As I write this, I'm occupying a spare desk in the offices of Artfire.com in Tucson, drinking french press and contemplating how to begin to describe the past year or so of my life. Most of this blog so far has been about the trials and tribulations of a library school student whose perceptions of the library world have undergone significant change since the beginning of my time at the iSchool. This change kicked into high gear over the last year as I began working for Google, escaping a stagnant position and moving to one that couldn't possibly be more opposite dynamically, and as a result, this last year turned into the major crisis of identity and purpose that I've been expecting since my first day of classes. I'm happy to report I'm on much more solid ground nowadays in terms of what I actually want to be doing with my life, and while I've still got a lot to figure out, here's what I've discovered so far!
Firstly, and most importantly, while I still very much subscribe to the idealistic view of the future of libraries I discussed in the post I wrote almost 2 years ago now (What Being a Librarianarchist Means to Me), I've come to realize that this future won't be in place for a very long time, and it's going to be an uphill battle all the way. There has been some incredible innovation in libraries over the last few years, and I'm still optimistic that they will eventually evolve into these "local nerve centers for information" discussed by Godin in his article, but I've realized that for me personally, my interests now lie somewhere outside of fighting this good fight.
One of the most alienating things about my degree experience has been that the vast majority of my classmates are looking forward to inhabiting existing roles in the library sphere. While this is a perfectly understandable and normal direction to take, I find I'm less and less interested in walking into a job where I'd have to operate within the rigid confines of a long-established job description. My job at Google has completely opened my eyes to how much more satisfied I feel with my work when I'm working on multiple projects/products at once in every possible capacity -- I've had days where I'm pulled aside for 2-3 completely separate projects in the span of 8 hours. I've grown to love and embrace variety, and people demanding things of me that I've never done before in a professional capacity. I like walking into the office and not knowing what I'll wind up doing by the end of the day. This is not something I'd be able to do in the library sphere, at least not until I've "done my time" working low-level, static jobs in places I don't want to live for a couple decades and crossing my fingers that the Great Librarian Retirement that was promised to us all when we started our degrees back in 2010 will someday come to pass.
This has been the main impetus for my professional interests swinging firmly into the tech start-up camp, and I don't see them changing anytime soon. I made the decision to move to San Francisco months ago, and my move date (come employment or a leap of faith) is rapidly approaching. Seattle has been a wonderful place to live, and it will always be home base for me, but it's time for something different. Something bigger, and something more risky. The more job announcements I see for tech start-ups in the Bay Area, the more excited I get that I've finally found the work environment I've so desperately been searching for. These jobs demand that you wear many different hats every single day -- you are expected to learn on the job to fill existing gaps, and to learn quickly and well. Much of the time I've spent at Google has been doing exactly this, and it's hard not to go into gush mode whenever I try and describe how liberating and enlightening that experience has been for me. I can't wait to continue it in the more intimate atmosphere of a start-up, as working for a company whose name has become one of the most commonly used verbs in modern times understandably has its limitations.
Since this is already getting pretty long, I'll just call this Part One of my giant update and save the rest for another post down the road! Feels great to be writing again. :)
Monday, February 4, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
A Quick Hello!
Hey everybody! It's definitely been quite a while since I've posted anything in this blog, but I'm hoping now that the mid-degree crisis is over and I'm a bit more refocused, I'll find the time to write a bit more on the new direction things will be taking for me. Both career-wise, and personally. :) Tonight's going to be dedicated to homework and recovering from the brutality I visited on my hands and forearms at Stone Gardens earlier, but I'll be writing again soon! Promise!
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Anatomy of my Viral Video
A few days ago, I was sitting at my desk when my roommate, Scott, got my attention. I turned around to see that one of my cats, Sophie, had climbed up under her own steam and perched rather adorably on top of his head and was watching what he was doing on his computer. I, of course, thought this was hilarious, and managed to whip out my phone in time to capture a 1:15 long video clip of her sitting there and readjusting herself into a more comfy position.
