I’ve been sick. Infectiously so. So I’ve had a lot of free time to fill, when not falling asleep for unexpected catnaps (seriously, suddenly, I wake up and don’t remember dropping off in the first place. Anywho, I went back in to work today, after taking a couple of sick days and recuperating during the weekend. Still felt a bit droopy, but I tried to be mildly productive and caught up with some of the library trend blogs. I love the library blogs, but there is something about the way library bloggers label themselves that I don’t quite get. Being all medicined up got me thinking in tangents and wondering about these labels. It’s like the attack of the “The” bands in the mid-2000s, when every indie band had a The in their name. Web librarians seem to love the “The” names. They are all The enter catchy descriptor Librarian. Somewhere out there, there may even be a Librarian Who Makes Cheese and Sings with Goats (The Heidi Librarian??). It’s cute, to a certain degree, but I always feel that labeling oneself in such a way is a way of justifying what one does. As if, by calling myself something like The Geek Girl Librarian, I am telling others that being a librarian is not the only thing that defines me, there is more to me than that, which should be a given. Other than The Food Librarian, whose blog is so clearly food related, the names seem like yet another gimmick to get non-library folk to find the profession trendy and exciting.
I chose to go into this profession because I do find it interesting and exciting, and, best of all, I actually get to use my seemingly non-essential English major skills on the job, but I have decided that I will remain label-less.
marginalia and such 