So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish

I wanted to believe that I had the head space to keep working on this blog when I published the last post. I thought if I published less frequently or something that I'd be able to sneak it in. But things haven't slowed down at all since early July, and there are a lot of things competing for my time and attention. My priorities have changed.

I need to express my thanks, regardless. I have gotten so much from the time I've spent on this blog. The relationships I developed would have been enough to be worth all the work, but it's no exaggeration to say that this blog changed my career and life. I will forever be grateful for your attention and support as I've worked through topic after topic. Also, all the guest authors who willingly gave me their time and thoughts have blown me away with their generosity. It was an amazing experience and an honor to run this blog.

All of this is to say that I'm not going to be updating LtaYL anymore, not for the foreseeable future anyway. I'm going to leave it up because the breadth of coverage is important. Also, there are posts that still get hits on the regs. But that's all from me.

So... so long, and thanks for all the fish (and trash). I may be back, but probably not for a long while.

Changes, Big and Small

This hiatus went on longer than I anticipated, but a lot of stuff came up for me personally and professionally that kept pulling my focus from this shouty little blog of mine. I even thought for a while about shutting down Letters to a Young Librarian. Then a few people said something about how they originally followed me on Twitter because they appreciated my voice on such a range of topics on my blog, and how they appreciated that I gave a platform to so many different kinds of library people. I also thought about how much joy I've gotten from this work (even if it's become more work than joy at times). And so, instead, I have decided to slightly rework how LtaYL functions.

First, I know I've been sitting on a few things that people have sent to me that were supposed to be on this blog a while ago. I'm going to reach out to everyone who submitted something to me that has not yet been published. I want to see if they're still interested in publishing those pieces over here.

Second, I'm going to significantly reduce how much gets published. Right now I'm thinking a piece every other week, with something from me in the mix every other month or so. This is a compromise between completely abandoning this soapbox of mine that has been a labor of love for so long and keeping going at my former pace.

Third, moving forward, I want this to be more of a platform for other voices than my own.

The tone will be the same; the subject matter will also be the same. Just a change of focus of who and how often.

So, what do you all think? I really want to know.

Another Hiatus

Y'all, I have too many forks and not enough spoons so this blog is gonna be on hiatus for the rest of May and maybe into June. Thanks for your understanding.

Any Topic Requests?

If you've been following this blog, you know I get tapped out for ideas every once in a while, then something comes along and I suddenly have a surfeit of ideas. I've got a few things lined up that I can't publish just yet, for a few reasons, so I'm going to use this week to ask if anyone has anything they'd like me to write. But I need your help to get over the hump, the dry spell, the idea desert I'm currently inhabiting.

So, do you have anything you're trying to handle for which you think advice would help?

Are you curious about my philosophy about a certain part of librarianship?

Do you have a topic you'd like to write yourself, but are afraid of the fallout that might occur if you spoke about something publicly?

Comment here; respond on Twitter or Tumblr; send me an email - librarianjessica at gmail dot com!

I'm ready to help!

Be Back Soon

This hiatus has gone on much longer than I expected. Initially, I was working on a book - which is, admittedly, still in process - and told myself I'd be better able to concentrate if I put the blog on hold. The idea was that I'd have even more writing time, that I'd use that extra writing time to write the book. And that step may have helped if not for other things that came up (two separate medical things about which I plan to write blog posts in the future), and now I just want to get back into the groove of writing this blog again. I still need to work with my co-author for the book and figure out a new schedule to send to our oh-so-patient editor, but I miss LtaYL.

So, in the interests of getting things back up and running, here's a few things I'm hoping you'll help with:

1. If you sent me a draft at some point, let me know if you're still interested in having me publish it? If I don't hear from you, I'll reach out.
2. Same goes for anyone who reached out to me about possibly writing for LtaYL, or if I reached out to you in the past, can you let me know if you're still up for it?
3. I'm also open to suggestions and/or requests for topics you'd like to see me cover.
4. And suggestions of people you'd like to see write guest posts? That would be greatly appreciated as well.

Anyway, here's to getting back to the rhythm. Shoot me an email (librarianjessica at gmail dot com) or comment here or even @ me on Twitter (olinj). I'll be waiting!

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.

Suggestions?

I'm in the same situation I was about a year ago: a few things in various stages of written, but none that I think are ripe for finishing and publishing. So I'm once again looking for suggestions.

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Here's what I'd like to hear about... do you:

1. Have an idea for a topic that you don't feel comfortable covering yourself?
2. Want me to revisit something I've talked about in the past?
3. Have some other kind of question/idea for which you'd like to see my response?
4. Want me to revisit a topic I've covered in the past?

Hit me up! Email me or @ me or comment here. I'm waiting to hear from you!

