Free libraries and other ways to fly

Elizabeth Katz

Stewart Brand was wondering what he could do to help his friends who were starting their own greener civilizations hither and yon, and thus The Whole Earth Catalog was born. "New Community" in East Lansing, Michigan, began as a local resource center, spread and gathered information across the country in their Eduucation Liberation Front (ELF) bus, and finally settled in Washington, D.C., to publish SOURCE, an activist people/organizations directory. Variations on this theme have sprung up on regional and local levels, such as the British Columbia Access Catalog and all the local versions of the "People's Yellow Pages" (S.F., Boston, Portland, etc.).

At Carleton College a concerned group of students initiated the Radical Research Center. With the help of the college computer and a few librarians, the invaluable Alternative Press Index resulted. Focusing on a specific concern, Susan Davis took the monthly newsletter The Spokeswoman from the hands of a Chicago news-gathering service. Now dissatisfied with the limits of this information service, Susan is looking for the funds and personnel to start a women's liberation data bank. Another woman, seeking librarians' help, has launched the Women Studies Abstract.

During the heyday of the "flower children" the Haight-Ashbury Switchboard was founded to provide fast and flexible answers to new needs and became the model for the many crisis and referral centers throughout the country. Jacques Goldman, a drop-out teacher, worked with the H-A and went on to establish his own Education Switchboard to help the burgeoning free school movement in the city. Now there are - among others - Animal and Music Switchboards, and specialization seems to be the wave of the future.

Meanwhile, a "free library" movement has blossomed. In Anchorage, Alaska, the Youth Council is setting up a "People's Library" with federal and local backing. Using the profits from selling health products, a group of young people in Hawaii started an information center called "Bio-Flash." Portland, Oregon, saw the ambitious "Grassroots Library" which sought to stock only what the community itself created and now another project known as the "Johnson Branch Library," which the Johnsons correlate with a news service, publishing, and housing the local alternative vocations center. Further down the Oregon coast, a young man hatched "The Tool Shed," a collection of access catalogs he hoped to house in the book department of the "head store" where he was working. Now Johan Matheisen envisions a more complete information center with government funding.

Berkeley, California, is the site of the "Woman's History Research Center Library," perhaps the best-known of the independent, social activist libraries. In Montreal, a commune of high school students runs a library in their "Rose Castle." Out of New Brunswick, Canada, comes the "Homesteader's Lending Library," a mailing service for those who are going back to the land. And in Kalamazoo, Michigan, the "New Life Environmental Designs Institute" offers a Research Cooperative plan that may serve as a reference back-up for the whole movement.

The list of "free libraries" goes on and on, but it's time to mention the new bookstores like Modern Times in San Francisco and Granma in Berkeley. Stocking mostly small press items relevant to the concerns of the alternative culture, these bookstores encourage browsing with chairs, tables, coffee and a friendly staff. They post information, host lectures and discussion groups...and sell books.

The information game is even more important to the alternative culture than to the majority culture. And twice as challenging, because everything - fossilization, homogeneity, etc. - which makes it almost possible to keep track of mass-cult information is anathema to the alternative culture. At the same time, the alternative culture is growing in size and spreading in area, as it remains, by nature, prolific.

So if you have had it with the system (or vice versa) and want to leave the institutional nest yet stay on an information front, this article is for you. What you want to achieve isn't easy. Even birds have to learn to fly.

There's no denying the security of a regular pay check, even after all those withholdings. Part-time work gives you a reduced but stable base, plus extra time, energy and some money to explore for your alternative vocation.

A part-time job will teach you how to make money last longer. Give up the luxury of living alone and learn to live with others. Move to a cheaper locale. Buy second-hand clothes or learn how to make your own. Once you lower your income, you may qualify for food stamps and lighten the economic burden further. You may turn on to new eating habits like low budget vegetarianism. If you move to the country, of course you can start growing your own food, etc.; but you can do that in the city, too. Food conspiracy nearby? Another means to save. Look around for a free clinic, a dental school that charges less because students do the work, or see if your friendly medicine man will accept something in barter rather than money.

After these essentials, you may want to think about ways to cut transportation costs. If you still must have a car, learn how to fix your own. (A good rule in general.) But how about using a motorcycle, bicycle, public transportation, hitchhiking, or your own two feet? Now that you have more time, you needn't rush about. Which brings up the question of entertainment. You will probably need less of it because your whole life - even your work - will be more enjoyable. You'll have the time and energy to create your own and will discover how many freebies and cheapies there are all around you.

