File under “Doggerel, Random.” I’m still busy. I’m still kind of tired. And everything coherent I had to say I’ve already said at Lead Pipe this month.
All that aside, however, life is good. Even the worst day in a library is better than the best day scrubbing floors or serving food. Trust me. I know from these things. I don’t miss them.
And the days have been very, very good. We threw a party for a reference librarian who moved on up to bigger and better things at another branch. We welcomed a new reference librarian who has both fabulous professional chops and prodigious cupcake-baking abilities. I’m releasing reference books into the circulating-wild by the dozen, by the day, screaming, “FLY! BE FREE!” as I wheel the cartsful over to the shelving area. The Eleventh Stack bloggers remain a joy; in case you missed it, one of our newer team members managed to write a humorous, vaguely Rapture-related post without being offensive, which gives you some indication of the caliber of quality I’m working with here. All things considered, I have no complaints.
I’m just not quite sure what to do with this blog anymore, though, because, well…
…forgive me…
…the thrill is gone. There. I said it.
When I started Alchemy, I had just stepped into a shiny new job, ready to take on challenges about which I knew very little except that I couldn’t wait to learn more. And boy did I learn a lot. About emerging technologies, about vendor negotiations, about committee work, leadership, and a whole host of other things. The last three years have been educational, and I hope this chronicle of my progress in those areas has been at least somewhat witty and entertaining for those of you who’ve stayed the course.
I just feel like it’s time to do something different now with Alchemy, even though I’m not quite sure what that would be, or what form it would take. It’s not a comfortable feeling; in fact, it sort of feels the way it did when I was in a PhD program, making good progress, but strangely dissatisfied. It doesn’t feel organic to talk about my job anymore, and since I haven’t been excommunicated from Lead Pipe, I will probably do my philosophizing there.
So, whither Alchemy?
I’ll let you know as soon as I figure it out. In the meantime, you can mark me as officially “on hiatus,” I reckon. I still have that idea brewing for another blog, one that would have shorter updates more often, but I am still tinkering under the hood with it. Given that it would rely heavily on the participation of guest contributors, I want to make darned sure I get it right before I wheel it out of the lab…
Until we meet again, here or elsewhere, I hope you are reading good books, thinking wonderful thoughts, dreaming noble and/or crazy dreams. I hope you are serving your patrons well, while taking good care of yourself, and that, despite whatever you might be struggling with, your professional life comes out ahead in a cost-benefit analysis.
the notorious LAV
