https://guides.tricolib.brynmawr.edu/sss-internship

Student Participants:

Sofia Azuara, Piper Farmer, Charlotte Oehley, Hemani Sharma, Esther Rosi-Kessel, Madi Zoernack

LITS Staff Leaders:

Joyce Angelucci, Gillian Baillie, Kate Blinn, Berry Chamness, Jennifer Coval, Amy Graham, Sharin Lefevre, Camilla MacKay, Laura Surtees, Arleen Zimmerle

Thanks to:

Bookstores

The Bookshop at Bryn Mawr College (Jim Huang)

Uncle Bobbie's Coffee & Books (Justin Moore)

Philly AIDS Thrift @ Giovanni's Room (Christopher Cirillo)

Barnes & Noble Philadelphia (Lynn Rosen)

Ludington Library, Bryn Mawr (Laurent Mondon, Andrew Pelberg)

Allison Saltzman, Ecco (Harper Collins)

I was seeking to include more nature nonfiction throughout the collection, and this book stood out to me because of the deftness with which keim intertwines nature, grappling with their family history of settlement, and a deep appreciation for and understanding of the environment even in a world that feels like it is collapsing.

The author, Alisa Alering, is from Appalachian Pennsylvania, and the publisher, Tin House, is independent—both things I sought to include in my choices to add more rural and indie voices to Quita's Corner. In addition, I was drawn in by the plot and the subtle, atmospheric gothic fantasy—and the comparison many reviewers made to Shirley Jackson.

I was shocked to find that there were so few books of this genre in the Quita's collection, so I chose We'll Prescribe You a Cat to get this genre started. This book is heartwarming, funny, healing, and the perfect thing to read at the end of a long day. As a series of interrelated stories, the book is also easy to read between a busy class schedule. Though a translated Japanese cat book is much lighter than many of my other picks this week, these kinds of light and healing books are important, too, especially in the times we live in now.

As one of two of my non-fiction books, Otero's memoir stands out amongst my choices. When I began the internship, I came in with the idea of centering my library picks around literary, domestic fiction. As we moved from bookstore to bookstore, I found myself drawn to historical narratives. While at Giovanni's Room, I began almost circling the memoir as I roamed around the fiction shelves. I had to pick it up!

While there, we explored the differences between B&N and indie bookstores, which Lynn talked discussed with us. We also compared their wide range of books to the experience at Uncle Bobbie's and Giovanni's Room. Having had just returned from study abroad in the UK, it was striking to me how much the new Center City store resembles a Waterstones, and what that might mean for the company's future as B&N experiences a resurgence throughout the US.

I selected this book because I wanted to feature more Spanish language options in the library. I also find that poetry and short story books are easier for students (including myself) to read during the academic year. I can't always bring myself to read a full novel while I'm doing so much reading for my classes, but a shorter poetry book or collection of short stories feels more accessible.

Poems from several of Pessoa's heteronyms are contained within this volume. Alberto Caeiro, for example, was a young man suffering from unrequited love who died young of tuberculosis. Another is Alvaro de Campos, a naval engineer who is in love with the beauty of machinery and cities. Pessoa's own voice is portrayed here, too.

I chose this book because I am in love with Pessoa's work, especially The Book of Disquiet. I would recommend Pessoa's work to anyone, as it is incredibly reflective and existential, portraying a deeply phenomenological account of what it means to exist as a human being.

As someone who is interested in books written in lyric (or lyrical prose), I was drawn to this book written by a poet. With family at the center of this novel, complicated by political setting, coupled with the push and pull of adolescence, this book grappled me and wouldn't let me go!

A lyrical novel described as, a “diasporic coming of age story that questions how our historical memory shapes our political and emotional present” which called to me especially as the nation sits in the current moment.

I chose this book because it offers a reflection on Afro-Indigenous traditions and heritage, which I hadn't seen a lot of in our collection at the library or in the bookstores that we visited. The focus on healing and reclamation of one's ancestral traditions stood out to me as very powerful and unique.

As I reflect back over the week, two moment's stand out to me as what I think of as the mission statement of this project. When we visited Giovanni's Room, the manager, Christopher, mentioned that the creation of the bookstore back in the 1970s gave the queer community an alternative space to come together in the broad daylight in an environment that didn’t involve partying. At the Barnes & Noble in Center City the manager, Lynn, mentioned how excited she was that young people came in the store because it meant they were cool and how enthused she was about the local author section.

Bookstores are supposed to uplift their community. Be it through external support (like using the store to host charity events or making donations to different groups with similarly aligned missions), or in the actual store (highlighting authors, speaking to customers, and giving people a place where they can hide away from the rest of the world for a bit), books, and bookish spaces, are here to connect us all together.

I came to this internship hoping to add more small press titles and speculative fiction to the collection, since that's mostly what I read, and through my creative writing classes I've learned about the importance of small presses. However, over the course of the week, I learned to refine my collecting interests, focusing on rural voices and indie publishers—rural voices are somewhat underrepresented in the Quita Corner collection in Canaday Library. I also learned how to balance those competing curation interests—I had some difficulty finding indie press titles, which shone light on the struggles that bookstore owners and libraries may face. On a lighter note, I also noticed a dearth of books about cats translated from Japanese in the collection, which I tried to rectify, since I'm a complete sucker for those titles!

As a whole, I had a wonderful week, and I learned so much about what it's like to be on the "other side of the counter," so to speak, and what goes in to forming a community around and for books.

