Caveat Lector

Yesterday I signed up for classes for my very last semester of library school.

Ye $DEITIES and little fishes. I wasn’t even sure I’d make it this far.

After class last night, I found myself standing at the bus stop with one of the old-timers from the Department from Hell. Not anyone I’d actually had for a class, mind you; just a random department member.

And he recognized me. And he said hello. (Well, he said “hola,” actually, but same difference.)

Credit where it is due, I suppose, which is why I’m posting this; I was surprised that he knew my face, seeing as how I’ve been gone for five years. (Dead sure he didn’t know my name, but truthfully, almost no one there did, and he has more excuse than several.)

I do wonder what he thinks I’m doing. It became clearly evident that I am a student of some sort; on the bus, I pulled out Greg Downey’s anthology for Information and Labor and commenced highlighting one of the articles still on the reading list.

I just hope he doesn’t think I crawled into library school as some poor second choice to the Holy Pilgrimage toward Academia. Because, nope. Am librarian, right down to tips of toes; doesn’t matter if I don’t end up working in a library, am still librarian, because librarians are more than the buildings they work in.

Keep getting asked if I want to undertake another Holy Pilgrimage. (There’s this digital-librarian Ph.D fellowship program at Austin…) Keep saying no. Academia had its chance at this acolyte. Academia blew its chance high, wide, and handsome. Academia doesn’t get a second chance.