Sooner or later you may want to make an alternative information interest a full-time vocation. Maybe you have an inheritance to invest, more likely savings to use. If you haven't much money to begin with, the local legal aid society will give you free advice on establishing a non-profit corporation or association to take advantage of tax and postal breaks. Organize a cooperative, commune or collective to spread the load. Get into a warehouse project with kindred souls. Check out federal, state and local government surplus property and paraphernalia. Look for second-hand bargains in the private marketplace, too, and try to barter whenever you can to lessen your need for actual cash. Both the government and private organizations offer grants, but don't think they will fall into your hands like ripe fruit. And don't count on donations. There are lots of fund-raising projects you can try, but perhaps the best plan is to make your work pay for itself. Don't give away the products of your time and energy unless you really can afford to.

But what to do? In alternative information vocations there aren't a number of preset niches for you to occupy. And no real placement agencies. The truth of the matter is that you will most likely have to create your own. You can do it by looking around first to see what has already been done. Does something bear repeating, extension or variation on its theme? Has something been completely overlooked so far? Do you want to work on an international level, a local one, or somewhere between? Are your concerns mostly urban or rural? Do you want to serve the whole alternative culture or one special part of it? Should you stick with print or move into audio-visual media? Only you know what work will make you happy.

But you can get some help. The Last Whole Earth Catalog is a gold mine, both of inspiration and information. So is The Mother Earth News, available for $6/year from Box 38, Madison, Ohio 44057. You can order Volume I, "Communications," for $1.50 from SOURCE, 2115 "S" Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20008. Write the National Program for Voluntary Action Clearinghouse, Paramount Building, 1735 "I" Street N.W., Washington, D.C. 20006 for their lists of publications on funding, fund-raising and federal surplus property. Contact "Ecos" at Project One, 1380 Howard, San Francisco 94103 about founding a warehouse project.

Working Loose can be ordered directly from the American Friends Service Committee, New Vocations Project, 2160 Lake, San Francisco 94121 for $1.95. Essays, notes, songs, poems, drawings, excerpts from taped interviews and raps are arranged under the headings: Wanting to Change, Getting Support, Creating Alternatives. A resources list of people, organizations, and publications follows. It is a beautiful, thoughtful and valuable book.

Workforce, originally Vocations for Social Change, at Box 13, Canyon, California 94516 is a bi-monthly magazine which asks $10/year as a donation. Worth reading from cover to cover, it includes job listings and proposals, as well as naming local vocational counselors, resource people and groups. A newer entry on the alternative vocations scene is Black Bart, 1948 Olive St., Eugene, Oregon 97405. It requests a similar donation. Aimed at a middle-aged audience, this VSC offshoot includes philosophical discussions, how-to information, a bibliographic and resource listing and the "Outlaw Intercom," which provides personal contact among readers.

Recently an organisation called "Alternative Pursuits" (Box 861, Del Mar, California 92014, phone 714-453-5900) surfaced with the sponsorship of the National Institute of Mental Health. You can correspond with them by phone, mail, cassette or in person.

Finally, the Connecticut and D.C. SRRT groups have joined to form the "Alternative Information Sources Project" (AISP). Among their goals is the establishment of links with Workforce and other alternative publications, providing for the regular outlet of articles about radical librarianship and a job mart for radical librarians. Contact Lynne Bradley, 411 "A" Street S.E., Washington, D.C. 20003 or Dick Akeroyd, Special Collections Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs 06268.

We need to encourage more flexibility so that people can split the same job (within the day, week, month or year) rather than having one affluent but drained by the system while another has all the time and energy for creativity but no means of support. The Radical Historians' Caucus presented such an idea to the American Historical Association as an antidote to the current recession, and a similar proposal was made at the ALA Conference this June. Recession or not, job-splitting would help us all.

We also need to create and support alternative jobs in our profession. Much important work for change is currently performed by volunteers holding full-time jobs. Not only does this place a heavier burden on them, but it also naturally makes the results less than satisfactory. Can't at least some of this work become paid labor? The money for it can be raised from a fund to which people contribute rather than pay ALA dues, or in which they invest rather than pay the part of their tax that goes toward war. Again, we all would benefit from spreading the work and the wealth.

Start working now toward these distant dreams, but don't forget that special one of your own. Maybe it's a bookstore cum restaurant cum cultural center cum crisis and referral service all together in a big old Victorian where you and all your friends both live and work and there's a garden in the back, a cat who likes to sleep in the most comfortable chair, people make good music and pretty things and there are always new faces and new ideas and . . . .