A few months ago I had a shot at an invited speech, with attached honorarium. It fell through, which didn’t surprise or perturb me; the event in question is a high-stakes, high-visibility thing, so why would they take a chance on a newbie librarian with nothing to recommend her but some disreputable blog?
Dance, Ivan Tribble, dance while you can, laddie. I haven’t been pretending that CavLec is my ticket to fame and fortune. I’ve got two conference presentations, a professional-trade magazine article plus sidebar conference review (forthcoming), and at least one book review (book is on its way) to my credit for this calendar year, plus a book chapter (already written) and half a reference-book contract (argh, must get going on that!) to tally for next year. One of my conference presentations is getting a translation into Portuguese (and no, I’m not doing it; my Portuguese is far too rudimentary and rusty for that). I been busy.
Last week, it so happens, lightning struck. Twice. I now have two invited speeches on my calendar, and one of ’em’s even international! And both the folks who invited me, not to mention the person who asked me to write the trade-mag piece, said that they were long-time CavLec readers and that CavLec had had an influence on the decision to approach me.
Let’s be clear once again, I do not intentionally use CavLec as a professional tool. You won’t find it on my CV, not now and not ever. I never ever bring it up with professional acquaintances who don’t already know about it. If somebody comes to my door on account of CavLec, it’s not because I set it up as a red carpet.
And yet it is one, for a few people, all in spite of its style, content, and frankness. That’s something. Still dancing, Ivan boy?
I mean, if CavLec is all you know of me, why on earth would you think I can write something professional? I left an offer out of my tally above, a “wanna write a book?” offer that came about because my book chapter found favor. That’s the way things are supposed to go. I prove I can write right, I get asked to write more. CavLec is, shall we say, not exactly proof I can write right. (Oh, and I declined the offer, with sincere thanks and a “keep me in mind.” What I have to write about right now doesn’t quite fit with the book model of publication. In five years, things may well be different.)
I got a book out of the library the other day that was written in a style not too dissimilar from CavLec’s: Pip Coburn’s The Change Function. I dumped it on my return stack without making it through the introduction; the style was frankly grating, graceless and condescending self-puffery. I expect a little gracelessness in a blog; it even adds spice. In a book? No, thank you.
I can write professionally, even though it’s not my native or my favorite register, and I think the stuff coming out soon will adequately demonstrate that. Those of you who have been paying close and careful attention to CavLec (all three of you) may even have noticed that I have retuned my posts on open access to a much more professional and less, well, CavLeccy pitch. That was a conscious decision, made because I know how often my open-access posts are getting cited on Open Access News, outside those posts’ context of standard CavLec snark, and I feel I have a certain duty to represent the side with a little more than my usual grace.
Still and all, even before most of the professional writing I’ve been doing saw the light of day, CavLec picked me a couple of ripe, juicy plums. Maybe Ivan Tribble’s right, and a blog is a death-sentence for an academic career, but Tribble could never prove that off me.
