Sep 12 2007
About
Hi, I’m Heather, and I’m an archivist for a mid-sized university in the southwestern US. I finished my master’s degree in library science in December 2006 with a concentration in archives and records management, and I moved across the country to take a job that really interests me.
The previous incarnation of this blog was called Uncommon Librarian. After moving between several free blog hosting sites for years, I finally decided to settle down on my own domain. During the change process, I thought about a lot of different things that I wanted for this blog, and one was a new name.
I wanted to choose a catchy title, something that spoke about the experiences that I’m having, and that I hope to have in the future. An overgeneralization that works here– when I meet people for the first time, and we do the dance of the “what do you do? I’m in marketing, blah… how about you?” and I mention that I am an archivist, the general response is to ask what, exactly an archivist is. The same reaction happens when I mentioned that I was attending graduate school for library science– not only is there confusion about what an archivist is, but there’s also the much-hated response of “You need a master’s degree to check out books?” It seems that there is a need for general education regarding the fields of librarianship, archives, and even records management.
Archivists are a relatively small portion of the library world, and some are technically special librarians, records managers or conservators as well. Archivists are relatively uncommon when compared to other varieties of the librarian- thus the original title of “Uncommon Librarian.”
About the blogroll: I try to only list the few blogs and sites relevant to this blog; these sometimes shift as my reading interests change. If you know of a blog that I should check out, please let me know– however, I do try to be a bit selective about the short list on this page. There are many other blogs that I read on a weekly basis that are perfectly wonderful, but outside the scope of this project.