I am committed to my profession. I am a big supporter of ALIA. I am wondering though, is this really necessary??
Library Lovers - 14th of Feb
… For centuries February 14 has been known as Valentine’s Day, a time beloved of romantics. Now a new era has begun with Library Lovers everywhere claiming the day for the objects of their special affection - Australia’s libraries…
Think I’ll give this one a miss.
‘In Front of Me’, TZU
Last May in a Groenjords kitchen I made a flippant statement which has surprisingly held true: ‘Eurovision - the love has gone’. It was only today listening to ‘Land of Make Believe’ by the 1981 UK winners, Bucks Fizz* that I realised since that declaration Eurovision and I have in fact parted ways.
I have not even thought about the song contest until now. Hell, I don’t even know when or where it is being held this year. Cannot remember who ‘won’ last years farce. More surprisingly, not only do I not know, I do not care. The care factor is so low I cannot even go past the apathy to find out. Meh.
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* they didn’t perform this song ‘Land of Make Believe’ but instead won with the fantastically cheesy skirt ripping song ‘Making Your Mind Up’.
‘The Honeymoon is Over’, Tex Perkins and the Cruel Sea
A week ago I was ready to pull the plug on too sexy and just let it go . . . . had even started drafting a farewell post in my mind and then apathy took hold and meh, couldn’t be bothered. Motivation for blogging has been at an all time low but it is starting to emerge again. I no longer have that feeling of ‘oh-this-would-make-a-great-blog-post’ that existed with the stigs upon seeing something, reading something or in a conversation but rather I still have the feeling that I need to write. Hey, I’m an English Lit major - allow me my adolescent indulgences. So that kiddies is my motivation - I need to write. Don’t care if it don’t get read. I just need to keep the prose flowing.
Initially this blog was meant to be informative and thought provoking in terms of librarianship and information management and how that crosses over into the geek and SEO worlds. Sounds simple enough given that is my current situation but no, in reality it is a very ambitious task and one that I am not able to take on at this point.
Upon being asked ‘What do you do?’ I always reply ‘I’m a librarian’. Thats what I am. I am not going to hide that and try and dress it up and say I am an ‘information manager’ or ‘information specialist’. I studied library science (although have not considered myself to be a student for a long while), I have worked as a librarian and I enjoyed it immensely, the skills I possess are that of a librarian. However whilst I identify most strongly with being a librarian I have not worked in this capacity since Aug 2006. Waaaay to long. This is one of the main reasons I moved to London - I needed to get back into real work (honestly I was going completely and utterly spare in Copenhagen with no ‘real’ job and being taught nothing new at school). I guess you could say I am a non-practicing librarian, who has lapsed for 18 months and is now seeking forgiveness for straying from the fold.
Despite writing ‘Librarian’ in clear block letters on my landing card at Gatwick (it always gets a response and a short little chat about the profession always ensues - who said immigration staff were sullen, I’ve always found them most pleasant. I digress - yet again) I have to admit I am wanting to do a little side step from the world of information retrieval and into that of search. Specifically search optimization and marketing. I have managed to be offered a project in this field (yay!) but one small project does not a career or authority make. There lies the crux of the problem in terms of the intended path for this blog and what it is in reality. I am still in limbo-land here. Have been out of the librarian work force for too long and have not been in the search realm long enough. Exist in neither sphere and am not able to speak on either with any authority.
This got me thinking. I can’t confidently speak about librarianship nor about SEO, so what can I blog about? Its not a matter of setting time aside to blog, or about getting in the mind set or similar - that has never been a problem. The problem is what to blog about? A blog without content is not a blog - it is a waste of space. So what content can I use to fill up this teenage wasteland? I ended up making a list of what I enjoy, what are my real interests and what I feel I can put out there with confidence. I didn’t think when making this list, just put down what came to mind and what I felt intuitively.
* Music
* Leadership
* Romantic Poetry
* Norse Mythology
* Medievalism
* British and Commonwealth Military History
* Russian/Soviet History and Literature
Some of my acquaintances would scratch their heads at this list and be thinking WTF? Others who know me (who really know me) will not be surprised at all. I am, at heart, a romantic and this list reflects that core.
Until I find my voice in search I am going to use too sexy as a platform for formulating and writing my ideas on the above topics (not all of them of course). Having come to this decision regarding content my mind has been on fire with blog entry ideas about leadership theory and its concepts and application.
