[Publib] Favorite public librarian blogs

[Backwage at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/26/2007 7:24:32 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time,  
mark.gresham at gmail.com writes:

What are  your favorite blogs?  What's thought-provoking or refreshing?   
What's always just beyond the latest curve?  What's a  day-lightener?  What do 
you recommend?  


Let me do the reverse:  Blogs that I don't read.  That's  easy:  most of 
them.  Why:  Not enough postings to consider them  alive; seem to be written by a 
sixth-grader; strong evidence of mental  disorder--and not the kind that 
provides amusement.
 
Seriously, bad writing-- or seriously bad writing, is the curse of  the 
genre.  Then there's the meme problem--I hate the term, but  it's gained currency: 
you get a post which does nothing but refer to another  post somewhere else.  
 
Did I mention bad writing?  By which I should say, writing which is  done as 
though it would be read only by a close friend rather than an entire  world of 
strangers.  Writing which takes liberties with form.   Unwelcome liberties.  
Bad diary writing.  Techno-rants composed of the  latest phrases, a few 
belligerencies, and very little else.  Inside jokes  for a very tiny group of 
insiders.
 
If you think I'm one of them bluenoses who look down on writing which is  not 
carefully done, you're right.  Mind you, two-thirds of the columns in  
American Libraries are failures by that standard, so you may imagine where that  
puts the weblogs of our time.  Want to see a modern tragedy?  Go back  to the 
mid-Twentieth Century and read the good old journal of the ALA.   Your face will 
burn with shame when you compare today's model.  Why  they not be literate in 
library anymore, eh?  And these, the educated  folk.
 
Blogs are not badly written because the form invites a casual approach and  
greater freedom--they are just bad because most of anything written by  
librarians today is not very good.  And in that sense they look very much  like the 
blogs of most other people out there, which is a shame, indeed.  
 
If you write a blog, do this, at least some of the time:  Write  something 
original.  Meaning, that which involves considerable thought and  labor.  Be 
creative if you can, and if you can't, at least capitalize the  first word of 
your sentences.  Review a book, and if you don't know that  is, be aware that it 
consumes about 3,000 well-chosen words.  If you're  going to talk about your 
feelings, try to be oblique, or at least  circumspect.  Give the field a 
contribution once in a while.  Ask  yourself, "Does this need to be read?"  If not, 
then assume that it doesn't  need to be written.  If pride does not motivate 
you, consider falling back  on shame and guilt to prevent the production of bad 
material.
 
On days when you don't have it in you to write well, post pictures of your  
dogs.  I've got two of them, just for that reason.  
 
M. M. 
 
 



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