Bantering Bibliocrat is the website of Gene Hyde. I’m a poet, photographer, and writer living in the North Carolina mountains.
This website features my recent writing and photography. I’ve been publishing articles and reviews since 1982 when I published a long, rambling review of Richard & Linda Thompson’s album Shoot Out the Lights in the now defunct North State Reader (Greensboro, NC). In the mid-80s I wrote a handful of music reviews while on the staff of The Mountain Times (Blowing Rock, NC). In 1989 I began writing freelance articles and reviews, including book reviews for the News & Record (Greensboro) and album and music reviews and articles for The Specator (Chapel Hill) and Creative Loafing (Charlotte). Between 1989 and 2000 I contributed to such papers as the Memphis Flyer, Arkansas Democrat Gazette (Little Rock), and others. In 2000 I co-edited a 19th Century Ozark memoir, Life in the Leatherwoods, with Brooks Blevins.
I stopped freelance writing when I entered library school in 2000, but soon after I got my degree I began writing album reviews for CD Hotlist: New Releases for Libraries, which I continued for over a decade. Overall, I’ve reviewed over 500 recordings over the years. I wrote a handful of academic articles while working at Radford University and then UNC Asheville, including “In-Between the Color Lines with a Spy Camera: The Appalachian Urban Folk Photography of Isiah Rice,” co-authored with Darin Waters and Ken Betsalel.
In 2024 I retired from a career as an Appalachian archivist. If you’re interested in Appalachian archives and special collections please check out the Appalachian Curator newsletter, the official publication of the Special Collections Committee of the Appalachian Studies Association.
Want to get in touch? Please contact me through BlueSky (@wncghyde.bsky.social) or contact me via email
What is a bibliocrat, anyway?
Combining biblio, the Greek prefix for “book” and -crat, meaning “a partisan of…”, a bibliocrat is a partisan of books, or if you will, a librarian. As the Oxford English Dictionary notes, biblio- is found in many modern formations, “some of which are merely pedantic or ponderously humorous.” The choice, dear reader, is yours.
