My job does not include shushing. In fact, quiet is the last adjective I'd apply to the Utne Reader library, and not only because the staff is anything but. Enforcing whispering tones does not fall within the domain of the Utne librarian, nor that of most other librarians nowadays. The weathered image of the librarian as a grandmotherly, finger-waving bookworm has been defunct for quite some time. Librarians are more likely to be protecting civil liberties, promoting literacy, and guarding people's access to information than pursing their lips.

There's plenty of shushing going on lately, but it's a different kind, one that threatens purveyors and protectors of information to a frightening degree. Librarians have responded by raising their voices in protest against the Patriot Act, the Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), the 65 Percent Solution, and round after round of budget cuts-all of which ultimately restrict information, services, and access in public and school libraries.

With that in mind, I want this new column, Shelf Life, to represent the Utne library: its shelves, its spirit, its significance. This library is not quiet; it sounds voices and ideas seldom heard elsewhere. More than 8,800 periodical titles have appeared in the library since Utne Reader started in 1984; more than 1,200 arrive today, all on their own regular (or regularly irregular) schedules. When you add books, DVDs, and CDs to our weekly intake of periodicals, our library grows by about 200 items each week.

As librarian, I constantly seek out new publications to add to the din-those just getting started as well as others we just haven't happened to hear about. We get wind of quite a few through editors and zinesters who send new projects our way. We're alerted to others by on-the-ball readers who come across gems and share them with us. For instance, a reader in Fairbanks, Alaska, recently mailed us a copy of the Ester Republic, a delightful 'rag' from a nearby town of '400 rugged individuals'-something we probably never would have read otherwise.