I posted it on Facebook initially, then when people seemed to like it on there, thought I'd give posting it on reddit a shot. Reddit is one of my favorite websites and a pretty great online community, and until recently I'd just been a lurker (i.e. someone who views and upvotes/downvotes posts without contributing any content or comments of their own), but had recently been looking to change that. I posted it in a popular sub-reddit - /r/videos - and gave it an upvote boost by logging into a couple novelty/secondary accounts I've created, then sat back and estimated it'd probably get around 20-25 total upvotes. Boy was I wrong.
I posted it to /r/videos on Friday afternoon around 4:30pm, and by the end of that evening, I'd made the reddit front page. For those of you who aren't redditors, making front page is kind of a big deal on the site because of what it takes to get there. Your net upvotes (i.e. your total number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes people give you as well), on average, to make front page must be in the hundreds at least, and usually there's a pretty robust comment section accompanying these posts. What I think must have happened next - no actual data on this all-important bit - is that a redditor who thought the video was cute/funny/whatever tweeted the Youtube link to Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing fame. Xeni then posted the link to Boing Boing for their weekly Caturday post, people started viewing, retweeting, posting to their Tumblrs, and more, and everything kind of exploded from there.
I posted it on Facebook initially, then when people seemed to like it on there, thought I'd give posting it on reddit a shot. Reddit is one of my favorite websites and a pretty great online community, and until recently I'd just been a lurker (i.e. someone who views and upvotes/downvotes posts without contributing any content or comments of their own), but had recently been looking to change that. I posted it in a popular sub-reddit - /r/videos - and gave it an upvote boost by logging into a couple novelty/secondary accounts I've created, then sat back and estimated it'd probably get around 20-25 total upvotes. Boy was I wrong.
I posted it to /r/videos on Friday afternoon around 4:30pm, and by the end of that evening, I'd made the reddit front page. For those of you who aren't redditors, making front page is kind of a big deal on the site because of what it takes to get there. Your net upvotes (i.e. your total number of upvotes minus the number of downvotes people give you as well), on average, to make front page must be in the hundreds at least, and usually there's a pretty robust comment section accompanying these posts. What I think must have happened next - no actual data on this all-important bit - is that a redditor who thought the video was cute/funny/whatever tweeted the Youtube link to Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing fame. Xeni then posted the link to Boing Boing for their weekly Caturday post, people started viewing, retweeting, posting to their Tumblrs, and more, and everything kind of exploded from there.
I woke up the next
morning to find that overnight, the video had become significantly more
popular. If Youtube Analytics is to be believed (and I have some reservations
about that, but more on that in a later post, probably), by midnight that night, it had gone from
maybe a couple thousand views to almost 60,000, and was still climbing fast. I
woke up to two rather remarkable emails – one from ABC News requesting
permission to post the video on the Good Morning America website and asking for
any editorial details I could provide, and one from a viral marketing group
called Viral Spiral who were interested in helping me license and manage the
video. To the former, I enthusiastically gave permission, and to the latter, I
asked for more information out of sheer curiosity. I’ve always been
uncomfortable with the thought of making money in this kind of way, so while
their array of clients was actually pretty impressive (they currently help
manage viral videos like Charlie Bit My Finger and that sneezing panda one), I
never really had any intention of enlisting their services.
Over the next couple of days, I’ve watched my view count steadily
rocket upwards as more and more sites linked to the video and as more and more
people shared it on their FB pages, Twitter feeds, Tumblrs, blogs, or emails to
friends. The video made the Yahoo homepage for a while earlier today, as this screenshot that
redditor PDXracer messaged to me earlier shows. It has been posted everywhere
from Digg to Laughing Squid to Kotaku, and I’ve seen it
pop up on quite a few news and radio station websites. As I’m typing this, the
latest numbers I have from Youtube are 894,576 views, with over 6,200 “likes”
and only a little over 100 “dislikes” from the soulless troll section of Youtube
users. My video is the most popular with males aged 25-34, and is most popular
in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. It has been watched in countries
all over the world, from France to South Africa to Poland to Iceland to Russia,
and of the 1,200+ comments on the video on Youtube, a good chunk of them are
from people outside of the US. I suspect it’ll reach 1,000,000 views quite
soon, if it hasn’t already.
