Why Write?

I have been asked what I plan to accomplish with this blog. What’s the overall purpose? To get rich and famous of course! Hah! 

Though I wish that were the case, I have been wanting to write a blog for years. Nothing that I do is revolutionary. I just want to record it – what I do, how I do it, who I work with, etc. This also comes with the hopes that I can introduce some new ideas to other librarians, or challenge them to think about something they do and try it a different way. 

So I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope I can make you smile or challenge the way you think. 

My Passions

A few of my biggest passions are reading, writing, and advocacy. So I thought I could do all of these things with a blog. 

If you’ve ever written anything you know it is revised at least a couple of times – so I get my reading in. The writing part is the blog itself. The advocacy comes from what I hope others can gain from following and reading my blog. Hopefully, the more ideas and time savers I can give you helps you become a more successful librarian. 

Reflecting upon all that I have written, I know that I need to do better on the advocacy piece and my plan is for that to come this summer or at the beginning of next school year. Even if I don’t write about it, getting better at advocating for myself as a librarian in my district would be an accomplishment for me. 

You know us librarians, we don’t like to brag or pat ourselves on the back. For anything. We really need to get better at that, friends. Try thinking of it as advocating for your students and staff rather than yourself – put students at the heart of everything you do and you will be successful. 

I have wanted to write a blog ever since I became a librarian. I wanted to share my thoughts and what I did in the library with others. Or even just to my editor and my mom. Shout out to my editor, Jen Pedrozo, and shout out to my mom, Teri Lott, my biggest fan. 

Why did it take me so long to start? 

The hardest thing for me when I had the idea of starting a blog was picking a platform. I wanted something that could also be a website so that I could eventually add videos, presentations, etc. to it. But I wanted the main focus to be the blog with everything on one site without making readers click out to access other features. So Google was out (don’t get me wrong – I LOVE Google Sites!), Wix is blocked by many filters in school settings, and Weebly had too many extra formatting options, so WordPress it was! 

The second hardest thing for me was to pick a name. I agonized over that decision for years. Literal years. And to think all of that time I could have been writing (and getting famous – hah!)! 

I started with Librarian Out Loud because if you know me you know I am not quiet. But then I realized that spelled out LOL and I wasn’t a big fan of that. What if I did become famous like my idols Shannon McClintock Miller or Gywenth Jones? Then I would be known as the LOL Librarian…no thanks. I thought about Loud Librarian, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Librarian, but that was too long and many people don’t know that acronym. 

Then about 8 years ago, I was sitting in a meeting with my then employer INFOhio and another staff member was talking about how we could be the disruption, the force that changes everything in digital education. And that word stuck with me. See my post about it here. That word stuck with me so much that I became The Disruptive Librarian. 

I want to be a mover and a shaker, I want to change things up, and help others at what they do – I want to disrupt!  I want to encourage others to stay in the profession, because we truly can reach each student in our buildings. 

So if you’ve been waiting to write – write anything – today is your chance. This is your sign! Go write and change the world!