Motivation has been rediscovered and enthusiasm found . . . just not in the expected places. Instead this motivation stems from an interest, a fascination that is at my core and has been with me for over 20 years. Whilst the blog name may now sit at odds with the content, at least there will be content.
‘Clampdown’, The Clash
My new favourite song 
We have a problem with this blog . . . a few really but the big one is lack of motivation. What is a blog without content? A few months back I had a number of ideas of where I would like to see this blog go - or rather other people had ideas as to what should be written about. I had done up some bits and pieces of entries to release over time but now, now all that planning and creativity has gone. The lack of direction and focus of too sexy really came home after reading this post about desire, need and man flu when it comes to blogging.
With the stigs there was no lack of desire, dare I say need, to blog. In terms of too sexy it seems more of a chore that is lurking in the back of my mind. I need to find that desire to inflict my rambling ideas upon the unsuspecting again. I admire those who are doing the 365 blog thing, I know I couldn’t (because 1- I am lazy and 2- I have nothing to say).
It seems we are constantly being told that to be a blogger it has to be a passion, a desire, a need. It has to be informative, compelling and and pull 2000 hits a day. Is this really the case? Surely not. Surely it depends on your motivation and aims. For me a personal blog has always been a personal thing, even one such as this which is attempting to move away from the more journal style of entry (obviously not succeeding with that one). To be honest I really don’t care about getting a world-wide following on too sexy. Some of you may be thinking ‘Come on! SEM/SEO is what you want to get in to!’, yes it is. The concept of getting results makes me dizzy and reading and analysing stats makes me giddy but that is in terms of my (future?) employers online presence - not mine.
According to the topics that go hot on Sphinn this is not a good attitude to have. We are constantly being bombarded with posts such as ‘10 ways to get further reach on your blog’, ‘Cunning ways collect comments’ and ‘6 sexy stylin’ tricks to pimp your blog’ (is it just me or is it in danger of becoming the Cosmo of the search world). Posts giving tips on ‘How to Hire a Hott SEO’ even go as far to tell you to Google any prospective SEO and if they come back high on the SERP well then they must be a rockstar. I can see this, I can see what they are saying here but do you really want a ‘rockstar’ working for you? If the job description included the criteria of -
* experience in destruction and demolition of hardware (including but not limited to: drum kits, guitars, keyboards, stacks, amps and cabs etc. NO destruction of basses though - the bass is sacred)
* ability to whine insessantly and take offence at any comment or suggestion
* Must have demonstrable EGO
Then yes, a rockstar is what you need. As with most industries the people who tend to get respect and longevity are those who are the antithesis of the ‘rockstar’ - those who quietly do what they do and do it well. They will challenge and question people and ideas, rather than tell and say ‘this is how it is done because I am telling you’. Guess you could call them the Gurus (not the self-appointed ones of course - rather those who truly have served their time sitting on lonely mountains being sustained on nothing but yak milk). Yet the point of SEO is to achieve a cult, rockstar status is it not? Yes . . . and no.
Yes, you want your product, brand, service, whatever to achieve monstrous high-profile success - thats the whole goddamn point. You want so much traffic that the servers break (of course you will need to fix this at some point). At the same time though whilst this is great for whatever you are pushing, is it so great for your own integrity? Personally I would rather be known (regardless of profession) for being someone who is a damned good worker, who gives everything they have, and above all gets done what needs to done - and more - but without having to go out and tell everyone how bloody awesome they are. In all seriousness, if your work cannot stand up for itself over time without your having to be continually reminding people of your status then you are in trouble. Reputation is of vital importance but in terms of personal reputation it needs to be built from what is consistently achieved, not what is constantly told.
I am all for every kind of promotion when it comes to my work but not when it comes to myself. Professionally, yes I want those top spots. Personally, no I do not want to be ‘rockstar’ and am happy for too sexy to be read by a only a few.
I am sure, nay, I know some of the readers of this blog will vehemently disagree with this. Some will agree that the goal of a blog - any blog - is to be read and read widely. The more hits you have and the more subscribers the more success you are. I agree, it is a measure of success - a very good one and as a metrics geek I love analysing my stats and seeing patterns and so on but is it the only measure? Is there more to a blog than being in the top 4 of the SERPs? It all depends on what your goals are, what your motivations are.
