Salutations

Welcome. This is a blog. I had an embarrassing and somewhat silly blog once as a young person that I half hope has been lost to the wilds of the internet and half hope is out there as a testament to a time in my life. Either way, this blog will be different.

Today, I am a librarian.

I work in the Special Collections department at Princeton University as the Reference Professional for Special Collections (this blog is not a Princeton blog, it is my blog - all views here are mine and do not speak for the university or the library).

In this space, I intend to do the following:

promote my work (discuss successes, admit to failures) and the work of others I find exciting
ruminate, ask questions, reflect and probably, occasionally, rage against the issues, trends and conversations within the library and rare books community
whatever else I think is relevant - there might be book reviews! or article lists!

Some things to know:

I am a 30-ish-year-old white lady, married to Canadian man who works in the non-profit world. We have two perfect cats: Oscar and Saoirse.
I grew up in Northern California and my whole family still lives there. Yes, I miss them. Yes, sometimes I miss living there. Yes, the weather is that good. No, I actually like snow. Yes, humid summers are a tool of the devil.
The best chocolate chip cookies I’ve ever had are at Le Gourmand in Toronto.
I am not a good speller and even worse at grammar (particularly comma placement). Sorry.
I received my undergraduate degree in Book and Media Studies from University of Toronto (with minors in English and Literary Studies), my masters in English from NYU and my masters of Library Sciences from Long Island University. I did my graduate work concurrently via a dual- degree program. I’ll be paying for it for the next eight years, but it was worth it.
My job at Princeton was my first out of graduate school. Yep. Given how hard it is to find full-time, non-gig work in the special collections field, I feel both the joy and the guilt of this fact. You can observe it all on my face when someone new asks me where I work and I reply self-consciously and sheepishly!
I do my best to move through this world and my library work with compassion, generosity, responsibility and justice. I do my best to separate opinions from facts, interrogate habits and prejudices, hold complicated, competing feelings and realities at the same time and be a good listener. Some days, I do some of these things well. Some days, I don’t. I hope that trying and striving and a commitment to learning and rewriting is enough for you - it’s not really enough for me, but it’s what I have.

Welcome.

On [Not] Being Helpful.