The pleasure of being published
Monday, September 23, 2024 at 09:45AM
I am a has-been. My days of being recognized in the library and educational technology field passed when my day-to-day involvement with schools passed on my retirement five years ago. But as they say, “Better a has-been than a never-was.”
When the Minnesota Star Tribune published one of my submissions for its opinion page, I was tickled. This was not a letter to the editor but a genuine commentary. The piece has since generated a couple letters and references in other editorials. Somebody actually read it.
“Influencers” have increasingly moved to social media platforms to share their thoughts and opinions. I am not one of those. I share links to blog posts on Facebook’s Blue Skunk page and on LinkedIn. But no Twitter (now known as X) or Instagram or TikTok. I write, mostly in complete sentences. I don’t dance, sing, or share selfies of me or any body parts. (Lucky you.)
Not too long ago, those of us who appeared in print may have been called the influencers. While the LM_Net listserve (formed in 1992) foreshadowed today’s unedited, conversational, more spontaneous communications, most librarians and tech directors depended on professional journals and books to stay up-to-date on trends and philosophies.
From approximately 1990 to 2015, I published a lot of edited columns, articles, and books. In a fairly wide range of print journals. As I count them:
- 149 articles
- 246 columns
- 7 books, 2 second editions
- Oh, along with 3200 blog posts
So I was perhaps a bit jaded when that School Library Journal or Kappan came in the mail with my name in the table of contents. But no longer.
My view of publishing reflects my generational values. That column in Library Media Connection didn’t just appear instantaneously. It underwent editorial scrutiny first. At times, quite critical. And I’ve always felt that two (or more) sets of eyes on a piece of writing generally improve it. So not only did I have to feel the piece was worthy of sharing, so did one or more of my colleagues or a professional editor.
I seriously doubt I will ever develop a level of post-retirement expertise in any field that allows me to write with confidence. But it sure is fun to see my occasional diatribe in actual print. I am jaded no more.
Reader Comments (8)
You may be a "has been" but you're a "has been" I'm fond of reading, remembering, and following, so...I hope I have more has beens like you in my future reading so I can remember why having been is so important to being in the future.
Hope that makes sense. If not, that's OK. I'm a never been, working on enjoying obscurity and anonymity. Ah, the pleasures of not mattering to anyone and welcoming the nirvana of nothingness.
;-)
And, I suspect your travelogues will keep you in the sights of the many of us who labor in small cubicles and offices, wishing they had the courage to hike a trail.
hope you are well,
Miguel Guhlin
Miguel,
You have and are still a hugely influential voice in the educational technology world. False modesty does not become you! And get your butt out on a trail now and then. Good for the mind and soul as well as the body.
Hope you and yours are doing well.
Doug
I'm very impressed with your publishing accomplishments and am stunned as to why I never heard of the librarian listserve while I was a school librarian. That was a resource I wish I had at the time. I wish I would have found many of your articles and books back then. I'll be sure and recommend them to my librarian friends. Congratulations on the post in the Tribune!
I read your editorial—and saw me comments that followed. Thank you for continuing to share!
Thanks, Mandy. The past 3 decades were ones of rapid change in the library world (as well as elsewhere.) I had the advantage of being a library coordinator and technology director that perhaps gave me the time to keep up not afforded to many practicing school librarians. Be sure to tell your library friends to look at the date when my stuff was published!
Doug
Thanks, Jane. I think you are the only library media person in MN I've heard from about it!
Doug
"Sage for the ages" is more accurate than "has-been." Which is why your were quoted twice in the book Susan Ballard and I wrote. Oh, wait, she and I are "retired," too.
Hi Sara,
It sounds egotistical, but I am almost always proud of the things I wrote on re-reading them years later. Certainly many things are now dated, but certain values, observations and philosophies seem to have stayed relevant. Maybe being retired doesn't necessarily mean being put out to pasture.
Doug
In the course I teach for Syracuse iSchool, Literacy through School Libraries, we talk about advisory groups and I see them discussed online. I have gone back to your writing for quotes and can remember hearing you discuss their value in presentations. They are getting traction these days. And should.