In class today we discussed some of the issues and trends that we noticed in the blogs that we're following (see previous post). One of issue came up that I found particularly interesting and a little odd that it was actually seen as a negative by a fair number of people, was librarian bloggers as celebrities. That is bloggers whose "about me" sections or just the content of their blog posts cause them to come off as self important self promoters.
Initially I thought, "okay, I can see how that might bother some readers," but the more I thought about it the more I began to wonder about this perceived issue. First from my own observations of blogs I have followed in the past and currently follow, a blogger needs to develop a distinct persona or form of "celebrity personality" in order to bring in and keep readers. Second it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were talking about the need for librarians to be better self promoters both for their own sake and for that of the institutions that they work for.
So are we asking librarians to do the impossible? To self promote, but not over self promote? Is this a case of never being able to be happy? either librarians need to be more vocal and make more of an effort to let people know what they are doing or they need to real it in a bit and not get too full or themselves. Or could some bloggers actually stand to real it in a bit? I suspect that there is a little of both at work here, but it would be my guess that for every reader that finds one blogger's persona off-putting there will be at least one other reader fist-pumping along in agreement with the blogger.
Now the issue of the relevance of blogs as a whole also came up and I'm not going to go into that here because that is a whole other can of worms. That said my classmates' and even my own reactions to certain blogs and bloggers during our discussion in class today made me think about what it means to be a blogger and how the way we choose to present ourselves on the internet may cause people who have never met us before to form very strong opinions about us. Don't get me wrong it wasn't a revaluation to me that people have strong opinions about the things that they read on the internet, but it did make me consider just how much of a risk bloggers are taking when choosing to blog about their professional lives.
I guess for me I would err on the side of cutting bloggers some slack. I may not always agree with what they have to say or even like the way that they choose to present themselves on the web, but I'm willing to accept that they represent at any time a certain percentage of my professional peer group. Thus I probably shouldn't totally write off what they have to say just because I don't like the way they say it.
Initially I thought, "okay, I can see how that might bother some readers," but the more I thought about it the more I began to wonder about this perceived issue. First from my own observations of blogs I have followed in the past and currently follow, a blogger needs to develop a distinct persona or form of "celebrity personality" in order to bring in and keep readers. Second it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were talking about the need for librarians to be better self promoters both for their own sake and for that of the institutions that they work for.
So are we asking librarians to do the impossible? To self promote, but not over self promote? Is this a case of never being able to be happy? either librarians need to be more vocal and make more of an effort to let people know what they are doing or they need to real it in a bit and not get too full or themselves. Or could some bloggers actually stand to real it in a bit? I suspect that there is a little of both at work here, but it would be my guess that for every reader that finds one blogger's persona off-putting there will be at least one other reader fist-pumping along in agreement with the blogger.
Now the issue of the relevance of blogs as a whole also came up and I'm not going to go into that here because that is a whole other can of worms. That said my classmates' and even my own reactions to certain blogs and bloggers during our discussion in class today made me think about what it means to be a blogger and how the way we choose to present ourselves on the internet may cause people who have never met us before to form very strong opinions about us. Don't get me wrong it wasn't a revaluation to me that people have strong opinions about the things that they read on the internet, but it did make me consider just how much of a risk bloggers are taking when choosing to blog about their professional lives.
I guess for me I would err on the side of cutting bloggers some slack. I may not always agree with what they have to say or even like the way that they choose to present themselves on the web, but I'm willing to accept that they represent at any time a certain percentage of my professional peer group. Thus I probably shouldn't totally write off what they have to say just because I don't like the way they say it.
What I got out of the celebrity thing was that some of the bloggers came across as bragging. I didn't mind so much those who used their about me sections to showcase truly impressive awards or honors, or to link to a CV or portfolio. What bothered me more were the ones who filled up the sidebars of their blogs with badge after badge for every single honor they've ever received. It was distracting, especially when it interfered with finding actual content. But as you said, it's partially a matter of personal opinion and what we as individual readers are looking for.
ReplyDeleteConsidering all that, I too ponder the self-promote vs. humbleness question. After all, the purpose of blogs is to share your news and opinions with others. I wonder, though, if the self-promote comes more at a higher level. Should we be working to promote libraries as a whole, rather than individual librarians?
"So are we asking librarians to do the impossible? To self promote, but not over self promote? Is this a case of never being able to be happy? either librarians need to be more vocal and make more of an effort to let people know what they are doing or they need to real it in a bit and not get too full or themselves. Or could some bloggers actually stand to real it in a bit? I suspect that there is a little of both at work here, but it would be my guess that for every reader that finds one blogger's persona off-putting there will be at least one other reader fist-pumping along in agreement with the blogger."
ReplyDeleteA variation of this conundrum comes up every year. And I always spend the next several months worrying about it in terms of my own blog. And just about when I'm feeling back to normal, this conversation kicks up again. :)