There’s been some speculation in the comments of this blog, her blog, and even at some dinners that I write the Annoyed Librarian . I want to state emphatically that this isn’t the case. I have no connection to the Annoyed Librarian, and that should be obvious to anyone who reads both of our blogs.
Just because I have taken up the AL’s cause in the war over blogger anonymity or because the AL came in #1 on my library blog survey (even though no one actually voted for the AL) doesn’t mean that I write her blog.
Just consider the stylistic differences between our blogs. She writes unusually long blog posts with lengthy paragraphs that are often satirical and sarcastic, which some people claim she can do because her real name isn’t attached to them, whereas I write unusually long blog posts with lengthy paragraphs which are rarely satirical and sarcastic, because even though I might want to be sarcastic sometimes people know who I am and I have a career to think of. There’s probably also no correlation between our blogging frequency, either, with my monthly number of posts high during months when hers are low and vice versa, though I couldn’t check that without doing some research. On second thought, I don’t think you should bother doing that research. I’m sure there’s nothing interesting there. Oh, and she uses Blogger, while I use WordPress. That’s a huge difference right there.
Note as well our different accomplishments. As anyone who reads her profile will know, she’s possibly the most successful, respected, and desirable librarian of her generation. I, on the other hand, have merely developed a high profile library blog, given myriad presentations, written a book, designed the popular Five Weeks to a Social Library course, put together the Library Success wiki and several ALA conference wikis, become an American Libraries columnist, been asked to adjunct at a library school, and been named an LJ Mover and Shaker, all within three years of becoming a librarian. As you can see, these two profiles just don’t match at all.
Finally, there’s just the enormous difference in tone and content. I am cheery and upbeat most of the time, while the AL is pessimistic and critical. True, I have occasionally been pessimistic and critical in the past, such as when I used to criticize the ALA, but that was a long time ago, before the AL came along to criticize the ALA. Sure, it’s true that one of my criticisms involved the alleged librarian job shortage that the ALA is always promoting as just around the corner, but that was back before the AL came along to criticize the job shortage hoax. Now that the AL’s around, I don’t have to write about that topic anymore. I can be cheery and upbeat and say nice things about the ALA and get to be a columnist for American Libraries. I wouldn’t have been able to do that saying mean things about the ALA under my own name. And sure, it’s true that I argued that the ALA should “raise the accreditation standards for library schools” so that they were more rigorous, but that was back before the AL came along claiming library school was an intellectual joke and the ALA should raise the accreditation standards. I don’t have to write about stuff like that anymore now that the AL’s around.
And I write about social software and library 2.0 and such, and it’s obvious that the AL’s never even heard of most of those trendy things. Oh, and I never write about public libraries. That’s definitely one topic we haven’t both written on. That’s because I’m an academic librarian. I guess she’s an academic librarian, too, but she probably doesn’t work at Norwich University in Vermont. Everyone knows she doesn’t like rural areas and that she prefers civilization, and if she doesn’t like rural areas she couldn’t very well live in one, now could she? No, she couldn’t.
These are just a few of the many obvious reasons why I’m not the Annoyed Librarian. There, I hope that has gone a long way to set the record straight.
And thanks for reading!
Thanks so much for clearing this up.
How shure can I be that what you write here is true? How can I be sure? Ah yes: you’ve only to answer one single question:
What’s your attitude when it comes to martinis?
At the AL’s place there are 4 comments, here there are just 2 or three: so: well: probably you are not her nor vice versa anyway … .
Now this was a weird thing to wake up to. Consider my mind blown.
But you put up identical posts…so does this mean you DO know the identity of the elusive AL??
Is this issue settled then, or more confusing than ever? And which of you is Santa Claus?
Abs, there’s this little thing called sarcasm…you might want to get familiar with it. Maybe you need to reread both posts.
Well-done! I never would have guessed. Long live the doppelganger!
What did Shakespeare say? The lady doth protest too much!
Or, the Annoyed Librarian is very clever, copied your post, edited and quickly reposted it, thereby making it look like you’re at least in cahoots if not in fact the same person. But if she knew that I would think that… oh no, logic vortex!
Hilarious. Well done.
ya’ll are totally the same person.
@Nick Baker…
Annoyed Librarian’s post showed up on my feeds before Meredith’s. Although I must say, Meredith’s showed up quite quickly thereafter…
This is way too funny – I needed this! Jim
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.
There’s a famous English playwright I’d like to quote now, but I can’t remember the line… (*ahem*)
What a wonderful treat!
JM–no need for snarkiness please. If one person or two people collaborating, still quite the funny read.
But it’s NOT two people collaborating. That’s why I mentioned the sarcasm. Both blogs had identical posts where AL and Meredith denied they were the same person, but the posts were *sarcastic*. Therefore, if you read the posts again and note the sarcasm, you will see that Meredith is essentially admitting that she IS the AL.
But how can two people who say they aren’t the same person be the same person? That’s just crazy! The denial is right here on the Internet, so it must be true!
Sometimes I wonder if a person called Meredith Farkas really exists, or if she’s just a pseudonym for Roy Tennant.
Interesting theory…
Forget Shakespeare, we’ve entered Philip K. Dick territory now.
And the very next person to post after Joshua is me, whose old blog name was a reference to PKD….spookier and spookier…
(I am not Meredith, AL, Roy, or Sparticus, however).
Ooh! I love Philip K. Dick! Wouldn’t much want to be a character in one of his novels, though.
I always wondered if your blog was a reference to the book Valis! Mystery solved. Thanks Simon!
Hey Meredith… funny post. But I am losing something in the translation I think. In your post about popular library blogs, you said “Nearly 1/4 of all participants in the survey voted for the Annoyed Librarian” but in this post you said “even though no one actually voted for the AL.”
Am I missing something? Another go at humor that passed me by? Just curious!
“There’s probably also no correlation between our blogging frequency, either, with my monthly number of posts high during months when hers are low and vice versa, though I couldn’t check that without doing some research. On second thought, I don’t think you should bother doing that research. I’m sure there’s nothing interesting there….”
Thank you for providing the raw data for a case study in the psychopathology of Internet communications. Soon I will be invincible!
Hey David! Yes, the comment was just a joke.
Though if I were the Annoyed Librarian, I probably would have inflated her stats and said that over 50 people voted for her regardless of whether that was true or not. I’d be happy to show you the results in Survey Monkey though. 🙂
thanks for the clarification! No need to see stats – just a little bunny trail that lost me 🙂
I noticed one of the “topics” for this post is farce…. what do you suppose that means?
Philip K. Dick is a boring hack. He wrote the same novel over and over, much like AL/MF writes the same blog posts over and over.
Well, I don’t read PKD; you don’t need to read AL and/or MF if you find them to be hacks.
Maybe someday the Library of Congress will be able to make a see reference in its authority file like this:
Annoyed Libraran
SEE: Farkas, Meredith
“I always wondered if your blog was a reference to the book Valis”
Yes indeed. And while I still love PKD, I somewhat regret that reference (too fanboyish, etc). It was meant as a somewhat laboured pun (VALIS is an acronym, I was using LIS as “Library and Information Science”. Oh well, I’m stuck with it now.
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