The Liminal Librarian

In the past couple of weeks, two people have asked independently if I intend to do an updated edition of Teaching the Internet in Libraries (ALA, 2001).

Nope, I sure don’t. Even though all the examples use… Netscape 4!

I’ve been thinking lately about the reasons writing is appealing, and this partly boils down to some of the same reasons librarianship is appealing (and why librarians tend to make good authors). Librarianship is a great field for the Renaissance person — you get to research all sorts of different topics; there’s always something new to explore. In the same way, writing also feeds that need to know, to explore, to always be finding out about something different.

I’ve written and presented on teaching the Internet in libraries — I’ve done a lot of teaching the Internet in libraries — and, while this was a useful exercise for its time, I think it’s somewhat outlived its usefulness now. (At this point, a whole new book, not just a new edition, would probably be required.)

Every different topic I write about offers the chance for me to learn something new. If there’s some aspect of the field you want to learn more about, why not write about it? This adds another layer to the process and lets your search/research help others as well.