As a library worker, there’s something I want to say to you.
You do not have to apologize for the books you choose to read.
At all. To anyone. You owe nobody any explanations; you need no excuse or “good reason” to be reading the book.
You do not have to be ashamed for wanting to read “bad” books. You wanna read Twilight? We got Twilight. Need a banal, cookie-cutter-plot mystery or thriller?Those are always fun. Our regulars check them out by the towering stack. Ask Betty for recommendations; she’s read them all. 50 Shades of Oh Fucking No? We’ve got it, we even got it in large print. Have fun. Check out the rest of our porn too. Oh, and the sex manuals are a MUST if you want to “experiment” yourself. Don’t be afraid to ask; they’re here for a reason.
Want to read a book written by a huge asshole everyone hates and agree was a monster? Yeah, we have those. No, we don’t think you’re an asshole for wanting to know what was actually written in there, or judging things for yourself.
You are not too old for Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Babysitter’s Club, or Captain Underpants. You are not too young for Sherlock Holmes. There’s nothing wrong with a boy reading The Princess Academy or Sweet Valley High. There’s nothing wrong with a girl being into The Hardy Boys or Artemis Fowl instead.
You do not have to pull the shame face and offer me an excuse when you check out your books. I don’t care if I got so angry at that book I threw it against a wall when I read it: you have the right to read it, and enjoy it if it’s enjoyable for you. THAT’S WHY THE LIBRARY HAS IT IN THE FIRST PLACE. If we only stocked pure, unproblematic literature everyone approved of, by authors of unquestionable virtue, we wouldn’t have any books at all. Or music. Or movies. It would be utterly fucking boring. And it certainly wouldn’t be a library.
A website attempting to outline the boundaries of Indigenous ancestral territories in North America, and the world over, could become a valuable educational resource, says its self-described “settler” web developer.
Vancouver-based web freelancer Victor Temprano says his interactive mapping website Native-Land.ca is his “dearest” project. He’s logged thousands of hours developing it, and says he’s working to turn it into an Indigenous-led non-for-profit organization and educational tool.
“The site wasn’t built so Indigenous people know their territories better — they know them plenty well,” said Temprano, who described himself as a settler in Canada.
“A lot of settlers are not really aware of the situation with the land, and a lot of people are vaguely interested in it, but there aren’t many resources to explore it. I’m really happy to see that it’s becoming useful to Indigenous Peoples themselves.”
There’s not ONE reason in this Universe to defend this. NOT ONE. And yet I hear all the time “but the law” “the parents shouldn’t drag their children into this”, and so on and so forth. FOR FUCKING SHAME.
oxford was built and operational as a college before the rise of the mayans and cleopatra lived in a time nearer to pizza hut’s invention than to the pyramids being built
I need a noncomprehensive history book that covers Known World History in time periods, like “in this century, all this shit was happening concurrently” and not just all spread out so I have to piece it together like some unpaid uneducated scholar
Mongols were fighting Samurai in Japan and Knights in Europe at the same time.
Star Wars a New Hope came out the same year as the last execution in France by Guillotine.
Abraham Lincoln and Edgar Allen Poe were friends in their early 20′s.
When the Great Pyramids were being built there were areas that still had Woolly Mammoths roaming.
Harvard University didn’t teach calculus in its first few years after being established because calculus wasn’t invented yet.
Nintendo was founded two years after the Eiffel Tower was constructed
This is the book you want: The Timetables of History – going year by year (or in the earlier sections, at least century by century) and showing you what was going on in various parts of the world in several categories (e.g. Politics, Literature, Science, etc.) Super useful for visualizing what events were happening at the same time.
Steel Phoenix Studios 