I seem to know what my motivations in terms of too sexy are not, yet am struggling to determine what they are. I know they will shift and change over time but actually having some to start with might help!
Right now though I am going to try and find direction in a block of dark chocolate with orange - truly the prince of combinations.
“Side of the Road”, Concrete Blonde
Here is hoping you all had a fan-tas-tic festive season and indulged in your favourite indulgences.
For me it has busy few weeks yet if you were to ask me what I actually did I’d be hard pressed to tell . . .
What is glaringly obvious is that I have done no work on overhauling the sexy books. This awkward, ungainly thing that is currently my blog cannot go on. I’ve decided to take the bit between my teeth and build it all from scratch. Am determined to hand code every blasted little bit. Yes, I know that there are bagillions of templates and wysiwyg whatsits out there (quite literally bags of illions of them) to make life that little bit more palatable in terms of a nice shiny sexy books but no, they are not for the likes of I.
It has been years since I have done any real coding so I would like to see if any aspect of it has lodged somewhere into what I charitably call my brain. This will be a test to see if I can develop something semi-respectable. Coding has never been my strength so this could very well be a long and painful process - please bear with me!
Feedback is most welcomed and in fact encouraged (yes, Cristiano and B I am looking at you).
“One Crowded Hour”, Augie March
One of the main delays in getting this blog up and running was choosing a domain name. Unfortunately Miss Geeky was taken (think that is such an awesome name!) as was Virtually a Librarian. Whilst I love iamemma’s suggestion of In the Stigs (it really was perfect for that blog and phase of my life), it wouldn’t transfer across to this one terribly well. There was the dilemma, was being asked by people to blog about being a female, Australian librarian in a male, US/UK dominated ‘geek’ world. Numerous ideas and suggestions for posts but no name . . .
Nicole Simon suggested a great one Yes - shh. This came from Web2.0 Berlin where I was continually being approached and told with great conviction - ‘You’re the librarian!’, to which of course the only reply could be ‘Yes. Shh!’ I still really like this name - oh the agonies of trying to decide on a name! It took weeks of being torn between possible names - there were mighty wailings and furious gnashings of teeth (okay, slight exaggeration there) - eventually the spoils went in favour of ‘too sexy’.
Too Sexy for my Books was suggested by Rod Beckstrom - coauthor of The Starfish and The Spider.
During the conversation the Sexy Librarian was at first suggested. Have to say it didn’t appeal - I’m not a sexy librarian and it doesn’t really address what the content of this blog will focus on. If you have come here in search of buxom, dominatrix, glasses and cardigan wearing women reading books such as ‘The Dirty Bits - for girls’ then you can just keeping moving, because there is nothing to see here (although I do recommend that book). The next suggestion was from Rod singing the line ‘I’m too sexy for my books’. After dissolving into a fit of the giggles, the more I thought about this name the more it appealed to the 12 year old school-girl in me. Not only does it have its own built in annoying theme song but it does also provide a nice tongue in cheek description of how some people react once they find out that as a librarian I don’t actually deal with books but instead delve into the ’sexy’ world of search and that hottest of hot right now - folksonomies (although that is more kimanadas field - I’m more of your ontologies kinda gal).
Wait a second. . . this blog is in fact not going to contain much of books nor the sexy. . .
New year, new country, new blog. Don’t worry I wont be doing this every time I move country (oh lords no - never again!), nor will it become a new year’s resolution styled thing. This new blog, all shiny and full of potential, is not meant to be a replacement to the stigs but rather provide a shift in focus away from ‘then I did this and then he said and I said’ personal style of things.
Why a new blog? I have found lately that people outside of my family and friends have been asking for my blog and frankly giving the stigs site to real bloggers is just too embarrassing. Linking to one long outpouring of ‘I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep’ is not the best way to impress the uber-cool 2.0 crowd*. So here it is - a blog that can proudly be printed on my Moo cards for all the groovy kids out there to read if they so desire (and hopefully comment upon).
Hope you enjoy!
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* - I did in fact have random German upon meeting me cry out: ‘Oh! Your Gondul. The girl who cannot sleep. Yeah, I read your blog’. Got a bit spooked by that one . . .
