Friday, February 7, 2025

What We're Reading: Janurary 2025

Here are a few things to read to take your mind off the horrifying news cycle that we've all been caught up in since Trump took office and signed over 50 executive orders. We have a mix of practical advice (several articles around ridding yourself of unwanted clothing), two pieces of longform journalism dealing with the "loneliness epidemic," and a handful of pieces of reporting germane to our local area of the SF Bay. Enjoy! 
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Clothing Take-Back Law Targets Landfill Clutter 

Web link; SFPL database link

The Mercury News (San Jose), October 2, 2024

It's not quite time for spring cleaning, but the new year may have you thinking about what to do with old clothes that no longer fit or are just plain out of style. This article reports on new legislation signed into law by Governor Newsom that will require clothing retail stores to provide bins for unwanted clothes in all California counties by 2030. Before then, you can try the Take Back Bag from For Days, or you can sign up for the supplementary recycling service Ridwell, which picks up clothing and textiles in addition to items like batteries and lightbulbs. For a complete overview on what to do with unwanted clothes of varying qualities and how to prevent the problem going forward, check out the NYT's Wirecutter write-up from last year.

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The Anti-Social Century

The Atlantic, February 2025 

You've probably heard that the U.S. has a "loneliness epidemic" going at full tilt according to U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. The Atlantic follows the thread that Murthy started unspooling on the topic nearly two years ago. Indeed many of us experience acute loneliness during the holidays, ironically, so the topic is fresh in our seasonal awareness. Journalist Derek Thompson explores how and why our culture promotes the insularity of being alone with a screen rather than sharing space with living, breathing humans, and the resulting implications for society and the individual due to this degradation of humanity's oldest tradition of being social animals.

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How Far Would You Go To Make a Friend? 

New York Magazine, January 13, 2025 

Being completely in-tune with the topics on the tip of the tongue, NY Mag published a great companion piece that could act as an antidote to this loneliness epidemic the Atlantic is talking about. The piece zeros in on one entrepreneur's plans to create an anti-loneliness nonprofit called Belong Center. It's a fresh perspective (and possible solution) to a topic that's easy to talk about but more difficult to do anything about.

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A decade-old ladder, a half-dozen letters and the story of how an ‘American Nightmare’ kidnapper allegedly came to Contra Costa County

Web link; SFPL database link

The Mercury News (San Jose), January 9, 2025

Listen up true crime aficionados! Did you see the Netflix documentary "American Nightmare?" This article picks up where the doc left off--connecting the perp, Matthew Muller, to several other instances of breaking and entering, assault, and abduction, all having come to light because a Central California law enforcement officer began writing to the perp after watching the doc. On January 17, Muller plead guilty to an additional two home invasions in Santa Clara County. 

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A mystery photographer made stunning images of 1960s San Francisco. Clues point to a filmmaking legend

Web link; SFPL database link 

San Francisco Chronicle, January 16, 2025 

Fans of french film maker Agnès Varda will be pleased to learn she may be the photographer behind a cache of 1960s photographs documenting our City by the Bay. The Chronicle's culture critic Peter Hartlaub investigates from the source--a man named Bill Delzell is helping the latest owner of the collection figure out who was behind the lens. It seems as of February 7, the photographer's identity is still not confirmed, but Delzell has reached his funding goal and will be able to move forward with developing and digitizing the rest of the photos. 

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Boom on San Francisco Bay 

National Geographic, August 1956

This in-depth article and photo essay about 1950s San Francisco is like visiting with an old friend and seeing pictures of them as a young person. There are so many highlights, but perhaps the painter at the top of a Golden Gate Bridge tower is the most breathtaking of all. Thanks to the patron that asked the reference question that led us on a wild chase to this amazing article. 

Tuesday, January 14, 2025

Independent Voices Digital Collection Titles Now Appear in Periodical Finder

The Magazines and Newspapers Center is pleased to announce that the titles in Reveal Digital's Independent Voices digital collection are now part of our holdings in Periodical Finder. This not only helps SFPL users by streamlining access to these digitized titles, it highlights this amazing collection of historic alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals.

Screenshot of the sub-collections available on Independent Voices
Reveal Digital develops open primary source collections from under-represented 20th-century voices of dissent, crowdfunded by libraries.
 

Because this digital collection is open access, it is possible to go straight to the website on JSTOR's platform and read everything, regardless of whether you are in an SFPL location or have an SFPL library card. This is thanks to the early funders that donated money to Reveal to make the project a reality. There is no paywall with this collection of periodicals and there will never be.

