The Edit : A new job, the expanded library and celebrating celery
Editorial
Starting again
This week I am reflecting on re-entering the workforce at 42. For many years, I have floundered around in the art and academia world, never really finding a footing, always feeling an outsider, and never sure of where I wanted to end up. Having children (currently 6 and 3) has really sharpened my focus and made me pay attention to how I am spending my time and how I am planning for the future.
For context, I have recently finished a Diploma of Library and Information Studies though TAFE NSW, which qualifies me to work as a library technician (not a fully-fledged librarian – that would be another university degree!). For the past month, I have applied for every library tech job within an hour’s radius of my home. Full time, part time and casual. So far, I have had one rejection and one interview. The interview was for a full time role with a council library that is, as it happens, exactly an hour from home. I knew I couldn’t really manage full time hours with my two girls still so young, but I was teasing out all the possibilities just in case. I wasn’t successful in getting the full time role, but they did offer me a casual position. It’s really the best outcome and more importantly, it’s a foot in the door. One of my referees relayed that the librarian noted that although I was the least qualified on paper, I was the best interview! I’ll take the compliment, and it really means something to me as someone who has always struggled with the formality of interviews and with proving my capabilities when I’ve had such a sketchy and varied jobs history. I’ve failed at many interviews in the past, so I am grateful – beyond grateful – that the staff at this library took a punt on me and had the chance to see that I am capable, and that perhaps I can bring some of that weird and wonderful past experience into this job. Perhaps also, I have matured a bit, grown in confidence, (and finally learnt how an interview works!). Gratitude is also due to the librarian where I did a work placement for looking over my job applications and offering such fantastic advice, and to my two referees who gave me such positive reports.
The butterflies I remember from my 20s are still there as I embark on this new path, but if there’s one thing I am certain of it’s that library people are kind and generous people – how could they not be? – and that will make the process so much easier. I am glad that I changed tack from academia to something more attainable. I am glad that my priorities have shifted to the future, which means I am thinking about wiser financial and lifestyle choices. I am glad that I will work in an industry that aligns with my lifelong love of books and ideas. I am glad that I will be working with people who also share this love. And I am glad that despite my many poor ‘career’ moves up until this point, there is a lot of life experience I can draw on to connect with people in new ways. More aware, more compassionate, and more motivated to make the best of this brief time we have.
Image copyright State Library of NSW
Explore
Openbook magazine, State Library of NSW
Continuing with the library theme, I have been thinking about the way we access information now, especially via what I’ve dubbed the expanded library. By this I mean, of course, the digital library, which has become – and search any reputable institution for evidence – living archives of rich and thoughtfully curated content. Whether a student, academic, or casual browser, libraries now present their collections in such a myriad of ways that it makes even the process of discovery an enjoyable one.
I have been recently exploring the State Library of NSW site and was impressed with the presentation, navigation, searchability and the ease of contacting staff via the ‘Ask a Librarian’ button on pretty much every page. I could go on about a number of things but there is something in particular I would like to focus on, Openbook magazine. I was not aware of it until recently and eagerly signed up as a Friend of the Library (this is different to membership), in order to receive it, which is described as “a lavish, award-winning magazine of new writing, fresh ideas and contemporary photography.” An easy sell for me. I’ve read the highlights from the upcoming Spring issue and am currently working through a selection of articles from back issues, which are all online (it’s published quarterly). I’ve been genuinely impressed with the writing, the varied voices and topics, and the chance to hear about specialist parts of the collection.
Two pieces from the upcoming issue I enjoyed were a profile of the Australian artist Anne Zahalka by Brett Evans and a piece by award winning Yankunytjatjara poet Ali Cobby Eckermann in which she reflects on what libraries – and learning – mean to her. The Zahalka piece covers in part Anne’s parent’s migration here after the war and Anne’s discovery in 2016 after her mother Heda’s death of a box containing letters and other ephemera relating to her wartime experiences. As a Viennese Jew, Heda had been sent as a young woman to Britain for her safety, though she would never see her own mother Margarete again, who was murdered at Auschwitz in 1944. Heda met a Catholic Czech tank commander in Britain, and they emigrated to Australian in 1950, settling in Bondi. Anne’s mother’s wartime letters resulted in a collaboration in 2017 with writer Charlotte Wood, an SBS documentary titled Nobody Loves You More Than Me – Finding Margarete, and an exhibition in 2018 at the Sydney Jewish Museum called The Fate of Things – Memory objects and art. These projects, with their reflective bent, must provide greater nuance to Zahalka’s retrospective now showing in Sydney, Zahalkaworld: an artist’s archive. I am very keen to see it, having studied Zahalka as a young art history student and now drawn to her insights as a woman looking back on a long career with the added perspective of her family’s wartime past, a past that still reverberates today. More than reverberates, we are witnessing an escalation of the same horrors inflicted on Palestinians as we speak, horrors that stem directly from the trauma of the Nakba and the ongoing displacement and killing of Palestinians following the carving up of the Middle East by the US and Britain after WWII. For some, the suffering only started after 1945.
