Amazon discontinued the ability to create images using their SiteStripe feature and in their infinite wisdom broke all previously created images on 12/31/23. Many blogs used this feature, including this one. Expect my archives to be a hot mess of broken book cover images until I can slowly comb through 20 years of archives to make corrections.

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Nine Years Of Delectable Librarian Awesomeness

On February 28, 2003 I lost my damn mind and started this blog.  Nine years ago.  Nine, long, rambling, I can't believe people read this thing and I'm still nattering away years.  Oh, how times have changed, and yet somehow, still remained the same.

Folks, I've seen it all.  Everything from readers wringing their hands and predicting the sky is going to fall because Kensington started the "smutty" Brava line (seriously, right?  Brava is about as smutty as granny panties these days - oh how times have changed!) to the latest debate raging between PayPal and various digital ebook vendors.

I've seen enough kerfuffles over reviews that I can't participate in the drinking game anymore because my liver is beyond repair (I kid, I kid....).

Romantic suspense, historicals, single title contemporaries and paranormals have all been declared dead at least twice in the last nine years.  Category romance either 1) ain't what it used to be or 2) is going through a renaissance, depending on who you ask.  And the "golden age" of romance has gone from the 1980s to the 1990s.  I figure in another year or so it will be the early aughts.

I guess this is my way of saying that as much fun as things are around the Interwebs, it's always good to keep things in perspective.  Which is what I've been reminding myself of for the last several months.  I've been a professional librarian since 1999.  I was still working at my First Real Job After College when I started this blog, and it has followed along with me as my career has ebbed, flowed, seen trials and triumphs.

I've whined about library funding, I've been named RWA Librarian of the Year, I've metaphorically curled up in a corner and rocked myself, I've shot my mouth off, I've put my head in the sand and I've done all of it - for good or ill - on this blog for the past 9 years.

But at the end of the day, none of that really matters.  This blog exists in part for me to keep my sanity, and also because it scratches a serious itch.  I love books and I love reading.  I also adore people, like me, who share that love.  I've "known" some of you for over a decade.  Some of you I've just met recently.  Some of you I've had the pleasure to meet in person, and some of you I'm likely never to meet face-to-face.  We come from all walks of life.  Race, religion, politics - we all believe what we believe.  What keeps us all together merrily paddling down the river in our trusty canoes?

Reading.  Books.  Genre Fiction.  Romance Novels.

And it doesn't even matter if we like the same kind of books.  We all love what we love to read, and that makes the Interwebs pretty kick ass.  It makes our world a little smaller, and it makes all of us feel, at one time or another in our lives, that we aren't "alone."  When I started this blog I had no one in my Real Life that read romance novels.  No one.  At all.  I was a tiny wee voice out in the wilderness.  And then I fired up my dial-up connection, opened up my web browser, and found you all.

Being a librarian is all about challenges.  There are days that I suck at my job so hard I might as well have Hoover tattooed on my forehead.  But then there are days when I'm Queen Librarian of the Universe and the Theme from Rocky is playing in my head (gonna fly now!).  Blogging isn't that much different.  I've written some great things over the years.  Insightful, thought-provoking and interesting (Peanut Gallery: Oh really?  Where?!).  And then there are times when this blog is a cavernous pit of suckitude.  But you know what?  It's mine. And to a certain extent, it's yours as well.

Thank you for sharing it with me for the past 9 years.

25 comments:

Theresa Romain said...

Happy anniversary, Wendy! Gifts for nine years are pottery and leather, so I send you the virtual gift of...um, a leather vase. (?) Many thanks for keeping up this blog. It's one of my favorites!

Victoria Janssen said...

Happy anniversary! Pottery and leather...a hot romance hero in a leather jacket, carrying a vase of flowers?

BevBB said...

Happy anniversary, kid. You know what I say about just doing what you love 'cause otherwise what's the point. A smaller and bigger world just about sums the Internet and blogging up, though.

Of course, I, personally, especially like the comparison of review discussions to a drinking game. Heh. I may steal that one. ;-)

Kati said...

Congratulations to one of my very favorite bloggers! Here's to another 9 years!

LoriK said...

Happy Anniversary Wendy! May you have many more happy blogging years, keeping us entertained.

Phyl said...

Happy blog-aversary! I'm so glad you're still here!

Kathryn said...

Happy Anniversary! Last week I made my annual trip to "The UBS That Carries Too Much of The Good Stuff" and made a big dent in the TBB list. As I logged the haul it quickly became clear how much influence your blog has on helping me find the Good Stuff. Thanks for sharing books by Reavis, St. John, JK Johnson, Morsi, Osborne, Bittner, O'Keefe, Templeton... Hope you'll blog and feed my addiction for years to come.

*Goddess* said...

Please consider changing your name to "Wendy The Super Librarian" because I can never remember the name of your site for some reason--sucks to get old--but every time I google that your site comes right up:)

AlohaJan said...

Congrats on your 9th year as a great blogger! ... and many more.....

Unfrozen Cavewoman Librarian said...

I want to know more about the bat cave. I wish it were a real cave. It's probably not. I miss caves.

Oh, congratulations. Nine years sounds like a lot. I haven't learned to count that high.

Margaret Moore said...

Happy Anniversary! And all the best for many more blogiful years!

nath said...

Happy Blogiversary, Wendy!! To many, many more years, Wendy! :)

LOL you say you've seen it all, but I predict, one day, you'll really be surprised ;)

Iferlohmann said...

I'm glad to have know you for some of those 9 years! Here's to many more!

azteclady said...

Yours was one of the first romance blogs I found. Thank you for making me feel welcome.

Happy blogaversary, Wendy! *confetti*

little alys said...

A day late, but happy 9 year blog anniversary! :D

Your blog has always been one of the best to look forward to, whether for new books, books that are out of the norm (in a good way!), the thoughts of the day, or lemon drop. You are super librarian all the way! :D

Denver said...

And a huge thanks to you for writing this blog! I so enjoy your wit.

MartinS said...

Hey, congratulations! When I first started reading romance, yours was one of the sites I'd come to for recommendations, insight and laughs . . . Thank you!

TxDee said...

I haven't been around for many of those nine years, but I've enjoyed the ones that I have, mostly for your sense of humor. Thanks for lightening my day. I would still be an avid romance reader without you, but I'm glad that you are there with me.

Anonymous said...

Congrats! I love your blog and hope for many more years of reading it.

Wendy said...

Bev: If there really was a drinking game to go along with review "discussions" both of us would be dead from alcohol poisoning by now ;)

Wendy said...

Kathryn: I pulled out an Osborne to read next! Seriously, I'm not having the best reading year so far, I had to call in the big guns!

Wendy said...

Goddess: "wendythesuperlibrarian" is actually part of the URL, but yeah - not the official "name" of the blog. SuperWendy and Wendy the Super Librarian actually sprang up several years after the launch - coined by various readers and authors to keep me separate from other Wendy's floating around online :)

Wendy said...

Thanks for all the lovely congrats everybody! I let Year 8 slide by last year with hardly a mention, so wanted to make sure to drop a post for #9. Well that, and it was easy blog fodder - which I seem to have a hard time conjuring up these days. Too much Real Life cluttering up the space between my ears :)

*Goddess* said...

So that's why it comes up for me on Google all the time...LOL! I never even noticed that in the url before. Somebody needs to invest in those bifocals....

Christine said...

Nine years is FANTASTIC, Wendy!
Congratulations and here's to many more! :)