However, the benefit of having the titles loaded into SFPL's Periodical Finder is that locally relevant independent and underground publications that info-seekers look to us to own can now be identified and accessed using SFPL's tools. 

Front page of the Dec 10, 1965 issue of the Berkeley Barb, in-part exploring the "Bobby Dylan Scene" of 1965. Perhaps the producers of the recent Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown consulted such a source.
 

Take for example the early underground newspaper to serve the civil rights, anti-war, and countercultural movements in the Sixties, the Berkeley Barb, which was published from 1965-1980. The Magazines and Newspapers Center has this publication available on microfilm in the Underground Newspapers Microfilm Collection, which shows up in Periodical Finder through the link "SFPL Print Collection." Previously, users would have to do their own separate legwork to locate the digital surrogates of the title in the Independent Voices digital collection. Now, that link is included in the same Periodical Finder result list as the link to the microfilm holdings.

Periodical Finder results for the Berkeley Barb, indicating access through the Reveal Digital collection and through the microfilm collection in SFPL's print holdings.

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Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.

- From the Independent Voices landing page on JSTOR

Here is a list of the subcollections included in the larger umbrella collection:

Let your interests guide you in exploring these enclaves of mind-blowing primary sources created at the epicenter of culture shifts. Sure, searching for a known title like the Berkeley Barb is an efficient way to get to Independent Voices, but there is much fun to be had by browsing. While you're at it, take a look at Reveal Digital's other digital collections, some of them still in-progress in their fundraising phase.

Tuesday, January 7, 2025

Speaker: Jonathan Mingle

Speaker: Jonathan Mingle

Climate Policy under a 2nd Trump Presidency
Tuesday, 1/21/2025
5:00 - 6:00 p.m.
 

The Trump campaign has signaled its plans to undo key federal environmental regulations and roll back Biden-era clean energy and climate policies. Journalist Jonathan Mingle will discuss his reporting on the first Trump administration's dramatic impacts on environmental policy, and on the fossil fuel industry and conservative groups that are now pushing a second Trump administration to go even farther in dismantling the administrative state. He will also discuss what these sweeping changes might portend for communities hit hardest by pollution and future climate change-driven weather disasters. Q&A to follow his remarks.

Jonathan Mingle is an independent journalist based in Vermont. His reporting and writing on the science and politics of climate change, the energy transition, health and technology has been featured in The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Yale Environment 360, Undark Magazine, Slate, and other outlets. He is a former Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism, a recipient of the Alicia Patterson Foundation Fellowship, and a graduate of UC Berkeley’s Energy and Resources Group. He is the author of two nonfiction books: Fire and Ice: Soot, Solidarity, and Survival on the Roof of the World (2015) and Gaslight: The Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the Fight for America's Energy Future (2024).

Connect with Jonathan

Website | Twitter

This program is organized by the library's Environmental Center and Government Information Center. See listing on the master event calendar.

Friday, December 27, 2024

What We're Reading: December 2024

For the last installment for the year of recommended articles from the staff at the Magazines and Newspapers Center, we have two articles from the blockbuster Christmas Day issue of the Los Angeles Times (which one librarian read in full at a California airport that day), as well as a couple fun articles, one investigating the secret language between plants and insects, and another that's a big old throwback to the hippie counter culture of the late 60s and early 70s. Enjoy and best wishes for the New Year! 

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Photo of an egptian cotton leafworm with the caption "Scientists wondered if the Egyptian cotton leafworm, which can hear the sounds produced by some plants, would use those sounds to decide where to lay eggs.Credit...Valter Jacinto, via Getty Images"

When They Hear Plants Crying, Moths Make a Decision

New York Times, December 6, 2024 

Insects, specifically a moth called the Egyptian cotton leafworm, are proven to use a secret language to understand messages from plants. This study shows that the moths heed the mournful clicking noise plants are known to make when in distress, and avoid laying their eggs on such plants. File this one under "more things humans don't know just because we can't hear some sounds." Reminder: you can get access to the New York Times several ways through SFPL.

Trump Starts to Walk Back Promises; After Casting Himself As a Problem Solver, the President-elect Is Throwing in Caveats

Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2024

Try not to do a big round of "told ya so" when reading this article. For those of us curious from a media studies perspective of how Trump has been covered in the news, this article is evidence of papers not doing enough before the election to show the doubtful side of Trump, perhaps, but delighting in exposing his rhetoric and claims now that the deal is done. Journalist Kevin Rector tracks specific promises made by Trump on the campaign trail that the president-elect is now walking back in order to "manage expectations." The piece explores the rhetorical moves utilized by Trump and puts them in historical context of past presidents' practice of elocution, while explaining why voters tend to believe Trump based on the promises he has made good on.

