I’m so glad that liberry blooze is back. And it is too bad that things were difficult for the author. I guess it is part of the dangers of blogging, especially in a profession like librarianship where if people want to find out information about you online, they certainly have a full arsenal of search techniques in order to do so.

So, I’m not going to be blogging very overtly about work. Although I’d feel pretty safe if I was because blogs are not on the radar of most of the people I work with. I think I’m the only one who fills empty stretches at the reference desk by scanning lisfeeds, for example. Although, if I work with you and you read my blog and you haven’t told me, please wink 3 times and raise your eyebrows at me twice when I come in to the library tomorrow so I know who you are. Thanks!

I’ve been wondering a little bit recently about how library blogging fits with our desire to insure patron privacy. I mean, if we scrub our databases of identifying information, and put up cute signs warning patrons about the Patriot Act, but then we blog about our co-workers and patrons, is that an invasion of privacy?

If I were to blog, say, about the father of a prospective student who came up to me at the reference desk with family in tow and asked me to speculate about the ideological leanings of the campus and when he found my answer unsatisfying asked me for percentages of students with the outward signs of alternative lifestyles like tattoos or piercings would that be technically an invasion of his privacy? I really wanted to tell him that if his daughter being exposed to people with tattoos was the worst thing that happened to her during her college experience he would be a lucky man, and the only way to protect her from such dangerous people would probably be to enroll her in BYU or Rodger Williams University, but I bit my tongue and smiled like a good librarian, and gave a very balanced answer that he deemed “politically correct” before walking away.

I think I’m ok, because no one knows where I work. I might say I’m in Boston, but I could be in Canada or Finland for all you know! So there! I might not even be a librarian. I could be a recently signed nba guard from iceland or a famous scottish cross dressing comic book writer for all you know. And any blogging about people in real life would have no names and details tweaked to protect the innocent or not so innocent as the case may be.

But people blogging have gotten fired for their blogs, or fired for reading blogs so I wonder if something negative could happen as the library blogosphere grows larger, especially since we are in such a hot button profession (censorship! think of the children! internet! ack!) in many ways.

I’m probably being way too paranoid due to rampaging insomnia.