I am so completely fascinated by this whole process it’s hard to
even articulate exactly how and why. Everyone has, at some point, seen a viral
video – a video that you tell your friends about only to hear “Oh yeah, I saw that
the other day. It was hilarious/awesome/scary/(insert adjective here)!” I’ve
seen quite a few myself, some when they’ve gone fully viral, and others in the
initial stages, but never in a million years would I have believed that a 1:15
video of my cat sitting on my roommate’s head that I posted to one
website would have joined the viral video ranks.
I’m not pretending that the video is going to have any kind of
lasting impact whatsoever. That’s the nature of most viral videos – they explode
in popularity and make people laugh for a short period of time, then something
else comes up to supplant them. Sophie perching up on top of Scott’s head might
not have any kind of major social impact, or make any kind of statement about
society as a whole, but honestly, I’m just really glad that she could make so
many thousands of people smile. :)
Wednesday, January 4, 2012
Creating an Online Presence
One of the things I've been beat over the head with over the last couple of years is the idea that in order to get anywhere you want career-wise in life, anywhere at all, you must create and maintain an online presence for yourself. There's a lot of wisdom in this assertion, and it's something I'm in the process of trying to do for sure. However, coming from a girl who has been halfheartedly trying to fill up the same paper journal since her 18th birthday - to be fair, I'm about 80% of the way there now - the idea of creating and maintaining a niche for yourself online that is creative, innovative, flattering, and professional yet full of your own personality is an almost insurmountable challenge. Even keeping this blog regularly has proved, at least over the last brutal quarter or two, to be more than I can handle.
When I check out the personal websites of people in professional positions I covet, at first glance, it doesn't look like it'd be too difficult at all to set up something similarly streamlined and professional-looking for myself! Minimalist webpage with my name as the URL, buttons to all my other social networking sites readily available (Facebook, Twitter, blog, my as-yet-non-existent Tumblr, the LinkedIn profile I haven't updated in at least a year, etc.), my resume and contact info, a mission statement, quirky About Me section, and what will hopefully eventually be a long list of projects I've worked on and/or contributed to in some significant way. But then, after thinking about it a little more, I realize that creating this online presence is kind of like getting in shape: the initial uphill struggle of setting everything up is a total bitch, while maintaining it comes more easily with a lot of time and practice, neither of which I've given much thought to over the past couple years.
I think part of it stems from the topic I addressed in my last post. I don't really know yet where I'd specifically like to end up. I know without a doubt that my primary goal is to work with people - my greatest joy in a workplace environment comes with bringing diverse people and personalities together and helping their creative gears turn smoothly by anticipating and filling needs. I'm not creative in the way that encourages individual creation of art or music or a product, but I'm a creative interpersonal problem-solver, and I also really enjoy finding people the information they need at any given time. I'd like to work with people who create, and who are passionate about what they do, since I am passionate about working with people like that. Only problem with this? I've never been in a position to do any kind of project management, and thus don't have a sexy Projects or Professional Involvement list to include on my resume.
So why not network, you say! Use the influence you gain via Twitter or other online media to create those kinds of opportunities for yourself! Easier said than done, I reply. At the moment, I am following 266 people on Twitter and have 171 followers myself (@katie_westlake). I've got this blog, which I try and update at least once every month or so, and there's always the myriad of other more subtle social networking methods you can use, like interacting with people over Facebook or Google+. And many of the networking opportunities I've participated in in the past (the lovely #libchat discussion that goes on every Wednesday on Twitter, for example) aren't as open to me as they once were because my focus is shifting further and further away from library work and more into...unknown territory. Much of the networking available to me right now is library-centric, and I feel a bit unsure as to how to proceed when I see questions geared around "In your library...", or when networking or professional development events pop up in my school email that are designed for job searching in the library world.
