Rogue Organist

You know what’s awesome?  Research.  You know what’s not awesome?  Not being able to get access to research because it’s stuck behind a paywall and you don’t belong to an institution/your institution doesn’t subscribe to that particular journal.

FEAR NOT.

Here is a list of free, open access materials on a variety of subjects.  Feel free to add if you like!

GO FORTH AND LEARN SHIT, MY FRIENDS.

Directory of Open Access Journals- A compendium of over 9000 journals from 133 countries, multilingual and multidisciplinary.

Directory of Open Access Books- Like the above, but for ebooks.  Also multidisciplinary.

Ubiquity Press- Journals covering archaeology, comics scholarship, museum studies, psychology, history, international development, and more.  Also publishes open access ebooks on a wide variety of subjects.

Europeana-  Digital library about the history and culture of Europe.

Digital Public Library of America- American history, culture, economics, SO MUCH AMERICA.

Internet Archive- In addition to books, they have music and videos, too.  Free!  And legal!  They also have the Wayback Machine, which lets you see webpages as they looked at a particular time.

College and Research Libraries- Library science and information studies.  Because that’s what I do.

Library of Congress Digital Collections- American history and culture, historic newspapers, sound recordings, photographs, and a ton of other neat stuff.

LSE Digital Library- London history, women’s history.

Wiley Open Access- Science things!  Neurology, medicine, chemistry, ecology, engineering, food science, biology, psychology, veterinary medicine.

SpringerOpen-  Mainly STEM journals, looooong list.

Then on top of it we’ve had numerous generations who were able to have everything on their adult checklist: House, spouse, kids, job security, career, car by 25.

However, due to entering an unstable economy, uncertain job market, but with technological advancements that afford more flexibility, and creativity for their lives compared to their parents, Millenials are going through another growing phase right after their college years. As many can’t afford the adult check-list that their grandparents or parents did at their age. Millenials are taking their time because they literally cannot afford to buy a car, a house, find a spouse, have kids, while struggling to pay off massive debt while working for companies who either have no jobs or little loyalty to keep them for 30+ years like they kept their parents, when they can find someone “younger, dumber, and cheaper to replace you” (<- my baby boomer boss said this proudly to me).

However instead of sympathizing with the generations they helped cripple, Baby Boomers and Gen Xers who are still in power, sneer at Millenials and Gen Z for being vapid, selfish, lazy, frivolous, bucking the system, etc., because they still hold us to these old expectation. These “‘back when I was your age I had x,y, and z/I got want have because I worked hard’” statements that show a failure to understand that most *are* working hard with a really shitty situation. While choosing to ignore that they helped cripple us, Baby Boomers/Gen Xers, havent realized that times have changed, and therefore cultural expectations should as well.

However there is light at the end of the tunnel: As expectations have failed to get with the times, you can exploit this. Just get through your 20s, and once you’re in your 30s, Boomers and GenXers will naturally assume you have your shit together and will leave you alone. Seriously, the moment I turned 30 it was like a huge pressure to preform was off of me. Suddenly the decisions I made were considered “bold” and “living my best life” when in my 20s, those same decisions would have been met with derision from the 40+ crowd.

I absolutely hated my 20s due to this mentally that I needed to accomplish something significant/hit all these arbitrary milestones that don’t make sense to me to stress over because they were frankly unattainable to me. Now in my 30s, it’s a lot easier to breathe.

So chin up, take your selfies, make your shit posts, stay out late, make your mistakes, take years to find your dream job,do those “extraneous” hobbies, classes, whatever makes you happy.

She must have been doing this forever right?

She started quilting at 50 and only started the body of work that’s got her in demand at 65.

Not only do you have a long time for you to work things out, if you find somethign you enjoy, you’ve got AGES to develop it, if that’s something you want to do.

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