{"id":4791,"date":"2024-11-16T14:36:32","date_gmt":"2024-11-16T19:36:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/meredith.wolfwater.com\/wordpress\/?p=4791"},"modified":"2024-11-17T18:28:39","modified_gmt":"2024-11-17T23:28:39","slug":"on-20-years-of-blogging-at-information-wants-to-be-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/meredith.wolfwater.com\/wordpress\/2024\/11\/16\/on-20-years-of-blogging-at-information-wants-to-be-free\/","title":{"rendered":"On 20 Years of Blogging at Information Wants to be Free"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today is the 20th anniversary of this blog. I put that on my calendar about 6 months ago when I realized how close to 20 years I was and then promptly forgot about it until last night when I realized it was already mid-November. 20 years feels like something to celebrate, especially when I think about how few people I blogged with in 2004 are still posting (according to this post<\/a>, blogging was already on the wane in 2009, and that was nothing compared to where we are now). I don\u2019t write nearly as much as I did when I started (holy crap, <\/em>302 posts in a year<\/em><\/a>, Meredith? Get a life!<\/em>), and there have been many times when I\u2019ve wondered if I should just stop blogging altogether, but every once in a while I\u2019ll get really revved up about a topic and will be grateful that I still have this space. Other than when I was on the tenure track, I\u2019ve never felt the need to publish in fancy peer-reviewed publications (though I have written for some); this space suits me fine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I started this blog, I had been married for three months and was about a month away from graduating from library school. I was really passionate about the profession and was driving my husband nuts talking about library stuff all the time, so a blog seemed like a good space to share my ideas, keep current, and do what I love, which is writing<\/a>. And I\u2019m so grateful to have had this space to work out my often jumbled thoughts ever since. Since then, I got what really was a dream job after a long and soul-killing job hunt<\/a>. Then, in the span of what felt like both the longest and shortest five years ever, I got a book deal and wrote Social Software in Libraries<\/em><\/a> <\/em>(2006-7), got an American Libraries <\/em>column<\/a> (2007), started teaching for San Jose State<\/a> (2008), started traveling around the world giving talks<\/a> (2007-2012), and had a baby<\/a> (2009). I look back on those years and it feels both like a whirlwind and like I was living a particularly charmed life. Yes, I worked my ass off and basically made librarianship my life in an incredibly unsustainable way, but a lot of people do that and don\u2019t have all the things fall in their laps that did for me. I think a lot of it was being at the right place at the right time (when old media, library associations, and library schools were trying to become more \u201cweb 2.0\u201d) and being loudly and unapologetically myself. It was quite the ride and I recognize the good fortune I had to experience it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel like my next 14 years were years of slow dismantling. I became antsy to climb the career ladder<\/a> at a job I loved and left for a job at a toxic workplace<\/a> that made me question my worth as a librarian and as a human being. I was fortunate to find my current job<\/a> at PCC, which I\u2019ve been at for over a decade now, which was (and still is in many ways) a dream. And, in an environment in which I both had tenure and felt safe, I was able to start separating out what I did because I loved it and what I did because I thought it was necessary to climb a ladder or to feel worthy. In those years, I struggled with work\/life balance<\/a> (especially as a mother and while negotiating the tenure track<\/a> in my previous job) and experienced a mid-career crisis\/burnout<\/a>. I\u2019ve still published, presented, served on committees, and taught, but far, far less than I used to, and only when it was about things I was passionate about (like building a culture of assessment, accessible online education, privacy, DEI, slow librarianship, embedding library instruction, etc.). I even gave up writing for American Libraries<\/em><\/a> because I felt like I\u2019d had enough (too much?<\/em>) of the spotlight and wanted to see the publication give other folks a chance. During the pandemic, I finally recognized after 20 years of suffering with debilitating migraines that I had a real disability<\/a>, advocated for accommodations, and then was promptly further disabled by COVID and an autoimmune disease<\/a>. Fortunately, all that came at a time when I\u2019d de-centered work and de-coupled it from my sense of worth and was able to properly prioritize my health.<\/p>\n\n\n

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When my son and my husband surprised me with a 10 year blogaversary cake. I’d love to say the 5 year old decorated it, but…<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Today, I\u2019m going through old posts and reflecting on what I\u2019m most proud of in my work here. With over 900 posts, I obviously didn\u2019t look at everything. I focused on posts I remember loving and those that got a lot of comments (would you believe my blog used to regularly get 20-75 comments on a single post???). Believe me, there were plenty of posts that made me cringe (oversharing, being a self-righteous jerk, being suffused with vocational awe, etc.), plenty that made me want to give my former self a hug or tell her \u201cyou don\u2019t need to keep proving yourself!\u201d, but I still see a lot to feel proud of, even from my early years in the field.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m proud of the critical and questioning stance I\u2019ve had since the beginning. I feel like while people were jumping on bandwagons around things like Library 2.0<\/a>, adopting free Web 2.0 technologies for critical library services<\/a>, and rebranding information literacy as transliteracy<\/a>, I was critically evaluating those things, even when doing so didn\u2019t make me a popular person. I\u2019m also proud of standing up against oppressive practices in libraries, like devaluing library workers who don\u2019t have an MLIS<\/a>,  hiring for \u201cfit\u201d<\/a> (which was still a very common practice when I wrote this), neutrality<\/a>, and open offices<\/a> among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m proud of my consistent advocacy for online learners. I had an absolutely crappy experience doing my MLIS degree online and have always wanted to right those wrongs for other students, with my early work as a distance learning librarian<\/a>, my online teaching at San Jose State<\/a>, and my advocacy for equal treatment of online students<\/a>. Unfortunately, it feels like after 20 years, while there is more of a focus on quality in online teaching, library services for online students are still largely treated like an afterthought<\/a> and it breaks my heart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m proud of my writing about teaching, which has been the heart of my work for nearly 20 years. Here are just a few that I can still look and not feel embarrassed about:<\/p>\n\n\n\n