A love letter to my comerados
I know this won’t really be an appropriate posting style once people (other than us) have found our page, but since I’m sure that hasn’t happened, yet, I want to make my first post a little love letter to my wily camerados.
Since arriving in New York, I’ve been seeing a lot of old friends. Inevitably, I find myself giving them the abbreviated version of my whole year, and, of course, the Bookaneers loom large in my account. Here’s why: we are what I hoped for from my MLIS degree.
Allow me to elaborate.
Many months ago, I sat on Freeda’s steps and really turned the release valve. Imagine a fisherman’s net after a haul, covered in a diverse catch of bitterness, hope, surprise and bewilderment. I poured out my bitterness at what I saw in the library where I worked on campus, librarians and library techs who didn’t seems to give a care about the students who came to them, desperate for help. I grew hopeful when I thought about how we young ‘uns could do it differently. I was surprised at what library school was turning out to be. And I was bewildered at how we were going to make things better in a world of budget cuts, corporate control of publication, and technological advancement that seems to have outpaced measured consideration.
To be completely honest, I was a little caffeinated that day, and so the end of my monologue ran to the evangelical, as it is want to do when I have more coffee than blood running through my veins. What I hoped for was a way to harness all of the talent, intelligence and compassion that I was seeing in my classmates and friends into a long-lasting network of thoughtful teammates. So that, once we had graduated and dispersed around the country and world, we could continue to help each other grow. As our work and technology landscape changed and shifted underneath our feet, I wanted to make sure that we still had each other to call on—for help, for celebration, for inspiration. So that, ultimately, we were the best librarians that we could be in the world. And thank goddess, that wish has been fulfilled. Here we are, stringing together the ties that bind. What will this new net capture as it drags the sea of our future?
Hopefully a few less poor puns, and a lot more excitement.
Love,
Althea
