Six Years of Letters

Can you believe I've been writing this blog for six years now? SIX YEARS? Every time my bloggiversary comes around, it startles me to think about the time I've invested in shaking my fist at the world. And, yes, I still think of this blog as me yelling into the void about things that are important to me.

Anyway, for this anniversary - beyond my giveaway contest (details below) - I thought I'd share a list of some of my favorite things I've written here. These are posts that I think really hit the mark on what I was trying to say.

• Another Thing I Didn't Learn in Grad School: It's All About Relationships I wrote a detailed account on how I built a relationship with one particular person on campus to illustrate how important I think relationship building is, and I'm still really proud of that post.
• Could I Show You the Wine List?, Or, How Waitressing Made Me a Better Librarian None of us come to libraries as empty vessels - we all have experiences from before joining this field. I wrote about how one previous job helps me, but there are so many others that can make you better in libraries.
• Emotional Labor & Mental Health in the Library Making sure librarians have room for bad days and time to decompress is important, and I'm so glad I wrote about it.
• Learn From My Mistakes: Reference Interviews Reference interviews can be such a tricksy thing to learn to do, and I still feel really good about the way I wrote about them.
• Nice vs. Kind This is such an important distinction that so many people miss. Yes, librarianship is a helping profession, but we don't help people when we are nice at the expense of all else.

So now it's time for the contest. This year all you have to do is tell me which LtaYL post is your favorite (so long as it's not something you wrote). You can comment here or on Twitter or Tumblr, just make sure if it's not here that you tag me in some way. Also make sure I know how to get in touch with you. You'll win a $50 donation to the book-based charity of your choice and a book for you of my choice (to be determined once I pick a random winner). The deadline for submissions is June 12, 11:59, Eastern Daylight Time.

And, as always, thank you so much for continuing to read my rants. I'd probably write this blog anyway without an audience, but having one makes it more fun.