It’s come to our attention that Knee-Jerk Magazine’s One-Year Anniversary is the same night as our first ever benefit, Stacks! Soul Librarian Dance Party.

This is terribly unfortunate since we’re big fans of Chicago-based publishers, digital publishing, and bringing more print into the world. Fortunately, the endlessly creative folks over at Artifice Magazine (see our previous Artifice blog entry here) have come up with a solution:

1) Preorder your Stacks! ticket now ($7 in advance). (At Brown Paper Tickets)

2) Go to the Knee-Jerk party first ($5 suggested donation) & drink free beer.

3) Bike to Stacks!

4) Put on your sexy librarian outfit in the alley.

5) Dance till 4 am.

So what’s Knee-Jerk up to on Friday?

Come celebrate Knee-Jerk’s first year of existence! And while you’re at it, help raise a little dough for its soon-to-be-released debut print issue: Readings by Knee-Jerk authors Billy Lombardo, Zoe Zolbrod & Michael Czyzniejewski. Free beer. Raffles. A chance to win dinner and a movie with Knee-Jerk’s editors. More free beer! Music. And maybe, just maybe, the long-awaited push-up contest between Steve, Jon and Casey.

8:00pm - 11:00pm
Fill-in-the-Blank Gallery
5038 N Lincoln Ave
Suggested Donation: $5 RSVP on Facebook

And us?

Chicago Underground Library is throwing a Soul Librarian Dance Party at Late Bar with DJs John Ciba (East of Edens Soul Express), Lady J (The Merge), MLE (The Merge) and JJ (Windy City Soul Club). Prizes for best ’60s/soul/mod librarian style! Bonus points for braving tweed in August! Photobooth by Glitter Guts!

9:00pm - Midnight
Late Bar
3534 West Belmont Avenue
Chicago, IL
Advance tickets $7, $10 at the door RSVP on Facebook

You can do both! We have the utmost faith in your partying abilities.

Related posts

• Digital <3 Print over at Knee-Jerk Magazine
• World Listening Day at the Chicago Underground Library
• Wherewithal
• VHS Tapes from the Shelves of Peter Anton at Intuit’s Exhibition “Almost There”
• Things That Are Possible Now Because of the Internet That Were Not Possible Before, by Artifice Magazine

Usually when we ask you to show us your shelves, we’re referring to the ones that hold books. In the past, we’ve bent the rules to include “Show Us Your Piles” and “Show Us Your Cardboard Box.” Today, we have shelves but they contain a technology far more endangered than your dog-eared paperbacks.

(more…)

Related posts

• Reader interviews #6: Quimby’s art archives
• Digital <3 Print over at Knee-Jerk Magazine
• Chicago Tapes .ORG
• World Listening Day at the Chicago Underground Library
• Wherewithal

Want more proof that Digital <3 Print? Online literary journal, Knee-Jerk Magazine gave The Printers’ Ball some digital love and interviewed Fred Sasaki, associate editor of Poetry magazine, Sarah Dodson, director and managing editor of MAKE: A Literary Magazine, and our very own Nell Taylor, founder and executive director of Chicago Underground Library.

Check it out here: Long Live All Nerds: An Interview with Members of Printers’ Ball, the Most Exciting and Most Comprehensive Free Literary Event in the Nation

____________

In celebration of this year’s Printers’ Ball theme, Print <3 Digital, Chicago Underground Library will release blog posts for every day of July leading up to the Ball. CUL editors, volunteers, and guest bloggers from around Chicago are working around the clock to bring you a preview of what you’ll find and who you’ll meet at the Ball. We’ll also delve into our archives of small press and independent local media for a look back at how we got here. CUL’s model borrows community-building principles from digital culture to strengthen and draw attention to local networks in print, proving that Digital <3 Print, too.

Related posts

• VHS Tapes from the Shelves of Peter Anton at Intuit’s Exhibition “Almost There”
• Two with Water <3 Print and Embrace Digital
• Things That Are Possible Now Because of the Internet That Were Not Possible Before, by Artifice Magazine
• Reader interviews #7: Authors at the Printer’s Row event
• Reader interviews #6: Quimby’s art archives

As some of you may know, we have moved. In the process of all those myriad moves from Nell’s apartment to the basement of Mojoe’s Café Lounge (which literally made us underground), to the dusty innards of the Butcher Shop studios, to the Congress Theater space, we have gained much insight into moving and shelving. Now safely ensconced in a space that just feels good and with plenty of room to expand and hold gatherings, a few of us had thoughts about the members who have come and gone and in particular those who have stayed for the long run. What’s on their bookshelf and what would that bookshelf say about the personality of that individual?

