I received a request on January 24, 2007 to participate in an American Libraries exploration of librarian blogging.
The results appear in the March 2007 issue in the article, “Mattering in the Blogosphere.”
The blogs included are:
BLAKE CARVER, LISNews
NICOLE ENGARD, What I Learned Today
ROCHELLE HARtMAN, Tinfoil+ Raccoon
SARAH HOUGHtON-JAN, Librarian in Black
JENNY LEVINE, The Shifted Librarian
KATHLEEN DE LA PEñA McCOOK,
Librarian at the Kitchen Table
MARY MINOW, Library Law.
JOSHUA M. NEFF, Goblin in the Library
JACK StEPHENS, Conservator
JESSAMYN WESt, Librarian. net
American Libraries(CB). American Libraries (Volume 38, Issue 3, March 2007).
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This is my full response.
Kathleen de la Peña McCook’s LIST of Blogs & e-discussion lists.
My evolution as a blogger was a journey from print, to discussion lists to websites and website archives and finally to a three daily blogs. As a teacher I have at once participated in and parsed the process. I wrote about my dawning recognition of the importance of blogs (ca. 1999) in “Library Juice Concentrate [A Book for die Jahrtausendwende] “as preface to Library Juice Concentrate edited and mostly written by Rory Litwin, publisher, Library Juice Press.
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BLOG #1 -LIBRARIAN
I began blogging in my first blog—LIBRARIAN-- when the political landscape made it difficult to criticize the government in mainstream periodicals. That is, no one was accepting criticism. ALA was giving Laura Bush awards and putting Laura Bush on the cover of American Libraries…
I blogged a great deal about Jeb Bush’s attacks on Florida’s libraries.
The Story of How Jeb Bush and Judy Ring Failed to Close the State Library of Florida. No. 6.5.2003-2.
LIBRARIAN blog [the blog you are reading now] has an ISSN [ISSN 1932-8559] and is my primary blog where I write about human rights, libraries, librarians, books and culture.
The entry I did that has gotten the most hits was this one:
Leaving the American Library Association Conference Early.
No. 6.17.2006-107.
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BLOG #2: A LIBRARIAN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE
I also blog as a way to extend ideas from my bigger projects. After I did the book, A Place at the Table (ALA, 2000) I was asked to make many presentations on the “McCook Model” of community building at library conferences.
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To extend the conversation I began an e-mail discussion list and Website–.
After I sent out over 350 entries about LIBRARIES & HUMAN RIGHTS and SOCIAL: JUSTICE & COMMUNITY, these entries were archived on the LIBRARIAN AT EVERY TABLE website.
But then adopting to new communication I began to blog about COMMUNITY BUILDING at the blog
A Librarian at the Kitchen Table.
My first post on my blog A Librarian at the Kitchen Table: Explained the transition:
A Librarian at the Kitchen Table is part of the HUMAN RIGHTS BLOGGING NETWORK
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BLOG #3. UNION LIBRARIAN
There is news about librarians in unions EVERY DAY.
American Libraries covers a small amount, but there is no ongoing librarian publication that includes union news. I began to blog this news on a daily basis mixed in with general labor news. I am a member of a union and connected to the labor movement. I have been surprised at the amount of people who have written me with news and indicated that ALA or state library associations simply do not care about library union members.
If you plug the Words, “UNION LIBRARIAN” into google the blog, Union Librarian, as #1. It surprised me that there was such a gap in coverage of the 35% of all librarians who are members of unions.
I also try to keep current on unions in public and academic libraries with links to their websites.
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Here are the questions I was asked by American Libraries. The article included excerpts. My full responses are below.
1) What does it take for a blog to have an impact on the biblioblogosphere?
Write about something the mainstream media largely ignore like UNIONS or library connection to HUMAN RIGHTS and SOCIAL JUSTICE.
2_ What do the readers of your blog value about your posts (i.e., “voice” as an online columnist, value-added news coverage)?
Reader Comments have indicated to me an appreciation of identification of topics not covered by librarians’ print media—
- UNION actions,
- Actions that connect librarians and human rights and social justice to the larger Human Rights and Social Justice Communities.
- Political issues.
These connections are an extension of my ideas –A LIBRARIAN at EVERY/THE KTICHEN TABLE—Librarians need to be involved in the larger struggles for equality and justice. The War in Iraq has been a great divide in this nation overlaid with the repressions of the USAPATRIOT ACT. While ALA Council may not have chosen to take a stand on ending the war (Seattle Council), many librarians feel strongly. They are my readers.
3) How do you decide when to post—inspiration, obligation to keep the blog fresh and readers engaged, or what?
Every day there is an issue I know the library press will ignore.
- Today it is the demonstration of the New Mexico State University librarians for a contract [UNION LIBRARIAN];
- yesterday it was the fact that librarians need to be more engaged with helping people with the EITC [A LIBRARIAN AT THE KITCHEN TABLE]
- The day before it was a much read author, Stephen King, stating he wanted :
“To live to see George W. Bush tried for crimes against humanity.”
I put that Stephen King’s statement in my blog, LIBRARIAN, because it was powerful that a winner of the DISTINGUISHED CONTRIBUTION TO AMERICAN LETTERS AWARD would make that statement.
After reading the library press for over 2 decades I know what news will be ignored. I see items such every day. These are what I blog about.
4) How do you determine what the right length is for a given post?
Whatever it needs.
5) What has surprised you most about the process of blogging?
The different audience reached. I have gotten more feedback in the 5 years I have been blogging than in the 20 years I have been writing in the library press. Also, these are a different audience. The people who write about union issues are not, in the main, ALA members. So, blogging helps me find progressive librarians willing to fight for economic justice that I had not met before.
What lessons can libraries learn from your experiences as an individual blogger?
6) That the mainstream media/library press does not provide a reflective picture of how librarians feel on many issues… The mainstream library press is a mirror. Big libraries look at it and see themselves. Not in the mirror are union members, people against the war and people who would stand up to the likes of Judith Ring (Bush appointee as FL state librarian) who Jeb Bush ordered to close the state library and she went along..Yet not one member of the library press followed up on why she did this. You only read about it in the blogosphere.
7) What’s missing from the LIS blogosphere that you’d like to see someone take on?
Frontline voices. Anonymous blogs are paper tigers. While there are some sites that carp..they are not very effective because the writers are anonymous.
How will the blogs of today be regarded a decade from now? Should digital libraries collect them?
Like other alternative literature they move librarianship in new directions.