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Life Got The Better of Me

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Because I know how important work-life balance is, and I know how crucial it is to be gentle with ourselves, I'm going to have to skip another week.

Be back soon.

-Jessica

Five Years of Letters

Can you believe it? I can't believe it, even if you can. Five years of this blog. Five years of advice and working through my thoughts and building relationships with new guest authors and old. To celebrate, I'm going to give away books! Of course books. While I was playing around with different ways to mark the anniversary, I decided the books I mentioned in my post from last week, "The Case for Theoretical Eclecticism," are a perfect fit for this kind of occasion. In case you've forgotten, here they are again:

• Letters to a Young Poet, by Rainer Maria Rilke
• Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, by Chip Heath and Dan Heath 
• Rules for Radicals: A Practical Primer for Realistic Radicals, by Saul Alinsky
• Seeking Meaning: A Process Approach to Library and Information Services, by Carol Kuhlthau
• Start Where You Are: A Guide to Compassionate Living, by Pema Chodron
• Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
• The Upside of Stress: Why Stress is Good for You and How to Get Good At It, by Kelly McGonigal
• Why Fairy Tales Stick: The Evolution and Relevance of a Genre, by Jack Zipes
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig 

You will get two copies of your pick of one of these books (except the Kuhlthau, since it's pretty pricey) - one for you and one for a library of your choice! All you have to do in order to enter the contest is let me know that you want to enter and let me know which book you choose. You can comment here (just make sure to include a way for me to contact you), @ me on Twitter, or email me. I suppose you could send me smoke signals or a carrier pigeon, but I'd probably just call the fire department about the smoke and show the pigeon where I keep the bird seed without noticing the message on its leg.

The contest will run from the day I publish this post (May 31, 2016) until the end of the day on the actual anniversary of the first ever post on Letters to a Young Librarian (June 8, 2016). I'll try to pick and announce the winner by the end of that week.

This is my way of saying thank you. I am grateful for the conversations and the ideas and the people I've had come into my life because I got angry and started to blog. Really so grateful.

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Looking For Suggestions

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I've got five different posts in various stages of rough or not-so-rough draft, but I don't feel comfortable publishing any of them yet. So, instead of a new post, I'm going to send out this request for feedback and ideas. So, do you...

1. Have an idea for a topic that you don't feel comfortable covering yourself?
2. Want me to revisit something I've talked about in the past?
3. Have some other kind of question/idea for which you'd like to see my response?

I'm here and I'm listening.

Taking December Off

For a lot of reasons, mostly other scholarly/lis writing projects, I've decided to put the blog on hiatus for December. Be back in 2016!

Ode to My Guest Authors

Something weird happened to me recently, and I wanted to talk to you about it. But first, let me show you what I mean:

Truly humbled by the support I received from @olinj while writing this & from so many people on here who've read it http://t.co/bmJKVYA4sW

— Jessica (@schomj) October 9, 2015

That tweet from the author of the last guest post... it startled me. I guess it never occured to me that I have an option of not supporting and assisting someone who is willing to write for my blog. Yes, I've had some success, and this blog has become somewhat of a platform for me, but I wouldn't have made it past that first year if not for the guest bloggers. LtaYL is well over the half million views mark (about 200k of those in the last year alone), but those stats are more a testament to the people who give me their time and words than they are to me. Each and every one of those guest authors have done me a favor, so why wouldn't I support them?

I've been writing this blog for a long-ish while now. When I started, I had one goal for Letters to a Young Librarian: "to break down the barriers between library schools & students and professional librarians." Somewhere along the way, that goal expanded to breaking down other barriers: between kinds of libraries, between administration and frontline librarians, between professional and paraprofessional, and those barriers we somehow build between and among ourselves.

It's that last goal that has become my most important focus. Collaboration and cooperation are crucial for libraries, no matter the communities we serve. The key, though, is not just talking but also listening. It really needs to be a conversation. Besides, I learn so much when people write for this blog. I get to listen to their experiences. I get to give them a venue so that others can listen.

So, you're welcome Jessica Schomberg, but also thank you.

Stretched Too Thin: Not a Real Post

I'm feeling stretched too thin lately. I took the positive step of telling someone who is heading up a project that I admire a lot that I have to bow out for a while, and told someone else "no" outright. But the blog post I was writing for today isn't quite ready and I really needed to get a good night's rest last night, so here I am on a Tuesday morning without a solid blog post.

Even Stretch Armstrong, that supposedly unbreakable stretchy toy, can break, so you're going to have to deal with an apology again instead of a post. And a reminder that you have to take care of yourself if you want to avoid burn out.

Have a great week, y'all.

Four Years of Letters

Four years ago (well, four years and eight days as of when this post will be published) I started my very first blog post with:

"I want to break down the barriers between library schools & students and professional librarians and I want your help."