All that being said, I'm going to try and work a lot harder on developing and maintaining a solid online presence for myself. I'll recruit all the help I need to build an awesome website to showcase my accomplishments, whatever they'll eventually be, and I'll be posting a lot more on this blog, Twitter, and Google+. Might even start up a Tumblr, if it wouldn't be too hipster-y of me. The danger of doing this, of course, is figuring out how much of myself I can include in these things without being seen as unprofessional, but that's for another post. Right now, it's off to check the discussion boards for 580 and do some reading for INFX 543.
When I check out the personal websites of people in professional positions I covet, at first glance, it doesn't look like it'd be too difficult at all to set up something similarly streamlined and professional-looking for myself! Minimalist webpage with my name as the URL, buttons to all my other social networking sites readily available (Facebook, Twitter, blog, my as-yet-non-existent Tumblr, the LinkedIn profile I haven't updated in at least a year, etc.), my resume and contact info, a mission statement, quirky About Me section, and what will hopefully eventually be a long list of projects I've worked on and/or contributed to in some significant way. But then, after thinking about it a little more, I realize that creating this online presence is kind of like getting in shape: the initial uphill struggle of setting everything up is a total bitch, while maintaining it comes more easily with a lot of time and practice, neither of which I've given much thought to over the past couple years.
I think part of it stems from the topic I addressed in my last post. I don't really know yet where I'd specifically like to end up. I know without a doubt that my primary goal is to work with people - my greatest joy in a workplace environment comes with bringing diverse people and personalities together and helping their creative gears turn smoothly by anticipating and filling needs. I'm not creative in the way that encourages individual creation of art or music or a product, but I'm a creative interpersonal problem-solver, and I also really enjoy finding people the information they need at any given time. I'd like to work with people who create, and who are passionate about what they do, since I am passionate about working with people like that. Only problem with this? I've never been in a position to do any kind of project management, and thus don't have a sexy Projects or Professional Involvement list to include on my resume.
So why not network, you say! Use the influence you gain via Twitter or other online media to create those kinds of opportunities for yourself! Easier said than done, I reply. At the moment, I am following 266 people on Twitter and have 171 followers myself (@katie_westlake). I've got this blog, which I try and update at least once every month or so, and there's always the myriad of other more subtle social networking methods you can use, like interacting with people over Facebook or Google+. And many of the networking opportunities I've participated in in the past (the lovely #libchat discussion that goes on every Wednesday on Twitter, for example) aren't as open to me as they once were because my focus is shifting further and further away from library work and more into...unknown territory. Much of the networking available to me right now is library-centric, and I feel a bit unsure as to how to proceed when I see questions geared around "In your library...", or when networking or professional development events pop up in my school email that are designed for job searching in the library world.
All that being said, I'm going to try and work a lot harder on developing and maintaining a solid online presence for myself. I'll recruit all the help I need to build an awesome website to showcase my accomplishments, whatever they'll eventually be, and I'll be posting a lot more on this blog, Twitter, and Google+. Might even start up a Tumblr, if it wouldn't be too hipster-y of me. The danger of doing this, of course, is figuring out how much of myself I can include in these things without being seen as unprofessional, but that's for another post. Right now, it's off to check the discussion boards for 580 and do some reading for INFX 543.
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Decisions, decisions...
I wonder sometimes why it's so difficult for me to take an hour or so, sit down in front of my computer, and try to get some of the thought typhoon that's pretty much constantly spinning around in my brain out for the world to see. First sentences are hard, for one thing. Trying to find something me-related that's interesting enough to talk about is almost impossible, since life at the moment is a fairly unexciting mix of working at a job I keep solely to pay the bills and spending my evenings either doing homework, attempting to learn how to program, or browsing reddit. And the amount of things that interest me are too numerous to even know where to begin discussing them.
