As you may have noted from previous posts, I’m currently in grad school for my Master’s in Library and Information Science as well as a working librarian in youth services. I’m very passionate about my decision to become a librarian and believe it is important to incorporate my professional life with my personal life. I love finding ways to bring together my love for literature and my hobbies as I’ve posted about here when I brought a popular children’s book character to life through crochet. I have also taken on a small project begun through a class assignment. Following blogs is a great way to keep up with all that is happening in the library field (or really any field for that matter!) and hone in on some concepts to develop professionally. I’m always thrilled to find new ways to think outside the box when it comes to professional development, so I’d like to share some funky blogs I have found from fellow librarians who are also passionate about bringing new life to this progressive career path:
The Unquiet Librarian is a blog by Buffy Hamilton which I have been following for over a year now. Her insights into progressive school librarianship are great resources for those entering the field or established teacher-librarians who want to keep up on trending issues in the library field such as technology, best practices, and what’s new in her literally unquiet library. I love following Buffy’s musings because she not only has great ideas, but because she is very down to Earth and makes her posts interesting and applicable to any aspect of librarianship, not only school libraries.
The Book Dork blog initially caught my eye because of the funky name, but after checking out the link I was amazed at the amount of YA Lit reviews it offers. I wish I had more time to read YA and Children’s Lit, but since I’m bombarded with assigned and professional reading in my classes, I have to rely on reviewers like Aimee who are passionate enough to provide the other guys with quick and reliable tidbits. My favorite part of her blog is obviously the reviews, but I like that she has her own visual rating system from “Waste of Time” to “Favorite”, making it easy to choose books for making suggestions. This is definitely a blog I will keep coming back to!
And last, but of course not least, A Librarian’s Guide to Etiquette. Simply, this blog cracks me up. That’s really the only reason I picked it to share. No, it doesn’t offer professional development. No, it might not offer insights into emergent technology or best practices. However, it is a breath of fresh air and shows that librarians do indeed have a sense of humor too! Each post is a snarky comment on so-called library etiquette, but hilariously stated; for example “Librarians should encourage their patrons to have sex in the library. Any additional housekeeping costs can be paid for with the advertising revenues you get from the live stream to your library’s security cameras.” Love it. I guess it started out as a running joke but it soon became “the number one, most-trusted source for authoritative tongue-in-cheek librarian etiquette tips on the Internet” and consequently one of my favorite places to go for a bibliophile smile.
So there ya have it, folks. Three blogs from the library field that you should probably check out. I know this is a blog about my crocheting endeavors, but I’m a librarian by day (and night on Tuesdays and Thursdays) so deal with it! I hope you find these blogs as helpful and entertaining as I do. There are so many awesome resources out there that it was hard to pick only three, but that’s just because librarians are awesome. Simply put. Where do you go to keep up on the latest and greatest in your career or hobby?
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