The Backstory

The Hip Librarian’s Book Blog began in September 2003 by friends and former Simmons College GSLIS comrades April Mazza and Alison Peters. The motivation behind the blog was to share the names of books we liked in a more organized manner rather than constantly saying “email that to me!” or writing titles on (and then losing) post-it notes, napkins, the backs of receipts, etc. We invited other librarian friends, in which we found ourselves in a similar position, to post to the blog. Because we had similar backgrounds and occupations the site had a distinct children’s and teen bent but was certainly not a requirement. While both April and Allison have moved on from blogging on the site, the blog and its contributors continue to happily evolve and hopefully inspire a great deal of reading.

Additional reviewers have included Laura Bernheim, Alissa Lauzon, Kathy Mahoney, Theresa Maturevich, Anna Nelson.

Beth Schreiber (formerly Gallaway) took over as a site administrator in 2006, revived it in 2022, and focuses mostly on adult books, romance, and young adult literature.