Posts by Karen Gisonny

In 1947, Carolyn F. Ulrich, Chief of the Periodicals Division co-edited the book “The Little Magazine: A History and Bibliography”, which inspired the recent publication “The Little Magazine in Contemporary America.” Both are anthologies of original essays by literary magazine editors honoring their unique and significant role in our social, cultural and political life.

Erasure is a form of literature, often poetry, created by selectively erasing words from an existing text to produce a new work. An event on April 25 will showcase examples and give you a chance to create your own.

Today the Academy of American Poets features Johnson's powerful poem "In the Absence of Sparrows," honoring his close friend, as part of its Poem-a-Day series.

It's International Zine Month (July 21 is Zine Library Day!) and they are everywhere...

Each year since 1988, the Library has awarded Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism to a journalist for a work of in-depth, investigative reporting. Over 100 non-fiction books were nominated this year, all of them read, discussed and vetted by a Library Review Committee. These are the five amazing books the group chose as this years five finalists—all must-reads!

As curator for small press materials I was excited to attend "Remediating the Avant Garde: Magazines and Digital Archives," a symposium at Princeton University, home of the Blue Mountain Project.

New York Public Library has received a three-year grant from the Aeroflex Foundation and Hippocampus Press to process one of its hidden gems, the General Research Division's Amateur Periodical Collection. The grant will allow this significant collection to be catalogued for the first time, which will provide greater access as well as help identify items for digitization in the future.

The Library's collection contains nearly 3,000 titles, 

For 25 years the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism has highlighted in-depth, investigative reporting. It was established in 1987, through a gift from Joseph Bernstein to the NYPL, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein (now Helen Bernstein Fealy). The award plays an important role in safeguarding the first amendment and raising public awareness about significant world events and important issues. The 2012 finalists have all garnered acclaim this past year for stories that criss cross 

The Periodicals Division has been collecting alternative press publications pretty much since the Library opened its doors in 1911. The alternative press, a general term that includes small, independent and underground presses, documents social, political and literary movements, popular and not so popular causes, and issues that are often neglected by mainstream media. Collecting and  preserving this material is at the core of the Library's mission to build diverse collections and provide free and open access to them.

NYPL's collection covers an amazingly broad 

Fall into zines and head over to Pete's Mini Zinefest this Sunday, September 25, from 2 to 7 p.m. — you'll help support the Library too! I recently met Andria Alefhi, an organizer of the zinefest event, when NYPL added her wonderful zine, We'll Never Have Paris, to the its landmark zine collection. I was so moved when Alefhi told me her idea to donate part of the zinefest proceeds 

Ryan Haley, Billy Parrott, Erminio D'Onofrio, Karen VanWestering, Jennifer Craft, and Maira Liriano with the 2011 Bernstein Award finalistsThe Library’s Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism was established in 1987, through a gift from Joseph Frank Bernstein to the New York Public Library, in honor of journalist Helen Bernstein (now Helen Bernstein Fealy). The gift was in two parts and the idea was to focus on Helen’s love and appreciation of the crucial role that journalism and 

Poetry and Thought with Fence Magazine

I'm really excited about the program for Periodically Speaking: Focus on Poetry tonight. The featured journal is Fence magazine and poetry editor Katy Lederer will be joined by poets

In 2002, we had our first public program in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room, it was a collaboration with CLMP (Council of Literary Magazines & Presses) called “the Magathon”. The Library and CLMP shared the same goal, to support and celebrate literary magazines and what better place to hold the event then a beautiful public space, that collected and housed a vast collection of contemporary literary magazines.

This event and collaboration has continued every 

"The Poet as critic" is the topic for the next Periodically Speaking: Focus on Poetry event and we'll appropriately be featuring the Mineapolis-based journal Rain Taxi. Rain Taxi is an eclectic, thoughtful publication, filled to the brim four times a year with literary criticism, interviews and reviews of poetry, non fiction & graphic novels. Although it covers the spectrum of American publishing at its heart are small presses and 

NYPL and CLMP will kick off a new season of Periodically Speaking next Tuesday with a new format and we hope you'll join us.  It's been 5 years since we began Periodically Speaking, and to celebrate we'll be launching something different for 2010.  It'll be one journal, an editor and several poets in brief readings and discussions.  The original ideas behind PS 

Want to know when a journal’s first issue was published? What that issue # 1 looked like? Need to track down the editor for those impossible to find back issues? Discover what new titles are missing from the collection?

Premiere Issues: An Archive of Magazine Firsts answers these questions and many more that persistently plague serials librarians. The site’s mission “to provide a home for those first issues to live, be read and shared by an international audience,” was 

What better way to kick off your election night then an evening in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room – relax, listen to great new writers introduced by their editors, join us for a glass of wine afterward, all still with plenty of time to catch the election results. The line up begins with Editor Thaddeus Rutkowski (Many Mountains Moving) introducing fiction writer Jon Swan, followed by Levi Rubeck

Literary magazine aficionados, myself included, will meet up in the DeWitt Wallace Periodical Room at HSSL as Periodically Speaking returns on Tuesday, October 14th. It’s a thrill to begin our 4th season hosting the series, which aims to connect editors, writers, readers, librarians, and lovers of literature & lit mags with each other, and the Library’s one-of-a-kind collection. Each evening highlights three periodicals, with editors of each introducing an emerging writer. The cool