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!