I've been having a hard time coming to grips with that last fact lately. I've never been the type of person to choose one thing to focus on since there are so many things I find completely fascinating, but while that curiosity has been a really good thing for the most part, it has definitely hurt me when it comes to choosing what I want to do with my life. I was sitting in class today at the UW with a room full of full-time residential students who were all talking about their Directed Fieldwork opportunities, their ideas for Capstone projects, and their choice of electives, and everyone sounded like they knew exactly what direction they were taking their degree. I went into my program knowing I wanted to go into either academic reference librarianship or library administration, but a year and a quarter in, I find I have no freaking clue what I want to do with my MLIS.
Working in a library still appeals to me, but not at all with the same intensity that it did after I graduated from Linfield and was dying to find a job I didn't hate. There have been a lot of things that have turned me off from pursuing a career in library work, which is sad to me, but it's okay. Working in a library would most likely be quite fun, but I think I'd be much happier working with libraries as opposed to within one of them. But where does that leave me in this degree? The vast majority of my classmates either already work in a library or want desperately to find a library job, and most of the classes are designed to help us along towards that end. I just registered last week for winter quarter classes, and honestly, I chose them completely arbitrarily.
The idea behind a successful career, or so I've been told my entire life, is to choose the one thing among many that you're most interested in, and chase after it with everything you have. My problem? I don't have a favorite interest. I like almost everything. Astronomy, chemistry, video game production, bartending, sound editing, writing, genetics, programming, book editing, architecture, owning a small business...the interest list goes on. Because I haven't devoted years of study to any one of these things, none of them are a feasible career option, since I'd be up against people who have done that and are therefore much more capable and qualified than me. And honestly, I don't know if I'll ever be capable of choosing one thing, which is a frightening thought when I think about the likelihood of ever getting a job that pays more than entry-level. I'd sure like to know what the hell I'm doing, but I don't know when (or if) that'll ever be an attainable state of mind for me.
Sorry guys, I didn't exactly plan for my first post in months to be so full of worrying. To make up for it, here's a picture of Sophie and Mal being adorable! :)
I've been having a hard time coming to grips with that last fact lately. I've never been the type of person to choose one thing to focus on since there are so many things I find completely fascinating, but while that curiosity has been a really good thing for the most part, it has definitely hurt me when it comes to choosing what I want to do with my life. I was sitting in class today at the UW with a room full of full-time residential students who were all talking about their Directed Fieldwork opportunities, their ideas for Capstone projects, and their choice of electives, and everyone sounded like they knew exactly what direction they were taking their degree. I went into my program knowing I wanted to go into either academic reference librarianship or library administration, but a year and a quarter in, I find I have no freaking clue what I want to do with my MLIS.
Working in a library still appeals to me, but not at all with the same intensity that it did after I graduated from Linfield and was dying to find a job I didn't hate. There have been a lot of things that have turned me off from pursuing a career in library work, which is sad to me, but it's okay. Working in a library would most likely be quite fun, but I think I'd be much happier working with libraries as opposed to within one of them. But where does that leave me in this degree? The vast majority of my classmates either already work in a library or want desperately to find a library job, and most of the classes are designed to help us along towards that end. I just registered last week for winter quarter classes, and honestly, I chose them completely arbitrarily.
The idea behind a successful career, or so I've been told my entire life, is to choose the one thing among many that you're most interested in, and chase after it with everything you have. My problem? I don't have a favorite interest. I like almost everything. Astronomy, chemistry, video game production, bartending, sound editing, writing, genetics, programming, book editing, architecture, owning a small business...the interest list goes on. Because I haven't devoted years of study to any one of these things, none of them are a feasible career option, since I'd be up against people who have done that and are therefore much more capable and qualified than me. And honestly, I don't know if I'll ever be capable of choosing one thing, which is a frightening thought when I think about the likelihood of ever getting a job that pays more than entry-level. I'd sure like to know what the hell I'm doing, but I don't know when (or if) that'll ever be an attainable state of mind for me.
