LRN59 Refresh and Reset
It's a new month - time for a reset
Library Research Notes is a product of hippiegrrl media, where we believe that Black Lives Matter, Climate Change is real, Treaties should be honored, Bodily autonomy is essential, Love is love, No human is illegal, Science=Truth, Unions work, Gun Reform is imperative, and the time for Trans Liberation is now! We value your readership. If you enjoy the Library Research Notes newsletter, please share it with a friend.
Hello and Happy February!
The groundhog did NOT see his shadow yesterday morning, amazingly enough, and so we may or may not get an early Spring. Honestly - I don’t mind Winter (flying bugs hibernate) or Summer (tornadoes are less likely to occur), and Autumn is my absolute favourite, but Spring has never been that interesting to me. Spring actually encapsulates all of the horrors of climate change - torrential downpours that lead to flooding and severe thunderstorms that lead to tornadoes, new species of stinging bugs that surface, early onset heat waves that can turn into fires, and general upheaval of the earth, due to the misuse of the planet we inhabit. So, yeah, not my favourite. But that isn’t what I came here to discuss today.
As you can tell, I have changed up the posting schedule for this newsletter and wanted to let my dear readers know about the changes coming this year. But first…
An update on the Substackers Against Nazis campaign
It was reported on 8 January 2024 that “substack is removing some publications that express support for Nazis” (platformer.news). The key word in that sentence is “some” and although this is a step in the right direction, it is still not enough to want to stick around here long term. I’ve been working on updating and modifying the hippiegrrl.com site to incorporate blog subscribers, and when that is ready I will migrate all the readers here over to that platform. In the meantime, I have paused all paid subscriptions for this newsletter.
Speaking of paid subscriptions
I had never intended to make money from this venture and I still don’t. Going forward, and when we move over to hippiegrrl.com, I will not be asking for paid subscriptions. There are plans to launch a Patreon, in late 2024, but even on that platform I will be providing content on a pay-what-you-like-IF-you-like method. I like the idea of keeping hippiegrrl.com, as a hub, free to the public, so that I can just concentrate on web development and writing. I am always happy to take donations, but don’t want the content I provide to be determined by subscription money. In other words, I want this to more like a hobby than a job - light and fun.
New schedules
Having said the above, I will be moving forward with this newsletter in a more relaxed manner this year. I have several topics lined up to research, but I want to loosen the bi-weekly schedule I (mostly) maintained for the past 2 years. My goal is to post something once per month and, if I get the inspiration, maybe a few smaller posts in between. This will free me up for more in depth research pieces on this newsletter, while allowing me to write more often on the blogs. If you want to read more from me, please bookmark the other places I write online: hippiegrrl explains it all, gen x reactions, and hippiegrrl reads. You can also follow all the future additions at hippiegrrl media, where the above blogs are linked on the main sidebar, showing the latest posts. I’m hoping that 2024 can be a year of expansion for hippiegrrl media by incorporating some new voices as well.
In the meantime
Currently, I am working on a piece about the election (surprised?!), but until that is ready for print, please take a look at some of the recent writing from my fellow substackers:
