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Take My Job . . . Please! By Karen G. Schneider Coordinator of the Librarians’ Index to the Internet. Column for June/July 2002 This is my last column as “the” Internet Librarian. I decided a few months ago that it was time to move on. It’s not that I’m unhappy (I’m not) or that “they” won’t let me say what I want to say (“they” give me free rein, and enormous encouragement to boot). It’s that I’d rather take my curtain call before I run out of things to share with you on this particular stage, while it still feels fresh and fun for you and for me. I’m not going to stop writing any more than I’m going to stop eating deep-fried zucchini or give up lolling on the couch with a fat book. Writing isn’t my chore; it’s my escape, my avocation, my joie de vivre. And in addition to publishing here and there—including American Libraries, of course—I’ll also be posting the Free Range Librarian, a monthly essay about librarianship, the Internet, and all that to be published on the 15th of every month on the Web site I maintain, the Librarians’ Index to the Internet. I say farewell with great affection and thanks for my easygoing and hardworking editors, as well as all the other great folks at American Libraries. I’m too cheap to send them flowers, so I wrote this column instead—because I want to encourage the budding writers out there in Libraryland to put fingers to the keyboard and write for the library press. I lurned so good here! No reely! This is the best education I’ve ever had. I learned to take a great idea and share it in 800 words; I learned how to check names, titles, cities, and states; I learned a bit of the art of the interview, as well as how to trim 2,000 heartfelt words into just the right quote. I learned just how long you can slow-leak your monthly deadline before it really has to be in! I learned that I love—I mean slavishly adore—good editors. (This is also something I learned while writing for Neal- Schuman, under editor Charles Harmon.) Good editing is like a visit to my favorite hair stylist. I know I need a little sprucing up, though I’m not exactly sure how or where. “It’s too long,” I whine (or I can’t trim a quote, or I think this paragraph doesn’t have focus). The editor snaps an apron around my neck, snips here and trims there, then whirls me around to see myself in his mirror. I don’t look too closely to see what he’s done, but we are always both delighted with the results. If you aren’t writing because you don’t like being edited, get over yourself. A good writer loves being edited (by a good editor, of course). In my day job, I oversee the editing of about 5,000 words every week. An editor’s job is not to rewrite. An editor’s job is to cut, trim, and add subtle golden highlights so a writer won’t appear shaggy and unkempt in public, and will even project that certain je ne sais quoi we librarian-writers are known for. Who could say no to that? Why write? Writing is not really a solitary craft. First of all, if you want to get really good material, you have to be able to reach people. One of my favorite types of columns was what I call the “librarian in the street,” where I put out a request to a large online discussion list, such as Publib. Quite often, the acerbic, insightful, and just plain truthful observations of my colleagues made me laugh out loud. Last fall, when I wrote about our profession’s response to September 11, I received answers so beautiful that I cried. There is great satisfaction in the fact that I’ve tackled everything from HTML editors to John Ashcroft. That same joy of guerrilla librarianship was echoed in comments from Amanda Credaro—known better to the world as Biblia, the Warrior Librarian—whose popular zine is now sponsored (ad-free) by Libraries Unlimited. Credaro, an Australian librarian, started Warrior Librarian Weekly “as a response to the utter inanity of government school libraries.” Watch for the book—which really will be published—and later, she hopes, “the movie.” Nerve and a need I also share some genetic patterns with Blake Carver of LIS News, who told me he started his Web site “because it wasn’t there.” True story: Internet Librarian got its start when I walked into the office of the editor of American Libraries and said, “You should have a column about the Internet, and I should write it.” Sounds nervy? Before I walked into that office, I spent half an hour tracing my steps around one city block, working up my courage by reciting those lines with different inflections and hand gestures. (It was Chicago; no one noticed.) But perhaps the first act of writing is to screw up enough hubris to say that no one is waiting to give me a MacArthur genius grant to sit in a cabin and write a book of essays, nor are publishers offering a multimillion-dollar advance on my next book; but in my own way, for the community I belong to, I have something to share, and in seven years, I have been truly fortunate to be able to say it right here. Thank you for that wonderful opportunity, and I look forward to meeting you in other hallways and other venues. |
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