It's been a hard week full of rejection for the Annoyed Librarian.
First, I opened the new American Libraries with its cover story on "Mattering in the Blogosphere" to see if I mattered in the library blogosphere. Apparently, I don't, or at least they didn't interview me. I did find out that one of the bloggers who allegedly matters comes across as utterly humorless and thinks anonymous blogs are "paper tigers." I don't consider this a swipe at me because I'm not anonymous, but pseudonymous, and my blog isn't a paper tiger but instead an electronic one. I guess I don't care who does the writing, because I prefer to deal with issues and not personalities. That's because I don't have much of a personality.
After the soul-crushing experience of finding out I don't matter in the library blogosphere, I next took a look at the new Library Journal list of library "movers and shakers," and found out I wasn't one (at least not as the AL). That was a little disappointing. I felt sure I was going to make it this year, because I move a lot, particularly when dodging criticism, and sometimes I shake as well, or at least shudder, especially after reading too many blog posts on Library 2.0. It's a bitter disappointment, and dealing with the rejection would no doubt take years of therapy, if I believed in that sort of stuff. Instead I'll just have a martini.
So now I'll have to struggle on somehow, and maybe next year I'll be luckier. Because now I have a dream. I have a dream where little named library bloggers and little pseudonymous library bloggers can both matter in the blogosphere together. And where little movers and shakers and little dodgers and shudderers can play together side by side in this little paradise we call libraryland. One day that dream might be a reality.
About Me
- AL
- The Annoyed Librarian is possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. She has no other interest than to bring her wit and wisdom to the huddled librarian masses yearning to breathe free. The Annoyed Librarian is a free spirit and you are lucky to have her.
13 comments:
In the meantime, struggle on. In the end, you matter a lot to those of us who follow your blogs and look up to you for inspiration as well as just common sense.
I feel disappointed as well. I thought I was a "mover and shaker" in the blogosphere. Guess not.
AL: Consider bringing your annoying self to Second Life.
Second Life, baby! That's the ticket!
Yes, but do the others have minions? I think not.
To paraphrase U2, AL moves in mysterious ways, baby.
If your First Life involves the Hour, why would you need Second Life?
--Taupey
I tried to imagine the alternative universe where a pseudonymous, controversial, cranky, satiric, polemical, and occasionally vitriolic library blogger who mocks the movers and shakers would be considered a library mover and shaker. It just wouldn't be right somehow. It would ruin my image. On the other hand, I might be a blogger that matters, at least to the quirky or disgruntled folks who stop by every day. I'll just keep writing as long as someone is reading.
AL, you are way ahead of your time, and that's why you were rejected. This often happens when truly great and influential people come on the scene. The masses in Libraryland simply don't get it yet, they're just not ready for you - except your wise little minions of course. But sooner or later you will be studied in the halls of academe, cited in papers worldwide, called upon by the experts, and given your rightful place in the history and destiny of library science.
Oh, stop. I'll get a swelled head, and it's already so swollen I have to grease the doorway to get out of my office.
Just nominate yourself as "mover and shaker". We'll all vote for you!
Better yet, create your own list of movers and shakers in the Journal of Annoyed Librarianship!
meh. just like the emerging librarian nonsense...do they *really* have the finger on the pulse?
you're shaking and moving just fine.
I am not sure what the LJ editorial board even means by "mover and shaker". It is it code for self-important blogger who thinks far too much about their clerical middle-class job?
Indeed you are ahead of your time. I just ask that when the day comes, and you do take over librarianship in the rightful place of the visionary, that you remember the minions who will be able to say, "we knew you back when." (Of course, some kind of cushy cabinet appointment would be nice too :) ).
Second the motion of creating a list of our own in the Journal of Annoyed Librarianship.
Keep on writing, we will keep reading with the knowledge we are well ahead of the curve.
According to the website, Movers and Shakers "are young enough to have grown up with computers and the Internet." I guess that leaves me (and possibly AL) out. I find that offensive that you have to be young to be a mover and a shaker. This is my second career, so I am no longer young.
If the rest of the world heard the phrase, "movers and shakers" in the same sentence with librarians, they'd be shocked!
punkrockgod said...
"It is it code for self-important blogger who thinks far too much about their clerical middle-class job."
LOL, noted!
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