religion. Justin’s writing has appeared in the books Hungering and Thirsting for Justice and An Irrepressible Hope, both published by Chicago-based ACTA in 2012. Justin is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago.]

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It is an accepted biological fact that a growing organism alone will survive. An organism which ceases to grow will petrify and perish. The Fifth Law invites our attention to the fact that the library, as an institution, has all the attributes of a growing organism. A growing organism takes in new matter, casts off old matter, changes in size and takes new shapes and forms.”

-Ranganathan (1931). (via jamiebrarian)

"...takes new shapes and forms": part of the Read/Write Library mission.

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Our cheerful new hand-painted sign, which we hope to hang up very soon, sitting on the mantle of our cozy electric fireplace, which we hope not to need very soon.

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#TBT: Miracles in self-publishing: James Conroyd Martin

[For Throwback Thursday, we dug up this post from our original Chicago Underground Library blog, where it first appeared on November 6, 2010. It's the compelling story of a Chicago novelist who gambled with self-publishing...and won. Maybe you will be inspired, too. --Ed.]

North Side resident James Conroyd Martin wanted to write for film. He fell backwards into writing successful historical novels about Poland. He wasn’t even Polish.

And self-publishing, in some ways the path of most resistance, was his unlikely point of entry.

The Irish-Norwegian Martin was studying screenwriting in L.A. in the 1970s when a friend showed him something he thought he might be interested in. It was the colorful, occasionally scandalous diary of the friend’s ancestor, a Polish countess.

He had to do something, but what? At first, Martin considered publishing the diary as-is. But by the time he returned to his native Chicagoland as an English teacher, he was reworking it into a novel.

It went through a multitude of drafts and three agents, but nobody wanted historical fiction. Martin got a foothold with a small publisher in Wisconsin, but the house eventually backed out.

So at the turn of the millennium, and after two decades of writing and waiting, he took his product, Push Not the River, and decided to go it alone.

Martin, now in his twenty-eighth year at Marian Catholic High School in south suburban Chicago Heights, says his motivation was basic. “I had to get it off my back. My mother was the only one to read it.”

At the recommendation of his mentor, sci-fi novelist Piers Anthony, Martin looked into Bloomington, Indiana-based Xlibris. It was one of the first print-on-demand publishers.

Before then, a typical press would make self-published authors purchase an initial “print run” of perhaps $5,000 worth of merchandise. The unwary or unlucky ended up with garages full of books they couldn’t move.

Xlibris, on the other hand, capitalized on new digital technology and only printed individual copies of a book when a customer ordered them (literally “print on demand”). The result was a relatively low starting fee (Martin remembers $300 for a paperback contract and $500 for both paperback and hardback), great for authors with uncertain prospects. Xlibris also innovated by helping with book construction: covers, layouts, and the rest.

Martin went with Xlibris, which released the book in January 2001, but remained ambitious for Push Not the River to get picked up by a major house. By now, though, he realized what publishers told him was a liability was really an asset.

“I was lucky enough to have a niche market,” Martin said. “I would go to Polish clubs, Polish fests.”

He subscribed to a slew of Polish-American publications, finding leads to events where he could table and mingle. He did fliers and mailings. He sold books out of the trunk of his car.

And the ball began to roll. “The word of mouth was tremendous from the first day,” Martin reflected.

At his first book signing, two of his customers were his illustrator and the head of the local Polish Falcons. Both called back with effusive praise in less than three days. “They were just amazed that I’m not Polish,” Martin said. He started getting a lot more feedback like that.

Martin negotiated with area bookstores, including Barbara’s Bookstore and a couple of Borders outlets. They took copies of Push Not the River on consignment. By early 2002, he had sold 2,500 copies.

Now Martin made a grab at the next rung up. He created a profile at Publishersmarketplace.com, a paid social networking website for editors, agents, and writers. There, Martin described his initial success and promoted Push Not the River as “Poland’s Gone With the Wind.”

Martin snagged a reply from a senior editor at Random House. But Martin’s agent, who knew better which publishers would be truly receptive, suggested St. Martin’s Press.

A month later, St. Martin’s bought Push Not the River, releasing it in 2003 and requesting a sequel. The sequel, Against a Crimson Sky, was published in 2006. Polish-language editions of both books were runaway bestsellers.

Push Not the River was also optioned for a screenplay, and though the option expired, Martin says he still communicates with interested parties. Right now, he is working on a final installment in the Polish series, tentatively entitled The Warsaw Conspiracy.

Although self-publishing made Martin a success, he counsels caution. “Don’t self-publish unless you have to,” he said. There are procedural pitfalls, like bad editing, much more common with print-on-demand publishers than traditional ones.

More importantly, unscrupulous parties hover around newbie writers, especially agents who charge you for representation before getting a publishing contract. “When they sell you, then they get their share.”

Above all, Martin believes too many people try to get published before they have a product. He spent years participating in writers’ groups and mastering his genre. “Hone your craft. Read lots. Write lots.”

That’s a lot of cautionary advice, but encouraging nonetheless. After all, it comes from a guy who went from working Polish fests to dabbling in Hollywood.

