Cause it’s therapeutic

If there was one thing that drove me batty when I first began my professional career as a librarian…or, err, a paraprofessional in a library setting…it was how my coworkers always complained about not having time to explore new technologies, or, really, anything else that may come between them and their to-do lists. I was a freshie out of school, doe eyed, optimistic.

I have sadly become one of them.

There’s a lot of stress in library world right now. What with property taxes taking a nose dive and the economic downturn as a whole, not only is the general public on edge, but your friendly, normally heavily sedated librarians are feeling the grind as well. At our library we’re looking at a 15% reduction in the budget, on top of the 5% or so drop we took in last year. Where does that leave us? Substitute librarians are a thing of the past for now. Department, committee, and any other meetings that take us away from the desk are being shuffled and cut and spaced out further and further apart. (I can’t say that this is completely a negative thing. There are often better ways to communicate within an organization than through monthly meetings. Still, the encouragement to become involved with your professional organizations or any other outside the box thinking is not as boisterous as when I first arrived on the scene about 5 years ago. Our lot has been cast, and that lot means that) Our eight hour days are now to be spent with additional hours on the desk dealing with increasing amounts of reference transactions.

Yet, even with the increased gate counts and reference transactions – libraries are taking a hit. It’s a cruel twist that in the times we’re used most, we don’t get the support we need. So it goes.

So I am pressed for time, and I’m pressed for sanity. It hasn’t been an easy three years for me. I’ve experienced unspeakable pain and loss, well, unspeakable in that I won’t talk about it to anybody but my therapist. I really had no desire to sit down here and type anything out. But the other night I was lying awake in bed and I was thinking about how good it felt to finally sit down and actually think things through and just write it out. I have a post about group/silent study rooms or the lack thereof to thank for that. I’ve read Nicole’s work on the web as far back as I can remember, but group study rooms and their demand has become such a flashpoint in the past two years that I had to respond. I was a little unfair in picking at her choice of words, but I was trying to convey that there was equal frustration on the other side of the coin in regards to what libraries can and can’t do with the space and resources that we have. I think she understands that, and I’m glad that she takes the time to write up posts that are more often than not worth the time none of us have to read.

So I want to start writing again.

I used to put pen to paper daily. I used to love the ink releasing and actually used to have decent handwriting. I’d go all out for the loopy letters. These days I’ve been reduced to chicken scratch. I would much rather type than pen. I think I just have to accept the new medium, but I can’t accept where it’s put me as regards to my writing. I don’t need to find the time. I need to make the time, getting back to the introductory paragraph. I don’t want to be that person who shuns off something because they feel they’re too busy. I know I can do this. I see other people doing it everyday.

There are really three things that stopped me from writing. One was the aforementioned unspeakable. I went to a dark place, and I think I’m just about ready to emerge from that. I’m not afflicted with clinical depression, thank goodness – but I was definitely not in a good place for the past 3 years. The second was the chilling effect from worrying about what work would think about what I wrote. It was doggone thoughtless to register this site and expect to write about professional matters without fearing the repercussions. I’ve got a backup plan in the works for when I feel like I need to vent, something akin to this, but not. The last reason was that I’ve become fed up with my hosting provider. All I wanted was for the lifestream to update on its own, every 30 minutes or so – but these guys haven’t been able to get it done. So – for the first time since Yezbick.com has existed (2003?) – I’m likely to migrate to a different host once my lease runs up here.

There are other things, of course. Facebook and twitter are worthwhile distractions. But they don’t give me the release I can get from pounding at the keys to usher in an 800+ word update. They distract me from that. I’m fairly convinced that this is my return. That I’ll go ahead and make an hour an evening and have a go at it. I’ve got plenty of material to rehash. For starters there’s my delicious account. I could talk about any one of those sites that I’ve found it worthwhile to store into my own personal database. It was actually my “Read it Later” queue that inspired me to sit down here tonight. I’ve let it grow and I meant to make this post an exploration of the links I haven’t quite gotten to as of yet. Instead I’m on a rant. Perhaps I’ll put that off until tomorrow. I’ve become quite adept at procrastination.

1000 words. I promise it won’t be like this every night. Not even close. More than likely it will be more akin to:

Interesting –

Social Eyes presents librarians with an exploration and discussion of new social tools and current trends. The column will address both practical and innovative uses of social technologies that will improve the quality and efficiency of library services.

Unfortunately I don’t remember where I grabbed this from – as Read It Later – doesn’t give you the spot where you actually noted it from your twitter stream or wherever. So I can’t give credit. SOZ. This isn’t the case with my delicious account. There I often make the effort to at least plug a little bit of what the site is about and try to hook up a via tag. Either way – I think there’s a lot more to be said about the things I come across – if just to make me feel better and more productive.

And here I am – closing out this rant – and it turned into something exactly the opposite of what I expected it to be. Here’s hoping I have the same resolve tomorrow to go over what I didn’t get to today.