Chicagoist met up with the self-proclaimed “Chicago’s sexiest librarians” at Lincoln Park’s Bourgeois Pig coffeehouse, a fitting literary-themed spot for word nerds to wax poetic about cataloging, the Dewey Decimal System — and Google stalking.

Probably due in part to cabin fever as a result of our insanely cold winters, Chicago can be pretty hardcore about its literature. Small-press publishing enthusiasts Nell Taylor and Emerson Dameron decided to channel their love of local lit into a public service by co-founding the Chicago Underground Library last year.

Located in the basement of MoJoe’s Hothouse (2849 W. Belmont), a cozy Northwest-side coffeehouse that has graciously donated the space, CUL is an archive of small-press and independent literary magazines, books, comics, poetry chapbooks — and publications that defy categorization — all published by past and present Chicago authors and publishers. The year-old space is open to the public on Saturday afternoons, and Taylor and Dameron are already planning to expand the project with programming and events, including a reading series featuring “orphan” and anonymous work from their collection, starting in May.

Read the rest of the article, here.

Source: The Chicagoist

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