Why “A Life in Libraries?”

Today’s assignment is to edit my blog’s title and tagline. But I’m not going to, because I “sort of” took the Blogging 101 course last year, and I changed my title and tagline then.  I thought about them again today in conjunction with this assignment, but I decided I still like them.

When I started blogging someone told me to use my name as the URL, I think to make it easy for people to find, so I did. She also told me to use my name as the blog title, so I did. I added “A Life in Libraries” as the tagline.  Last year when I changed the title and tagline, I changed the title to “A Life in Libraries,” and the tagline to “what I’ve learned . . . and am still learning.”

I call it A Life in Libraries, because I feel like that’s really what I’ve led. I started using my local public library as a child. I worked in that same library when I was in high school. I worked in my college library when I was a student. Then I was, in this order:

• a bookmobile “librarian” in a small town
• a branch “librarian” in a smaller town
• a graduate student at UW Madison School of Library and Information Studies (SLIS), while also working at the Cooperative Children’s Book Center (CCBC)
• head of reference at a university library
• reference librarian at another university library (wearing many different hats in several different positions there)
• library assistant, then assistant director, at a small public library
• library consultant at a public library system
• happy retiree, who also consults and offers training/workshops at local libraries, and part-time online instructor

Enough said, about that, I think. I think you can see why I say I’ve led a life in libraries. (The word “librarian” is in quotes in the first two bullets because although that was my title, I wasn’t officially a professional librarian because I didn’t have my Masters degree (MLS). Those of you in libraries will understand.)

And I made my tagline “what I’ve learned. . . and am still learning” because that’s what I try to write about here. Both things I’ve learned from my life in libraries, but also a lot of new posts I run across about libraries and library management (and management in general.) I share a lot of other people’s posts, but I often add some of my own thoughts from my own experience.

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it! And that’s my title and tagline and I’m sticking to them, too!