Chronicles of a biblio-naturalist | The most recent post
Coral Reefs That Remember | Silenced Knowdleges and Memories in the Tropics (04)
| Published: April 24, 2025 |
When we speak of memory and knowledge in the tropics, our metaphors often reach for roots. Forests, soils, leaves — they lend themselves easily to the language of books, of archives, of systems we know how to read.
But what about the sea?
Blog The Log of a Librarian | The most recent post
Cataloging the Reef: What Libraries Can Learn from Coral Governance | The Taxonomy of the Absence (04)
| Published: April 29, 2025 |
In many parts of the world, coral reefs are read as libraries: This coral belonged to that ancestor, that lagoon held the memory of a ritual, and another reef would not be touched until the moon signaled the right time. There is no catalog, no barcode, no metadata schema. Yet everyone in the human communities interacting with the reefs know exactly how to read that submerged world. The sea, in that context, is not an object to be observed or a resource to be extracted — it is a living system of memory, performed and sustained through relationship.
Critical notes | The most recent post
Ecological Justice: Ending the Hypocrisy of "Green" Libraries in the Global North | Leaving Green Libraries Behind (09 of 10)
| Published: April 11, 2025 |
While many libraries adopt "green" practices —recycling bins, carbon offset credits, solar-powered conference rooms— their ecological footprint is often embedded in the very same global systems of inequality they claim to resist. If libraries want to be serious about climate action, they need to stop parroting Global North environmental narratives and start confronting the uncomfortable truths that real ecological justice demands.