Sorry guys, I didn't exactly plan for my first post in months to be so full of worrying. To make up for it, here's a picture of Sophie and Mal being adorable! :)
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sleeping with my windows open tonight \o/
Today was the kind of day I've been wanting to have for a very long time. Woke up relatively early after some crazy dream involving old people, car crashes, gun fights, and trains, dawdled around on the computer for a few minutes, then shut it off and headed out the door for some adventuring!
My wanderings took me first to grab some food along 45th, after which I walked through some really cute, quiet Wallingford neighborhoods down to Gasworks Park. It's almost impossible for me to do anything productive at Gasworks thanks to the amazing assortment of people parading around, and today was no exception. Highlights included watching a toddler meet her first golden retriever, seeing some kid totally eat it while running down the hill with a kite (he was fine...just a little grass-stained), watching about a million duck boats full of embarrassed tourists sail by, and nearly falling asleep in the warm grass only to get jolted awake by the sound of a full-size steamboat chugging about 30 yards offshore.
After a couple hours trying and failing to read, I decided to head to the UW and see if the libraries had anything interesting to take home, so off I went down the Burke-Gilman. Made a quick stop at the Wall of Death (yes, this is a real thing with some pretty funny Yelp reviews), then headed to Odegaard to find that almost everything I'm currently interested in reading had already been checked out. I've been wanting to get back on a China Mieville kick ever since I went to the reading/Mieville-lovefest that went down last weekend at Chop Suey, but I think I'll have to wait until my SPL holds come through. Boo.
After a quick dinner, I snagged some milk tea and headed back to Volunteer Park to wind down my day atop the water tower. The observation deck has some of the prettiest views of Seattle I've seen yet, and either no one knows about it or I've just managed to hit it at low-traffic times because it's almost always empty while I'm up there. There are three or four pretty comfy benches up there, so I commandeered one and settled in to watch the sun set over the city.
It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I really wish I could press pause and just linger where I'm at for a while. Sitting in one of my favorite spots with a good book, feeling the slightest hint of a warm breeze swirl through the gated windows at the top of the tower, nice cold bubble tea within easy reach, no sound but the wind, birds, and panting of the crazy dude that ran up and down the stairs of the tower what must have been 7 or 8 times. It felt incredibly serene - I do love spending time with my friends on weekends, but there are some days where it's nice to not have to hold a conversation with someone, or worry about whether they're really truly okay with Thai food instead of Mexican, or inwardly lament the amount of money you're spending on alcohol because after you turn 21 that becomes the primary weekend social activity. I came down from the tower because I knew it'd be getting colder out as the sun fell below the horizon, but the whole way home, I wished I could just push that pause button and walk in the glow of the sunset through the streets of the city I love forever.
Oh yeah, and today I successfully finished my first year of graduate school. Almost forgot about that.
My wanderings took me first to grab some food along 45th, after which I walked through some really cute, quiet Wallingford neighborhoods down to Gasworks Park. It's almost impossible for me to do anything productive at Gasworks thanks to the amazing assortment of people parading around, and today was no exception. Highlights included watching a toddler meet her first golden retriever, seeing some kid totally eat it while running down the hill with a kite (he was fine...just a little grass-stained), watching about a million duck boats full of embarrassed tourists sail by, and nearly falling asleep in the warm grass only to get jolted awake by the sound of a full-size steamboat chugging about 30 yards offshore.
After a couple hours trying and failing to read, I decided to head to the UW and see if the libraries had anything interesting to take home, so off I went down the Burke-Gilman. Made a quick stop at the Wall of Death (yes, this is a real thing with some pretty funny Yelp reviews), then headed to Odegaard to find that almost everything I'm currently interested in reading had already been checked out. I've been wanting to get back on a China Mieville kick ever since I went to the reading/Mieville-lovefest that went down last weekend at Chop Suey, but I think I'll have to wait until my SPL holds come through. Boo.
After a quick dinner, I snagged some milk tea and headed back to Volunteer Park to wind down my day atop the water tower. The observation deck has some of the prettiest views of Seattle I've seen yet, and either no one knows about it or I've just managed to hit it at low-traffic times because it's almost always empty while I'm up there. There are three or four pretty comfy benches up there, so I commandeered one and settled in to watch the sun set over the city.
