writer | librarian | tiny tech consultant
I'm Laura.
I'm a writer, a librarian, an advocate, and occasionally a lady in IT.
I've studied Ancient Greek, nonfiction writing, library and information science, and information technology; worked for fifteen years as a public librarian in suburban Chicago, rural Wyoming, and Iowa; written for literary magazines, newspapers, and zines; and taught every age from grade school to adults.
I live in my hometown of Iowa City, Iowa with my family, a dog, and too many cats. My home on the internet since 1999 still lives at newrambler.net.
I have written literary nonfiction for The Iowa Review, Senaca Review, and a variety of other journals; opeds and columns for the Des Moines Register, the New York Times online, and a number of local publications, many of them now sadly defunct.
I have thirty years' experience as an activist and organizer, from helping found an anti-war coalition to organizing with Students Against Sweatshops to serving as Labor Solidarity Chair for UE Local 896-COGS in graduate school. These days my work focuses mostly on the rights of the mentally ill and of special needs students.
I've talked to librarians about chocolate-based usability testing, collection management, judging books by their covers, and more; to humanities scholars about the internet; to seniors about books they might like to read; and to other people about all manner of topics. A few of my slide decks are online. My past thinking on libraries lives at lisdom: Laura Crossett on the LIS domain.
Drop me a line if you'd like me to write a thing, give a talk, or do a job, or if you just have a question.
You can reach me @newrambler on most social media outlets, but an old-fashioned email to lecrossett at gmail dot com will probably get a faster response.