Art, Anarchists, and Archives

Our resident RVA gardeners have been bringing it in Garden Wars — now you’re covered on the library side of the equation. Join me in this cage match between various special library collections all around town.

July 20, 2011; 7:14 AM • by Hayley DeRoche

Our resident RVA gardeners have been bringing it in Garden Wars — now you’ll be covered on the library side of the war. Join me in this cage match between various special library collections all around town.

Virginia Historical Society

First in the ring, weighing in at probably a whole lot (books are heavy!), is the Virginia Historical Society’s reading room collection.

Stats:

• Free
• Non-circulating
• All about: Virginia history. This includes rare books, sheet music (!), journals, regular books, and even art.
• Find the library online
• Find the library in person: 428 North Boulevard

I visited the Virginia Historical Society’s reading room during their July open house event, and chatted with Paulette Schwarting at the Reference desk. She explained that this special collection would be best for research specifically about Virginia history and genealogy.

There are lots of treasures to be found in libraries and the VHS collection is no exception. “There are so many things…” Paulette began, then added that her latest favorite is a ”rare book written in French, though it hasn’t been translated yet.” What could this rare French book have to do with Virginia, you might ask? Well, Mémoire sur lex Fluxions de Poitrine by Louis Valentin contains information about diseases in Virginia circa the 1790’s. They have another book that was partially burned during the inquisition, and is one of the oldest books in the collection.

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Wingnut & Flying Brick

Maybe you’re looking for a Zapatistas zine. Well, the Wingnut and Flying Brick libraries might just have what you’re looking for. Up next, in a fight to be the best offbeat collections in town, these two radical lending libraries battle it out.

Stats:

• Free
• Circulating
• All about: Sociological literature, including zines*
• Find the library online
• Find the library in person: 2005 Barton Avenue

“Now, wait just a minute,” you might be saying as you read this. “An anarchist collective has an organized collection of books? How could that be, proper orderly organization getting along with anarchy when the two are sworn enemies?!?!” Well, as Mo Karnage (one of the anarchists associated with the library and house) pointed out to someone who voiced a similar query,”We contemplated ordering the books by size, by color, leaving them all on the floor, etc. We want to avoid being the vanguard of the books so potentially the best option is to give the books autonomy to organize themselves.”

Still, when I hopped on over to the Wingnut House to take a look at their library organization project (and resident dogs Grits and Waffles), the books were being placed in various stacks for re-organization, and the books seem quite content with the arrangement. Later I asked Mo a few questions about their special collection. For example, I wondered how long the library has been around—I hadn’t heard of it prior to my research. “The Wingnut Radical Lending Library started in November of 2010. We like the concept of radical lending libraries, but discovered that a lot of people who live in our area don’t have the ability to go to other special collections in the city. Since a bunch of us already had huge personal book and zine collections, we decided to build bookshelves and move our collections together into a resource for our community.”

And how could the community utilize the materials in the Wingnut Radical Lending Library?

“Our library would come in handy for research on lots of anarchist and radical social movements. We have smaller collections on a bunch of different social movements from resistance to colonization in Hawai’i to the Zapatistas in Mexico. We also have books on globalization, alternative medicine, Richmond, and the politics of food. Anyone trying to get perspectives outside of the mainstream might find what they are looking for in our library. Many of our books come from small publishers and have been collected over the past 8 or more years. We have some obscure radical and anarchist books and zines that just won’t exist at a public library.”

*A note on zines: a zine is a self-published item (often a booklet), usually containing combinations of art and the written word. They are often underground publications. Some more traditional libraries are taking more and more of an interest in the topic, but generally one would have a harder time finding zines in a public library.

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Flying Brick

Maybe you aren’t close to the Barton Heights Wingnut library though (or maybe you’re allergic to dogs) — fear not! Snug in Oregon Hill sits the Flying Brick Library.

Stats:

• Free
• Circulating
• All about radical topics
• Find the library online
• Find the library in person: 506 S. Pine St.

Alison Self, one of the Flying Brick volunteers and someone who has lived in the library house, chatted with me when I went to visit the collection. A cozy green flowered couch graces one corner of the room, there are shelves all the way up to the ceiling on multiple walls, and the collection of over one thousand zines is displayed in one corner. “I like all of it…the zines are my favorites when it comes down to it,” Alison said after hemming and hawing over what her favorite item in the collection might be, adding, “We also have a really good collection of books on women’s health.”

To my query about what makes the Flying Brick library stand out (aside from its name), Alison explained that the books are “more radical leftist.” The library has been around in various forms for quite some time, originating with the General Strike Collective.

“It’s a good place for people to find books they wouldn’t find in public libraries. We try to make it all accessible to people — a really friendly accessible place. We want it to be a place to bounce ideas around.”

For a small library, “usage is pretty good.” Alison chuckled. “It’s more used than it was when it wasn’t used.”

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VCU Comic Arts Collection

Then there’s Virginia Commonwealth University’s comic arts collection. This collection is housed at the James Branch Cabell Library on the Monroe Park Campus.

Stats:

• Free
• Non-circulating
• All about comics and graphic arts
• Find the library online
• Find the library in person: 4th floor of the James Branch Cabell Library, 901 Park Avenue

VCU’s comic collection is definitely unique, and it’s the heartthrob of nerdy library collections. The comic genre includes things like comic strips, graphic novels, zines, and more. And this isn’t a comic collection that could fit in your closet, either — this collection consists of 40,000+ items!

Special collections there are open Monday through Friday 10am – 5pm, though it should be noted that stacks are not open to browsing. However, if you’re stuck in a cubicle for those same hours during the day, don’t fret too much because while it’s true you won’t be able to put on the special gloves needed for handling fragile archived materials, you can still access lots of information through their special Online Exhibits page.

Richmond’s not just a final resting place for some comics though — Richmond was also the birthplace of the Fan Free Funnies, according to the VCU Digital Library (you can browse this without a student login!). The Fan Free Funnies was a comic that was created by some VCU Fan District students in 1973. The general digital library houses many similarly Richmond-specific collections like the Carver-VCU Oral History Partnership and even a vintage postcard collection.

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Margaret R. and Robert M. Freeman Library

Finally, there’s the, the Margaret R. and Robert M. Freeman Library of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Stats:

• Free
• Non-circulating
• All about art and the humanities
• Find the library online
• Find the library in person: 200 North Boulevard

As the saying goes, It’s Your Art! This means it’s your art research library too. This library has been around since 1936, and was the first art-specific library in the state according to their website. As these hot and humid days linger on, settling down with a book on Art Nouveau in a nice air conditioned art gallery reading room sounds appealing indeed.

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Whether you’re looking for information about old masterpieces of the past, graphic novels, radical zines, postcards from the past, or your family tree, Richmond’s got you covered with her special collections. To paraphrase the VMFA, it’s not only your art, it’s your information.

 

July 20, 2011 7:14 AM 2