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.