It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes I really wish I could press pause and just linger where I'm at for a while. Sitting in one of my favorite spots with a good book, feeling the slightest hint of a warm breeze swirl through the gated windows at the top of the tower, nice cold bubble tea within easy reach, no sound but the wind, birds, and panting of the crazy dude that ran up and down the stairs of the tower what must have been 7 or 8 times. It felt incredibly serene - I do love spending time with my friends on weekends, but there are some days where it's nice to not have to hold a conversation with someone, or worry about whether they're really truly okay with Thai food instead of Mexican, or inwardly lament the amount of money you're spending on alcohol because after you turn 21 that becomes the primary weekend social activity. I came down from the tower because I knew it'd be getting colder out as the sun fell below the horizon, but the whole way home, I wished I could just push that pause button and walk in the glow of the sunset through the streets of the city I love forever.
Oh yeah, and today I successfully finished my first year of graduate school. Almost forgot about that.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
What Being a Librarianarchist Means to Me
A couple of days ago, author and entrepreneur Seth Godin posted an entry on his blog that discussed the future of the library, and in doing so, ruffled a massive amount of feathers across the librarian community. I saw a lot of derision towards his post, sparking statements like:
It’s always a little galling when a non-librarian tries to tell information professionals how to do their jobs. (from this post by Katy Stoddard)
or another zinger from Bobbi Newman:
But honestly I wish he’d just stop writing about libraries. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a great writer, I think I own all of his books, but I think he should stick with what he knows, and clearly that’s not libraries.
Each blogger goes on to argue against Godin's apparent misperceptions of the basic responsibility of libraries to provide equal access to all types of library materials (and yes, the rabid defense of the book comes up yet again here), and each make some decent points. I saw a similar reaction from many of the librarians and library blogs I follow, and while I do understand where these sentiments are coming from, it was absolutely staggering to me that so many people that reacted in outrage missed the point of his post entirely.
P.C. Sweeney's post on the issue comes the closest to summing up my own viewpoint on the controversy raised by Godin's writing. I too think Godin hit the nail right on the head with his article, and while I would support some of the opposition in its defense of physical artifacts as valuable (and remaining so), I felt myself thinking Yes! Finally! Someone that understands that libraries are in a critical position right now, especially in the public eye, and that there's so much to look forward to in their future if people are willing to shift their perceptions of the function and purpose of a library! And what lends extra weight to his arguments, in my opinion, is the fact that he isn't a librarian. Like Sweeney wrote:
Remember that this guy isn’t a librarian at all. He is library user and an advocate for libraries. He is exactly the kind of person who should be telling us what a library is.
Bingo.
Godin's vision of the future of libraries is immensely exciting to me, and very much in line for what I picture in my own future as a librarian and information professional. His prescription?
The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.
...
The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.
He paints a picture of libraries as the "local nerve center[s] for information," which is a picture I've held dear to my heart since I was a kid, and one that gets even more vibrant the more time I spend in libraries. I see them as not just an institution to preserve the collective human body of knowledge, but as the keystone of any community and as a societal institution in the best place possible to promote the evolution and exploration of new and innovative ways for us as humans to interact with each other. The vast majority of the articles and blog posts and uproar I've been seeing about the death of the public library in the modern age has been primarily fueled by nostalgia - people that remember how libraries changed them as a child and want to preserve the same feelings of excitement and discovery they felt for future generations. This is all well and good, and I share in that nostalgia myself. But what I'm afraid of is that people will be so tied to that idea as solid grounds for the defense of libraries that they'll fail to see what Godin presents in his article - a widely shared public perception of libraries and librarians in the modern age that doesn't give two shits about your sentimental arguments.