From that session of wondering, we thought how great would that be to introduce the awesome members of the Chicago Underground Library through their bookshelves? And here to start it is Nell Taylor who was probably also pondering the depths of her book stacks when she and her partner, Emerson Dameron, hit upon the great idea of the Chicago Underground Library:

Nell’s collection of books and pigs

My books are organized in two bookcases. The red bookcase has mostly architecture and comics and ceramic pigs. The dark wood bookcase has mostly fiction, architecture, urban planning, media criticism, outdated etiquette books and ceramic walruses. Books are shelved in descending order by height so that I can stick more books on top of them.

I have a partial LibraryThing catalog that maxes out at 200 because I’m cheap and haven’t opened a paid account. http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Nell_Taylor

- Nell Taylor

Related posts

• OH BOY! CHECK OUT MY COMICS LIBRARY!
• To verticalize, not alphabetize
• MIT6 Presentation: The Chicago Underground Library: Ranganathan’s Library Rules Applied to the Digital Age
• Wherewithal
• Waiting for Something to Happen

The weekend of December 12th and 13th was the big moving day for the Chicago Underground Library. Volunteers showed up on Saturday to help pack books, zines and magazines into boxes. By mid-day the custom-made shelves were clear and everything was ready to go.

Orientation Center - the shared home of CUL and various other organizations - disbanded at the beginning of December with its organizers off to pursue individual projects. Nell, CUL’s founder, had decided it was best to find a new home for the library. Stephanie Acosta, CUL’s programming director, scouted out a spot through the Red Tape Theatre group. The theater generously offered to share a room with the library.

The following day saw even more library volunteers, and the move was on. It wasn’t long before several vehicles were packed, and everyone drove to the new location in Lakeview. The building where the theater is housed is the St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, constructed in 1895. The library boxes were brought to the gymnasium for temporary storage until the front room is remodeled.

The most noticeable difference about the CUL’s soon-to-be new home is the size. There is space enough to stretch out, find a comfortable chair under the chandeliers, and relax with a good read from the collection. This new home is full of promise, and it’s a great way for the Chicago Underground Library to ring in the New Year.

Chicago Underground Library packing day, Saturday, December 12

Library moving Day, Sunday December 12th

Related posts

• MIT6 Presentation: The Chicago Underground Library: Ranganathan’s Library Rules Applied to the Digital Age
• Wherewithal
• VHS Tapes from the Shelves of Peter Anton at Intuit’s Exhibition “Almost There”
• They put the LOUD in LOUD LIBRARY (CUL podcast)
• Son of Science of Obscurity

Year: 2006
Edition/Volume:3
Publisher: Self
Contributors: Emerson Dameron, Nell Taylor
Subjects:Fiction
Keywords: Smoking, Underemployment, North Carolina,Tobacco
Abstract: A philosophical zine with entries on fate, lying, underemployment and fire.
CUL Catalog #: Z.18.1
Language: English
Notes:
Website:
[quickshop:Wherewithal :price:0:shipping:0:shipping2:0:end]

Related posts

• Wishbone
• VHS Tapes from the Shelves of Peter Anton at Intuit’s Exhibition “Almost There”
• Try Less Hard
• Time Zones and State Lines
• The Chicago Underground Library’s Big Move

Raizel Liebler and Nell Taylor gave a presentation at MIT’s Media in Transition 6 conference on April 26th. We discussed the need to update the rules of access and use that govern most public collections now that the Internet has provided a more democratic and inclusive model, and how those updated rules are applied at the Chicago Underground Library. This is what we tried to squeeze into 15 minutes.

Click here for more details!

Related posts

• The Chicago Underground Library’s Big Move
• OH BOY! CHECK OUT MY COMICS LIBRARY!
• Introducing the Chicago Underground Library Bookshelf Series, Nell and her pigs!
• Wherewithal
• VHS Tapes from the Shelves of Peter Anton at Intuit’s Exhibition “Almost There”