Inspirational Library-Related Posts, 2012

Since I began my blog, I’ve been monitoring many others. Compiled here are the most inspirational and/or thought provoking blog posts created by fellow book lovers, librarians, and archivists.  I enjoyed their posts and wanted to share them in a way that allows me to say why they were chosen instead of simply reblogging them.  The posts are in the order in which I discovered them. I’ve kept the list since August, but I saved this for a year end wrap-up.

1. “Five Years of Reading with my Kid” by dicameron from her blog The Spy and the Storyteller: dicameron illustrated the importance of reading to young children. I applaud her for what she has done with her son and wish every parent would do the same with her children. Every child should love reading. (Aug, 26, 2012)
2. “Exercising the Mind” by Andi O’Conner from her blog A Book Affair: Andi uses a Mark Twain quote to illustrate how books and reading are important for learning, even in the digital age. (Aug. 23, 2012)
3. “I Want to be Someone Else” by Brenton Weyi from his blog The Renaissance Mind: Brenton reminds his readers that reading leads to adventures, even if they are only in the imagination. He also stresses that compassion can be learned from reading and theorizes that social media is killing traditional storytelling. (Sept. 6, 2012)
4. “Why Libraries Are Important…” by Natalie from her blog Browsing Bookshelves: Natalie tells the story of why libraries are important using the example of Troy, Michigan (be sure to watch the included video). She points out that books and their knowledge within are important, especially when the economy is bad. (Sept. 14, 2012)
5. “The Importance of Professionalism” by Katie Clausen at Hack Library School and “It’s not just privacy, porn, and pipe-bombs (Libraries and the ethics of service)” by Lane Wilkinson on Sense and Reference:  Interestingly, there were to excellent posts on librarian professionalism on the same day!  Katie looks at professionalism through the lens of a library student and reminds readers on ways to be professional while preparing to enter the workforce and our duties as library professionals.  Meanwhile, Lane summarizes a recent presentation he gave on professionalism that focuses more on duties of librarians in the professional world.  He points out several ethical situations and uses the examples to illustrate cases where professionalism is needed.  I know I encountered a few similar situations to the one he described as a graduate assistant in an academic library, so any budding or new librarian should take a look to know what kinds of situations to expect. (Oct. 19, 2012)
6. “Election and archives” by April in Apprentice Archivists:  This post highlights an important, but overlooked fact about archival collections:  The collections are often “sanitized,” or weeded, before they arrive at a repository.  The example April provides is about political collections which are most likely to go through this process.  However, it can happen with any collection if someone wanted something kept from the public.  She also rightly points out this and even how a collection is arranged can affect a collection by inserting bias, even if the only bias is how one decided to organize a collection (something I also touched on in an earlier post). (Nov. 15, 2012)

Additionally, I have some topic ideas for 2013 (to name a few, information/digital literacy skills, genealogy, digital preservation, and more Civil War history).  However, are there any library, archive, or history topics you would like to know more about?  I am open to suggestions and will do my best to see what I can do.

Happy New Year!

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