September 2024

SLASC & SAASC @ SJSU ischool Present: International Guitar Research Archive (IGRA)

On September 25, SLASC and SAASC jointly hosted a conversation with Julieta Garcia, an archivist at the International Guitar Research Archives, to learn more about one of the world’s largest collections of guitar sheet music. View the recording here.

May 2024

Digitizing The Barrio with Angelica Hernandez

On May 23, SLASC met with Angelica Hernandez for a conversation about her work on the Digitizing The Barrio archive project for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (of Chicago). Angelica Hernandez is the archivist for the Puerto Rican Cultural Center’s Digitizing The Barrio archive project. She received her Masters in Library and Information Science from Dominican University in 2022, and a BA in Art History from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2017. Born and raised in Avondale, Hernandez is deeply passionate about community engagement, equitable access to information, and participatory archival practices. View the recording here.

Dark Archives with Megan Rosenbloom

On May 8, SLASC met with author and librarian Megan Rosenbloom, whose book Dark Archives: A Librarian’s Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin (2020) explores the practice of binding books with human skin. Megan spoke about current events around anthropodermic books around libraries in the United States and ethical considerations being made by librarians who find these items in their collections. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh’s MLIS program, Megan also talked about her journey from journalism into medical librarianship to her current role as Collections Strategy Librarian for the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and how she found opportunities to learn about and work with rare books. This event was not recorded.

April 2024

Books Behind Bars: A Conversation with San Quentin’s Librarian

Have you ever wondered how incarcerated individuals access library resources? On April 24, SLASC spoke with librarian Gabriel Loiederman, who has served as librarian at San Quentin State Prison in California since 2018. Before embarking on his library career at San Quentin, Gabriel wore many hats. He brought the hustle and bustle of New York City to his work as a bike courier and then channeled his organizational skills as a cataloger for the Internet Archive in Boston.

February 2024

SLASC Alumni Panel

On February 26, we welcomed back SLASC Executive Committee alumni Lauren Kime, JonLuc Christensen, Sereen Suleiman, Tina Kremzner-Hsing, Hannah Martin, and Amy Nykamp for a look at their journey through the iSchool and where their careers have taken them into records management, public librarianship, and digital asset management, and how they have remained involved with the Special Libraries Association. View recording here.