Who's That Steampunk Librarian?

 Back before she pursued a PhD, Elizabeth Headrick was a library student at Texas Woman’s University who loved steampunk. She was the host of the Steampunk Dollhouse Podcast, a regular contributor to Twitter’s #FolkLoreThursday tradition, and a graduate research assistant at the school library. She made some guest appearances on Texas Steampunk Connection Podcast and Storypunks Podcast before she graduated with her Master’s in Library Science in 2018.

I met her after all that in the spring of 2019 in our first semester of being students together. She was beginning her PhD in Rhetoric and I was beginning my MA in English Writing & Rhetoric. Because of how the programs in our department were built, we took many classes together on our way to our respective goals. We quickly became friends. In part, I think some of that friendship blossomed from the ways in which both of us felt like outsiders. She was new to English studies, coming from a library and history background whereas I was still exploring what my options were, wary of the pedagogy and teaching that inevitably seeps into the theoretical discussions I preferred to focus on. 

We had many a lunch or drink together to commiserate over the rigorous (oh yes, rigor is a trigger word, I know) paths we’d both chosen and I had the honor of watching her make the radical change from student to doctor over the course of her degree. She continued as a graduate research assistant at the school library, hiding out just adjacent to the mysterious dirt—I mean, down in the basement, no mysteries. What? Anyway. She continued her #FairyTale tradition via her blog Bluestocking Writes, which had been spun off on Twitter to become #FairyTaleTuesday. She also began making appearances on Texas Steampunk Connection podcast until finally, she became a co-host. And, of course, she took her classes, she kept writing, she took and passed her comps (the dreaded exams!), and then she began her dissertation. 

But it wasn’t just any dissertation. It was a podcast dissertation. The second in the country. And holy guacamole, did she nail it! 

She had a unique perspective coming into the program with her podcasting experience and librarian education so whether she’ll admit to this or not, she really had a leg up on many of us. But, like all of us grad students, she came curious to learn how to make something worthwhile from her interests. What were those interests? Steampunk, open access, ruling the school library someday. You know, the usual. So, she set out to do what had only been done once before. She wanted her dissertation to be a podcast. 

When you listen to Anxiety in the Archives, you aren’t just listening to a dry academic two hundred page dissertation being read to you. She brings humor and real talk to topics like open access, academic libraries, and even the down low on what it’s really like to get through a dissertation. You want to know about our cultural relationship with libraries and archives? You want to learn about how information is being made inaccessible? You want to know how fiction helps us figure out how we really feel about all that? 

Dr. Headrick’s podcast dissertation, which was completed in December 2024, is deeply important to this political moment. She introduced one episode with a news story on the attempts to ban books and close libraries in Llano Texas and opened the following episode with a interview with a high school librarian, “Jane,” who told a story about how she was forced to make a decision about a book ban that ended in her leaving her profession of 15 years. These aren’t the only stories Dr. Headrick tells on her podcast, but the calls for censorship are growing increasingly out of control in school libraries, public libraries, and beyond. We live in an information economy where access to certain kinds of knowledge can be a privilege only bestowed on the few. 

It’s time for a revolution. This one starts at the library.