Eckermann’s article is also reflective, and responds to the prompt ‘the library that made me.’ In it she looks back at her primary school years where she first experienced racism and found her experiences of cruelty clashing with her adopted family’s German Lutheran ethos. Eckermann’s describes libraries as “venues of solace, reading as solace, writing as solace, the creation of art as solace; a way of putting up a barrier against the bullies or the behaviour in the world that I don’t embrace or understand.” Equally though, Eckermann argues for a shifting – or maybe an expansion – of what a library is by talking of the desert as a vital place of quietude and knowledge. She ran away to country to a place called Ooldea in South Australia at 17, where she experienced the extremes of domestic violence and the limitless kindness of First Nations women travelling through country on cultural business. It was in this place, in spite of the abuse, that Eckermann found herself and where she belonged. She writes:
The desert…provided me with an encyclopaedia of people, my family, the old people, the children, brothers and cousins, sisters and aunties and friends, all fabulous holders of knowledge. I carry my stories deep within wherever I travel. My eyes are honed for knowledge. And as a grandmother my heart is very honed for solace.
How we receive information now is very different to 10 or even 5 years ago. Yet just because something is online doesn’t mean it is universally available. There are the technical infrastructure requirements, but digital literacy skills and the resource of time are also needed. Online spaces, as much as physical ones, can also be intimidating. Our physical and virtual arenas are still informed by Western knowledge systems, and this can be both alienating and unwelcoming for those coming from different backgrounds. Things are improving, but we need to remain vigilant, especially as we continue headlong into an increasingly AI-moderated world. That’s where a publication like Openbook plays an important role. In a word where we can Google – or ask ChatGPT – anything, it’s important that there are publications that prioritise quality. The fact that SLNSW has made so much of its publication freely accessible online says much about their commitment to knowledge-sharing, and this should be valued. Libraries are one of the few places left where you can access so much knowledge for free, and not a random collation of hits accrued by an algorithm, but an organised selection of works that cover the spectrum of human experience. If I can, I might attend the launch of the Spring issue of Openbook as not only do I think it’s a great publication, but, as I’ve said before, library people really are such lovely people!
Zahalkaworld: an artist’s archive is showing at the National Art School, Sydney until 19th October.
Ali Cobby Eckermann’s most recent work, She is the Earth, won the Indigenous Writers’ Prize and Book of the Year at the 2024 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards.
The Spring issue of Openbook will be launched at The Library Bar, State Library of NSW Sydney, on Tuesday 17th September, 6-8pm. Tickets are $10.
Articles from back issues of Openbook can be found here.
Eat
Hetty Lui McKinnon’s Cashew Celery
This week I am sharing a very well-known cook’s recipe sent to me by a very good friend. Hetty Lui McKinnon is justly renowned for her delectable veg-forward dishes that pack a big flavour punch. Having said that though, I am shockingly bad at using recipes. I cook so much that my modus operandi is to simply see what’s in the pantry/fridge/freezer and work from there. I have a few stir-fry flavour profiles I use, but I was keen to try out one of McKinnon’s, as I do always learn something when I bother to follow a recipe. In this case, it was the technique of premixing the sauce ingredients prior to adding to the wok, and surprisingly, using a lot less sauce than I would normally. Maybe this is a bit Western of me, but I think I would be more generous with the sauce next time. It worked but I feel it could do with more. It’s what brings it all together after all. But try it as it is and if you do, I’d love to know what you think. We ate this with a beef and bean garlic pepper stir fry with vermicelli, which complemented it nicely, though this rather negates the vegan credentials of the dish. The recipe is written for a US audience, where McKinnon is based, so I have changed imperial measurements to metric and made suggestions for substitutions where applicable. This version of the dish has been adapted from the book Tenderheart by Hetty Lui McKinnon (2023).
INGREDIENTS
Serves 4
2 t cornstarch
¼ cup vegetable stock or water
2 ½ T Shaoxing rice wine
4 teaspoons soy sauce or tamari
Neutral oil (I used rice bran)
4 – 6 celery stalks, sliced diagonally
2.5cm piece of ginger, peeled and finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, finely chopped
3 spring onions, thinly sliced
Couple of large handfuls (about 170g ) of dark, leafy greens (I used some pre-blanched curly kale)
140g five-spice flavoured or plain extra-firm tofu, cut into 2.5cm pieces
1 cup roasted, unsalted cashews
Sea salt (such as Maldon, Hetty specifies Kosher salt)
Toasted white sesame seeds, to serve
Cooked white or brown rice, to serve
METHOD
Combine the cornstarch, stock, rice wine and soy sauce in a bowl and whisk until smooth; set aside.
Heat a wok or large skillet over medium-high. Once it’s hot, add 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil, along with the celery. Cook, tossing, for 2 to 3 minutes, until the celery is slightly softened; push it to the side. Add the ginger, garlic and three-quarters of the scallions, then toss for 30 seconds until fragrant. Add the greens and toss for 1 to 2 minutes until slightly wilted. Toss in the tofu and cashews and stir fry for another 1 to 2 minutes, until the tofu is warmed through.
Stir the cornstarch mixture, then swirl it into the wok or skillet and toss until the sauce thickens and coats everything. Taste and season with a little salt, if needed.
Top with the remaining scallions and the sesame seeds; serve with rice.