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Is Wells Fargo's move a bad sign for state? San Francisco bank's shift to leased offices may be the latest evidence of sector's drift from California.

Los Angeles Times, December 25, 2024 
 
With the safety of distance, the Times' Darmiento examines the history of the financial industry in San Francisco and what Wells Fargo's selling of its property at 420 Montgomery could signal for our downtown recovery. While the financial sector was an industry propping up white collar workers in the City alongside the boom and bust tech industry over the past 30 years, apparently that grandeur started fading away in the 1990s, and Wells Fargo, being helmed from New York City currently, could put the final stake in the coffin. In terms of the Los Angeles Times, the entire Christmas Day issue was captivating; we encourage you to check it out on ProQuest. 
 

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For What It's Worth

San Francisco Good Times, July 10, 1969

Early Greil Marcus offers a retrospective of Neil Young as the musician was transitioning from "old Neil Young" to a new chapter of joining Crosby, Stills and Nash. Marcus's landmark book Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock n Roll Music would come out 6 years later. Marcus wrote regularly for this counterculture newspaper published in San Francisco from 1969-1972. Now anyone in the world can delight in a total flashback to San Francisco 55 years ago by reading Good Times in Independent Voices from Reveal Digital, an open access collection hosted on the JSTOR platform. All the titles from the collection will now appear in Periodical Finder, scanned at high-resolution and full text searchable. If you crave feeling that brittle newsprint under the tips of your fingers, the San Francisco History Center has some issues of the paper in its collection as well.

Thursday, December 19, 2024

Presentation: The Photography of Moneta Sleet, Jr. from Ebony Magazine

 

Presentation: The Photography of Moneta Sleet, Jr. from Ebony Magazine

Friday, 1/17/2025
11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.
Virtual Library
Questions: mnc@sfpl.org

Delight in the life and photographic works of Moneta Sleet, Jr., staff photographer at Ebony magazine for over forty years.  

Jehoiada Calvin, Archivist at the Johnson Publishing Company (JPC) Archive, presents on the life and legacy of Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Moneta Sleet, Jr. (1926-1996). Starting in 1955, Sleet captured images of Black people in America and throughout the world for JPC magazines like Ebony and Jet and produced iconic images of the Civil Rights Movement, particularly of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1969 Sleet became the first Black person to win a Pulitzer Prize, which was awarded for his photograph of Coretta Scott King at her husband’s funeral. Jehoiada shares images from the Archive of Sleet's published and unpublished work while exploring how his photographs have impacted visual culture and politics today. 

headshot of Jehoiada CalvinJehoiada Calvin is a memory worker, writer, and zine-maker from Chicago. Jehoiada is the Archives Assistant for the Johnson Publishing Company Archive, helping to process the historic photograph collection for Ebony, Jet, and other magazines and programs. Jehoiada is a fellow in the University of Alabama’s Social Justice for Archivists Master of Library and Information Studies program, focusing on memory work that supports practices rooted in culture and politics outside of institutional archives. Read his writings about Sleet and the JPC photo archive at Sixty Inches from Center

Connect

Johnson Publishing Company Archive – Website  

Jehoiada Calvin – X/Twitter  

Ebony Magazine Digital Archive – Courtesy of SFPL

Jet Magazine Digital Archive – Courtesy of SFPL

Header image of Geoffrey Holder by Moneta Sleet, Jr. from the Johnson Publishing Company Archive. Courtesy J. Paul Getty Trust and Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture. Made possible by the Ford Foundation, J. Paul Getty Trust, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Smithsonian Institution.

 

Tuesday, December 17, 2024

New Resource: The Wall Street Journal Online (WSJ.COM)

 
SFPL now offers free three-day digital access to The Wall Street Journal (wsj.com).
The subscription includes the following features:
  • Unlimited articles on WSJ.com
  • Four-year archive/article search
  • e-Replica of that day’s paper
  • Onsite and remote access with SFPL card
  • More than 30 newsletters and alerts
  • Informative videos and podcasts, featuring interviews with WSJ editors and notable influencers
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You can find the WSJ access links on our eMagazines and eNews webpage as well, in addition to the traditional access option through ProQuest. Click Access eNews Collections to reveal the section that contains the all the access information for WSJ:

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Reminder: we also get three copies of the print newspaper delivered every day to the Magazines and Newspapers Center at the Main Library (5th floor), which we keep until we receive the microfilm of that date. Most SFPL branch libraries also get the WSJ paper delivered, and keep the most current 2 weeks. Check the catalog record to see if your local branch carries it.