Upon acceptance to the UW, I took on the Librarianarchist persona as a bit of a joke - I wanted to be the most badass librarian on the block, and help destroy the stereotype of librarian as fuddy-duddy. But now that I'm starting to understand where society stands on the role of libraries and how divided we as librarians and info professionals are amongst ourselves on where our efforts should be directed in the face of dramatic social change, I'm thinking Librarianarchist is starting to feel like more than a tongue-in-cheek moniker. The way I see it, in branding myself this way, I'm branding myself as someone that does have a deep appreciation for where things have been, but who is primarily concerned with shaking up those old perceptions and expectations and looking forward to where we could go. And that is immensely exciting to me.
It’s always a little galling when a non-librarian tries to tell information professionals how to do their jobs. (from this post by Katy Stoddard)
or another zinger from Bobbi Newman:
But honestly I wish he’d just stop writing about libraries. Don’t get me wrong, I think he’s a great writer, I think I own all of his books, but I think he should stick with what he knows, and clearly that’s not libraries.
Each blogger goes on to argue against Godin's apparent misperceptions of the basic responsibility of libraries to provide equal access to all types of library materials (and yes, the rabid defense of the book comes up yet again here), and each make some decent points. I saw a similar reaction from many of the librarians and library blogs I follow, and while I do understand where these sentiments are coming from, it was absolutely staggering to me that so many people that reacted in outrage missed the point of his post entirely.
P.C. Sweeney's post on the issue comes the closest to summing up my own viewpoint on the controversy raised by Godin's writing. I too think Godin hit the nail right on the head with his article, and while I would support some of the opposition in its defense of physical artifacts as valuable (and remaining so), I felt myself thinking Yes! Finally! Someone that understands that libraries are in a critical position right now, especially in the public eye, and that there's so much to look forward to in their future if people are willing to shift their perceptions of the function and purpose of a library! And what lends extra weight to his arguments, in my opinion, is the fact that he isn't a librarian. Like Sweeney wrote:
Remember that this guy isn’t a librarian at all. He is library user and an advocate for libraries. He is exactly the kind of person who should be telling us what a library is.
Bingo.
Godin's vision of the future of libraries is immensely exciting to me, and very much in line for what I picture in my own future as a librarian and information professional. His prescription?
The next library is a place, still. A place where people come together to do co-working and coordinate and invent projects worth working on together. Aided by a librarian who understands the Mesh, a librarian who can bring domain knowledge and people knowledge and access to information to bear.
...
The next library is filled with so many web terminals there's always at least one empty. And the people who run this library don't view the combination of access to data and connections to peers as a sidelight--it's the entire point.
He paints a picture of libraries as the "local nerve center[s] for information," which is a picture I've held dear to my heart since I was a kid, and one that gets even more vibrant the more time I spend in libraries. I see them as not just an institution to preserve the collective human body of knowledge, but as the keystone of any community and as a societal institution in the best place possible to promote the evolution and exploration of new and innovative ways for us as humans to interact with each other. The vast majority of the articles and blog posts and uproar I've been seeing about the death of the public library in the modern age has been primarily fueled by nostalgia - people that remember how libraries changed them as a child and want to preserve the same feelings of excitement and discovery they felt for future generations. This is all well and good, and I share in that nostalgia myself. But what I'm afraid of is that people will be so tied to that idea as solid grounds for the defense of libraries that they'll fail to see what Godin presents in his article - a widely shared public perception of libraries and librarians in the modern age that doesn't give two shits about your sentimental arguments.
Upon acceptance to the UW, I took on the Librarianarchist persona as a bit of a joke - I wanted to be the most badass librarian on the block, and help destroy the stereotype of librarian as fuddy-duddy. But now that I'm starting to understand where society stands on the role of libraries and how divided we as librarians and info professionals are amongst ourselves on where our efforts should be directed in the face of dramatic social change, I'm thinking Librarianarchist is starting to feel like more than a tongue-in-cheek moniker. The way I see it, in branding myself this way, I'm branding myself as someone that does have a deep appreciation for where things have been, but who is primarily concerned with shaking up those old perceptions and expectations and looking forward to where we could go. And that is immensely exciting to me.
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