You can go to James Conroyd Martin’s website for more info on purchasing Push Not the River and Against a Crimson Sky. [Update: the conclusion of Martin's Poland trilogy, The Warsaw Conspiracy, has since been published. His site has info on purchasing that book as well. --Ed.]

--Justin Sengstock

[Justin Sengstock is a Read/Write Library cataloger and blog editor. In his non-RWL life, he is a south suburban writer focusing on social justice and religion. Justin’s writing has appeared in the books Hungering and Thirsting for Justice and An Irrepressible Hope, both published by Chicago-based ACTA in 2012. Justin is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago.]

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Three cheers to the long-awaited new BiblioTreka! It made its debut last night at the monthly volunteer meeting.

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Read/Write Library seeks blog contributors!

Imagine yourself in this space as a Read/Write blogger. Go on, imagine! We believe in you.

You could do a one-time guest post. Or your contributions could be regular and ongoing: once a week, once a month, etc.

Topics and formats are pretty open. Pieces we've published in the past include:

--"Shelf-Reading" (short introductions to snazzy items in our collection)

--"From the Stacks" (longer reviews of especially unique or important items)

--Photo-blogging (subjects have included our own library space, which has some really neat stuff ranging from eyeglass-wearing skulls to origami, but could be anything that's photogenic and Chicago-centric)

--Reports on library events, projects, activities, and partnerships

--Anything of relevance to Chicagoland's shared cultural memory: arts initiatives, community organizations, youth and adult literacy, small publishers and self-publishing, amplifying underrepresented voices

Does any of this sound like what you're into? Do you want to try your writing or photography chops? Drop a line to our blog editor Justin at [email protected].

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ALA NMRT can help you find a job and succeed in your career

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By Holly Boyer, Senior Editor, INALJ

The American Library Association New Members Round Table wants you to succeed. They want you to be successful so much, they’re willing, able, and really excited to help you along the way. How, you ask? By offering a variety of services and opportunities.

Helpful info for current and aspiring library professionals in the Read/Write community. More at the link. Via ALA.

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Read/Write proudly collects and preserves media relating to Chicago's rich history of community activism and social justice movements. To peruse our collection, stop by during our open hours. To donate an item, please drop a line to [email protected].

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Shelf-Reading: Straight talk

“Shelf-Reading” is an ongoing series where we feature various items in the Read/Write Library’s collection of location-specific, independent, and small press media.

It's a mini-zine. It measures about 2 x 4 inches. It consists entirely of dictionary entries, fourteen of them, one per page in plain text. The presentation is understated and deadpan. And it packs a considerable punch.

Straight Talk, by H. Melt, is a poetic dictionary that ponders the social identity of straightness. It offers and defines, without commentary, a series of English expressions that use the word "straight." The implications of these expressions then speak for themselves.

The selection suggests that "straight" is shorthand for much of what society considers good, admirable, and efficient. (See "straight forward," "straight shooter," "straight away," or "straight and narrow.") At the same time, "straight" imposes confinement and restriction. (As in "straight laced," "straight jacket," or a "straight face" that "shows no emotion, especially no amusement.") Meanwhile, "straight" can also be violent ("straight razor" = "cut-throat"), especially toward those who step out of line (to "straight arm" someone).

H. Melt is a poet and artist who documents Chicago's queer and trans communities. The Read/Write collection contains several of their works, including the autobiographical volume SIRvival in the Second City: Transqueer Chicago Poems, and the first issue of Second to None: Queer and Trans Chicago Voices, a curated collection of nonfiction pieces by various authors.

--Justin Sengstock

[Justin Sengstock is a Read/Write Library cataloger and blog editor. In his non-RWL life, he is a south suburban writer focusing on social justice and religion. Justin’s writing has appeared in the books Hungering and Thirsting for Justice and An Irrepressible Hope, both published by Chicago-based ACTA in 2012. Justin is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago.]

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Our friendly RWL library mascot says: "Happy Monday!" Drop by to return the greeting during our open hours (Tues 6-9pm, Fri-Sat-Sun 1-5pm).

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Looks like Read/Write isn't the only library to do books-on-a-bike! RWL has the BiblioTreka, and the Boston Public Library has the Bibliocycle: "...Features of the program include library card sign-up, book checkout, demonstrations of Boston Public Library’s digital resources, and help with reference questions. “'This initiative gives the library the opportunity to expand our reach and to connect with communities throughout the city. Through efforts like the Bibliocycle, Boston Public Library team members can meet people where they already are, which is out and about in the neighborhoods,' said Katrina Morse, program organizer and generalist librarian at the Grove Hall Branch. 'Some of these residents may not otherwise visit a library location in their neighborhood, and that is who we would like to connect with the most.'" Check out the link for more.

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#TBT: Muldoon, more than just a Chicago ghost story

[For Throwback Thursday--because RWL is all about media preservation!--we're republishing this book review. We originally posted it to our old blog on July 5, 2010, as part of the Printers’ Ball 2010 Blog-Down. You can still find Muldoon: A True Chicago Ghost Story on our shelves today! –Ed.]

When Rocco Facchini was ordained a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1956, he was charged to uphold the teachings of the Catholic Church. According to those teachings, ghosts don’t exist.