If you'd told me back then that not only would I still be writing this blog, but that I'd see library science graduate programs linking to my blog and that it would change the course of my career... well, I would have listened eagerly to you, but I would have been skeptical.

Publishing opportunities and speaking opportunities and collaboration opportunities, all because I decided to shake my fist at the edifice of library science graduate program curricula.

For the first two anniversaries, I asked for feedback and gave away prizes as a way to celebrate. I got great suggestions. (2012, 2013) I'd like to resurrect that tradition for the fourth anniversary. So, here are the contest details (copied and pasted from past contests):

You will win a donation in your name to a book- or library-based charity/entity of your choosing. The amount will vary depending on whether you want me to make a cash donation or buy an actual book (there will be an upper limit - I am a librarian, after all, not a bazillionaire). The beneficiary can be the library where you work, your MLIS alma mater, the Ferguson Public Library or Enoch Pratt, etc.

To enter, you must, before midnight on June 23, 2015 (EDT), leave a comment on this post in which you:

1. ...give me feedback about the blog. What's your favorite thing about LtaYL? Your least favorite? Is there someone who you really want me to get for a guest post? A topic you haven't seen me cover yet? A topic that has been covered, but for which you'd like an update? So long as it's constructive feedback, it counts.
2. ...let me know how to get in touch with you. I'd prefer an email address, but a Twitter handle or a Google+ link will work as well if you don't want to advertise your email address publicly.

The rest of the rules are simple:

• One entry per person.
• The winner will be selected, as randomly as I can manage, from all entries.
• I reserve the right to tweak the rules as necessary.

Once I've picked the winner, I will contact him/her for details of the charity. After that, I'll announce the winner.

Now it's your turn. How can I improve this blog? What should I never change?

And, as always, for your continuing readership:

Gone Fishin': Be Back Next Week

I'm goin' fishin' (well, to a conference, actually), but I promise I'll be back next week.

Brief Hiatus Will Be Over Soon

First there was the conference that took my energy, time, and attention.

Then this happened...

RIP Princess Holly Butt, of the Catte-Butts of York-Upon-Catnip. pic.twitter.com/0Nmnkn5hig
— Jessica Olin (@olinj) April 6, 2015

I know this is a professional blog, for the most part, but I wanted to let you all know what has been happening. Also want to let you know that the hiatus is almost over. I'll be back to a regular schedule starting next week.

And if I owe you an email or an edited guest post, you will hear from me in the next week.

Thanks.

Pretty Please Write for Me?

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I posted the above picture on Twitter, and have since gotten a few offers of posts from fantastic people. I even got a draft of a somewhat delayed post from someone who had previously promised to write! I will follow up with everyone, but I want to cast the net a little wider.

These guest posts are definitely favors people do for me. Please, those of you who have offered to write in the past but who have not sent me anything yet, this is not any kind of condemnation. We all have busy lives in this field. Even big university libraries run into the "do more with less" mentality, so I'm not even vaguely upset.

But please, all of you - graduate students in the field, paraprofessionals, university librarians who are about to retire - you do have something to say. Some small piece of advice you could pass on. Please use the link above to learn about what goes into a guest post, and contact me (use Twitter or the email address at the page about guest posts).

So, please consider writing for this blog? And, for just considering it...

Be Back in 2015

It's been a long, hard semester. Lots of good stuff accomplished, but I'm going to hold off publishing any new posts until 2015. Until then, I plan many naps and much relaxation.

See you all in January!

No Post Today

I thought I was going to have jury duty this week. I don't since I ended up being excused, but I spent the weekend getting ready to be away from work for two weeks. That means I didn't write a new blog post yet. I'll be back next week with something new, but in the meanwhile here are some ridiculously cute things to counteract the horrifying and heartbreaking things that have been happening lately.

Three Years of Letters and Going Strong

Dear Library World,

A little over three years ago, I found myself highly aggravated with the state of things in our profession. Instead of just whining and whinging to coworkers, as I had been prone to do, I decided to start a blog in hopes of ameliorating the problems. I quickly learned I wasn't the only one who despaired and I got the inspiration to ask other library professionals to add their voices to mine, and in that moment an amazing part of my life was begun.

I've always thought my goals for this blog were a bit arrogant. Who am I to think I can change the relationship between the new kids, meaning library science graduate students and people new to the field, and the profession itself? But somehow you all weren't offended. Not only that, but you have abetted me. I've even noticed library science graduate programs linking to this blog! You all have embraced and supported LtaYL for three amazing years so far, and it seems that it will continue on for a while yet. I've still got plenty of soapboxes on which to stand, and there are still plenty of people who want to help.

It's humbling and odd and wonderful to have had my sometimes crotchety pontification embraced so broadly. Thank you. So very much.

With love,

Jessica

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