Preexising thoughts

There are bunches of librarians blogging out there, so why start another one? Of course, because this one is mine - and everyone, in our own narcissistic way, thinks our thoughts are at least as important as those of anyone else.

I am currently an academic librarian, and I'm starting a new job this summer, also as an academic librarian but in a whole new part of the country for me. I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I want out of this new job - I know that they have expectations for what I am bringing as well, but thinking about what I want will help me focus as I begin - and since this one has research and publication requirements, I need to be thinking those thoughts.

Here's the deal: I love being a librarian. I love helping students, I love teaching classes, I love working with new technologies. There are aspects of the profession I dislike - primarily it's the bitterness that comes across when some groups of librarians get together. I'm on a bunch of e-mail lists, and I think the combined griping that can occur has really dragged me down and brought me to a somewhat negative mindset about how things aren't going to change.

What I want is to keep being excited about being a librarian. To be excited about the new tools that open possibilities - like Twitter and tagging and all the new fun stuff that I feel like I'm playing with - but that does have enormous possibilities for reconnecting with our users. I want the excitement to stay with me. I want to keep loving what I do - instead of being distracted by naysayers. I want libraries and librarians to say that "yes, we can do that. In fact, we can do it better and cheaper" instead of "well...maybe we could do that, what if we tweaked it some so it looks (and works) just like what we've got over here...".

I want to play. I want the joy of my profession, not just the daily grind. I don't want to just show up for the sake of getting a paycheck - I want to contribute and be involved. Sitting on my duff letting changes catch up to me only when they happen to flow past is no good. I want to seek and find the fun stuff and try to figure out what the next big thing is.

Let's go to work.