Gretchen Neidhardt (Illinois) & Tina Gross (Minnesota)

This is the Library Now

Cross stitch
Designed and stitched by Gretchen Neidhardt / Story and experience from Tina Gross

Tina’s story is about St. Cloud State University in Minnesota. “St. Cloud State University laid off four tenured faculty librarians in 2020, after laying off three staff library technicians in the two years before that. The provost (known on campus as Smiley Dan) had long been in the habit of holding up his cell phone and saying ‘This is the library now’.”

For more information, check out the story from Library Journal.

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Gretchen Neidhardt and Tina Gross are both cataloging and metadata librarians. Gretchen lives in Chicago, Illinois and Tina lives in Moorhead, Minnesota.

Gretchen and Tina collaborated to make this cross stitch happen. Tina was looking for someone to help bring her lived experience to life on fabric. Gretchen designed a flame border on the top and bottom of the piece. There are the words “This is the library now” in the middle of the flames, next to a large smart phone full of Google icons. The words are being said by a small man in a suit. The man is standing among the flames on the bottom and is wearing devil horns on his head.