This is one of my favorite books, so when I noticed that it was not in the Tri-Co collection, I had to make sure to buy it. This young adult novel is a ghost story—both in the traditional sense, but also in terms of ghosts of one's own past and memories. LaCour's writing is beautiful and emotional, especially her portrayal of trauma, healing, and found family.

These short stories will appeal largely to fans of absurdism and modernism, as reviews have compared the writing style to Kafka, Pessoa, Woolf, and Joyce. It is impossible to crawl inside of someone else's consciousness, but writing like Atay's helps you stray close to it, and that is why I recommend this fascinating collection of stories.

I was drawn to this book as I was researching disability fiction—I love seeing disabled protagonists in fiction, especially when their disability isn't the only focus of the story, and I'm also excited by the magical realism of this book. I'm so excited for it to be part of our library!

I selected this book because it offers a unique point of view that is often less talked about within Latinx fiction.

The opportunity to see the behind-the-scenes of libraries was amazing. I was unaware of the work that the BMC and Ludington Libraries put into curating and selecting books for their audience, as well as providing immense resources. I didn't know that there was a team in Canaday dedicated to mending broken books, or that Ludington Library offered telescopes, hotspots, and so many other necessities, until I had gotten the chance to talk to the people doing the work. It was also wonderful to talk to everyone. Each person we met was passionate about books and supporting their communities. It was a really wonderful opportunity to remember that not everything has gone completely commercial, and that indie bookstores and the people who love them are still out and fighting.

This experience has enlightened me not only about the process of curating a collection of books in a library or bookstore, but about how these places interact with and provide for the communities that they serve. Choosing what books get put on the shelves of our libraries here at Bryn Mawr, at independent bookstores that serve certain demographics, and even at Barnes & Nobles is an intentional and meticulous process that the staff of those places put extensive work and time into.

Bookstores and libraries provide access to books to their communities, but my biggest takeaway from this week has been that they provide so much more than a new read, and their communities give back to them. A bookstore and their population have a symbiotic relationship, where bookstores provide books, a safe space, and general information, and customers give back not only monetarily by keeping their local bookstores and libraries running with their business, but by spreading the word about the place and how important it is to the community.

Although I had visited a few of the places we visited (BMC bookshop, Giovanni's Room, and Barnes & Noble), I really appreciated getting to know the people who make these places what they are, and learning about the exchange between bookstores/libraries and their communities: communities benefit from the resources these places offer, and libraries and bookstores are shaped by the needs and wants of their communities. Everyone we talked to was so enthusiastic about what they do, and it was inspirational to see how much of an impact these places can have.

Overall, I think community is my biggest takeaway from this week—community support, social spaces, representation, etc. I feel like I have a greater appreciation of just how much places like bookstores and libraries do for us, and how important it is that we support them in turn.

We discussed the importance of independent bookstores such as Bryn Mawr's in the face of Amazon and Barnes & Noble's popularity. While the latter stores may have a wider selection, and B&N in particular is trying to reflect each store's local community, small bookstores are intentionally created to help the local community thrive and be heard. When so many local and alumnae/i authors find it difficult to publicize their writing, independent stores such as Bryn Mawr's give back to them by saving a place for their books on the shelves.

I chose this book at first because the cover immediately grabbed my eyes. After properly reading the blurb, I settled on it because I wanted to highlight more stories where sexuality wasn't the focus of the plot. As a young reader, I grew incredibly tired of queer stories that focused on struggling with sexuality; I no longer wanted to choose between being represented or discovering a new world to dive into. So, when I was looking to add to Quita's Corner, I wanted to make sure I included queer stories of all natures. Also, frankly, look at that cover. How could it not be in Bryn Mawr?

I chose this novel partially because of my familiarity with the author's films, and the impact they had on me. I'm familiar with how beautifully the author is able to articulate human life and emotions, both through the highs and the lows, and so I trust that this book is the tear-jerker it threatens to be. More importantly, I think a lot of people are wondering what's important these days, both to them and in general. In the narrator's journey to figure out what he can and cannot live without, I hope that another reader will be able to process their own uncertainty.

I chose this book because I was shocked that we didn't already own it in our collection. During a time where it seems radical revolution is drifting further and further away from possibility, I wanted to highlight a book that addressed that experience for those who are not straight men. The fact it has been in circulation since the 1970s only makes its relevance more prominent and helps remind us that it isn't truly the end, but just the time in between.

Uncle Bobbie's and Giovanni's Room were specifically created to give black and queer authors and readers a place to be heard and understood. In this manner, bookstores do not merely support the world at large but also the smaller worlds that make up individual and community experience. An essential aspect of community, however, involves reciprocity. Bookstores serve the community, but the community also serves them. Uncle Bobbie's, for example, would have shut down during the pandemic if it weren't for copious support from the community. Giovanni's Room was purchased by Philly AIDS Thrift to ensure that it persists, and volunteer effort guarantees its survival.

I used to work at Barnes & Noble, and despite this experience I did not feel that I truly understood the work I was doing before this week. This experience has reignited my passion for reading (though it never truly subsided-- classes just assign so many readings!) and I have found so many interesting books through the process of choosing them for Quita's Corner. Though I had high expectations for what I would learn from this week, they did not reach the actuality. I was reminded of why I read and why I love spending time at places with books. There is so much that goes on behind the scenes to ensure that everyone can access information and stories. I would highly recommend this internship to anyone who loves books and would like to better understand the incredible, though often overlooked, relationship that exists between readers and bookstores/libraries.