November 2018 Library Newsletter:
October in the Library
October hosted dozens of research visits and also four off-hours classroom field trips. It also hosted a hard-hitting and unforunately hyper-timely Place Talks that centered on anti-Semitism and allied topics. Thank you Place Talks speakers and curators.
Events Update
The next Place Talks happens November 15!
Following that is RP’s annual Lost Landscapes of San Francisco movie night and fundraiser on December 5. Please mark your calendars! The show will run also on Tuesday the 4th (a Long Now annual party evening) while the Wednesday the 5th show honors the Library. Anyone can attend either night, and purchases of Patron Tickets for both nights will support the Library.
Music!
November’s new news is the major development of plans for musical events and collaborations: Coming up in December, on Sunday the 9th will be a free performance by longtime inspirations SFSound. The SFSound Collective are a group of experimental performers and composers, most classically trained, who collaborate to perform and also to improvise the most adventurous and sometimes ear-splitting sounds that a “chamber group” is capable of producing. MSP & RP are longtime fans of SFSound, finding their work — especially the improvisations — to be the kind of wind through the branches of cognition that shakes creative fruit out of our own brains.
More Music!
We are developing plans for a future collaboration with BC30, a music collaborative featuring longtime Library friend Suki O’Kane* together with Elsewhere Philatelic Society member Michael Wertz and husband Andy Cowitt.…stay tuned to this channel for updates. Expect crossover with EPS projects.
*Back in 2007 Suki installed her memorable Illuminated Corridor “in” the Library (on Rodgers alley and in the then-unfenced parking lot behind the building) — bringing dozens of artists working mostly in time-based media (moving image and sound) who used the Library and the eponymous film archives as source materials, while the Library was open upstairs to about a hundred walk-through visitors.
Collections Update
New volunteer Jay Bolcik (ex-BART systems engineer and train operator) is not only pinch-hitting as a Guest Host but is also volunteering to process the recent additions to the Therkelson collection. RP worked on the back of the room in October and it’s now possible to walk behind the towers of boxes of Therkelson collection and reach the flat file. Sarah continues on the Epicenter Zone zine library, aided by the big push to rough-sort back in September.
Back-of-the-House Update
We have savored some sense of relief this year, following the new lease in January. BUT arriving January 2019 will be the 25% rent increase that was the cost of the new lease. We therefore are returned this fall to making sure our fundraising efforts keep up with the 25% increase. This past Spring’s annual support drive was as successful as any other, but not enough to close that gap. We’ve been OK on the rent for 2018, but have not had the funding for artist fees that we would like, or for the rent reserve to extend as far into 2019 as we would prefer. Please help us spread the word about supporting the Library, and encourage interested friends to purchase Patron Tickets to LL if they are able, and are coming to the show. Expect that a fall fundraising appeal will be part of the widespread announcement for LL that will go out soon. Let us know if you don’t receive a mass email from us in the next week.
Library futures: We hereby invite the Library’s friends, regulars, and supporters to opt in … at any time … to a brain-trust-in-formation that will convene once in 2019 and twice or so in 2020 to help us think through options for the future, into 2021 and beyond. This is an open call for interested community members to be part of planning the Library’s future.
WE ARE ALL MAKING THE LIBRARY HAPPEN TOGETHER,
MSP & RP