Join the CAA community for our first book club gathering! The CAA Pop Culture Book Club will read both popular fiction and non-fiction books that explore how archives, libraries, and collections are understood outside of the archives fields. Many books create an allure and mystery around archives and libraries, yet those of us managing them know how much of the work is dusting and sorting or advocating and budgeting.
Through reading and discussing these books, we will ask what can we, as professionals, learn about the public’s perception of archives and related fields. Can this inform how we engage with the public and advocate for our collections? And what do some of these writers really mean when they say “they dug into the archives”? This book club is inspired by stories from authors like Jorge Luis Borges (The Library of Babel) and E.L. Konigsburg (From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler) as well as Samantha Cross’s POP ARCHIVES blog.
For our inaugural book club meeting, please vote HERE on one of the three titles listed below by Thursday, October 1. (The short list is to get us started. Participants will be able to recommend books ahead of future meetings!) The selected book will be added to this event description. The Zoom link will be shared with registrants the day before or day of the event.
In the spirit of spooky season, here are the options for Fall 2026, all non-fiction:
Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin - Megan Rosebloom
The Madman's Library: The Strangest Books, Manuscripts and Other Literary Curiosities from History - Edward Brooke-Hitching
Awful Archives: Conspiracy Theory, Rhetoric, and Acts of Evidence - Jenny Rice
Contact CAA at info@chicagoarchivists.org
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