But then, Facchini hadn’t lived at St. Charles Borromeo, yet.

His first job was associate pastor of St. Charles, a Near Southwest Side parish. There, Facchini watched mysteriously blinking lights and listened to inexplicably shrieking radios. Sonic booms jolted him and a fellow associate out of their beds late one night.

And then there were the guests who wanted to know who that nice old priest was who sat in a back parlor, near the bathroom, smiling cheerily as they went in to do their business, and then disappearing.

It bore the imprint of the Right Reverend Peter James Muldoon, builder of St. Charles, and first bishop of Rockford, Illinois. Life took him far from his old parish, but his death thirty years ago must have brought him back. That was exactly when the weirdness started.

So who was Muldoon? What accounts did he have to settle? Facchini spent 40 years—even after leaving the priesthood—observing, researching, and talking with anyone who knew anything. Finally, with the help of his family, he wrote it all down, and Muldoon: A True Chicago Ghost Story is their product.

Facchini was a stone-cold believer in the ghost. He argued that Muldoon had reason to be agitated: a stalled career and a neglected parish.

Muldoon, son of Irish immigrants, was born in 1862 and ordained in 1886. Within two years, he was secretary to Chicago Archbishop Patrick Feehan and archdiocesan chancellor—an explosive rise.

In 1895, Muldoon became pastor of St. Charles Borromeo, and this without giving up his other jobs. He loved his flock, and they him. He tore down the makeshift church at Roosevelt and Hoyne, replacing it with a towering neo-Gothic monolith. In 1901, Archbishop Feehan asked the pope to make Muldoon his auxiliary bishop.

Then the gates of hell swung open.

Feehan offended many of his clannish, Irish-born clergy by choosing an American-born “narrow-back.” About thirty of them formed a coalition, protesting Muldoon and nominating one of their own. Then they smeared Muldoon in front of everybody they could find: Feehan, Vatican diplomats, newspaper reporters.

Muldoon survived the immediate scandal and became auxiliary bishop, but lived under a cloud for the rest of his life. He was archbishop and cardinal material, but never rose higher than bishop of Rockford, then still the hinterlands. And once in Rockford, he was effectively exiled from the only place he really called home: his masterpiece, St. Charles. Facchini suggests it must have gnawed at him. Probably it did.

Muldoon died in Rockford in late 1927 at the age of 64. Groaning and banging noises began at St. Charles Borromeo almost immediately.

Facchini writes that Muldoon’s ghost must have wanted to clear his name, but probably cared especially about his church. Paranormal activity was at fever pitch when Facchini was there, a period coinciding with the tenure of “Pastor Kane.” Kane had no interest in St. Charles, only in his dog, bingo proceeds, “spending quality time” with his housekeeper, and running a bogus but profitable shrine out of the basement. Only ten or fifteen people showed up at each Mass, devastating for a church that seated more than a thousand, but Kane remained impassive.

Facchini believed Muldoon was warning that St. Charles would close unless Kane shaped up or shipped out. Kane eventually left, but in 1969, the archdiocese bulldozed Muldoon’s magnum opus, which is now a parking garage. No word on whether Muldoon strolls through the parking garage.

But in any case, the rich background makes Muldoon more than typical Halloween drivel. It explores the roots of Chicago Catholicism, from the time of explorers Marquette and Jolliet to the Great Chicago Fire. It is a story of great achievement: how Muldoon helped his superiors build the devastated, post-fire Catholic community into one of the most powerful in the world.

Above all, this is the story of the St. Charles Borromeo that Rocco Facchini knew. Facchini writes sensitively about Muldoon because they shared not only a parish, but similar priorities. The neighborhood, called “the Valley,” was by the 1950s an imploding hovel. Kane ignored the poor, which scandalized Facchini. And Muldoon, who spent much of his career organizing charitable efforts, would have loathed Kane.

But Facchini’s St. Charles did have good priests, especially Father Bill Schumacher, a brilliant scholar who was equally at home cleaning up the urine of a homeless man or wielding a revolver to protect the bingo dollars. Facchini dedicated Muldoon to him.

Characters are drawn simply but vividly—even those who appear briefly, like Facchini’s archbishop, Samuel Cardinal Stritch. Facchini relates the rumor that Stritch assigned new priests to their first parishes by hurling darts at a map.

“I don’t know if I can muster enough words to captivate a reader,” Facchini fretted. No worries—you did fine.

– Justin Sengstock

[Justin Sengstock is a Read/Write Library cataloger and blog editor. In his non-RWL life, he is a south suburban writer focusing on social justice and religion. Justin’s pieces have appeared in the books Hungering and Thirsting for Justice and An Irrepressible Hope, both published by Chicago-based ACTA in 2012. Justin is a graduate of Loyola University Chicago.]

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Best Organization to Put its Pedal to the Mettle

Hey look! The Reader gave us a Best of Chicago designation for 2014! They named us Best Organization to Put its Pedal to the Mettle, in turn creating the Best Bibliotreka Pun Ever. Look out for our pop up library on wheels this summer and send us a message if you'd like to see the Bibliotreka at your next Chicago event.