Awareness vs. Consciousness

I'm not a technophobe. I've used email for 13 years, owned at least one computer for longer than that, and have a more than working knowledge of Macs and PCs. I decided that I wanted to start a blog and later that day, I had one. It's not as if I'm in the woods contemplating my navel, unaware of the world and what it has to offer.

But I was stunned at the results of a Google search of my blog title (plus a little identifying information, thanks to the relatively annoying habit that bloggers have of using "get it all down" in posts, thank you very little). All I'd wanted to know was if the blog itself was indexed anywhere other than at dmoz, which is an open directory that's self-edited (apparently, people who care to do so will add appropriate sites to the index, so that others who use the directory can find them). Both J.R.'s and my blogsites are on the "Reference: Libraries.: Library & Information Science: Weblogs: Personal Weblogs" page. That's not so surprising; J.R. has oodles of links and with lots of library people linking to each other, someone who adds to dmoz is bound to find us. But I was amazed to see how far that's gone. The dmoz site is replicated (well, copied, anyway) all over the place.

So I've been handily pigeon-holed as "Illinois Library Cataloger Amy Writes as Fast as She Can." Ha ha ha. Not quite. The quotation isn't something that I take as instruction, but rather as philosophy. I think writing for pleasure (and this is the only thing that I'm doing that qualifies, right now) requires a certain discipline - if it's in you, get it out so you can generate more.

Here's what that unequivocally means: I am NOT writing as fast as I can. No one would read everything I had to say, if I wrote it all down. Trust me. I guarantee it. I don't even know if blogspot would host it for free anymore.

But now I'm thinking about the purpose, politics, and ethics of blogging. Who really is reading what I'm writing? When I planned this, and when it started, my audience was a finite number of identifiable people. Now it's those people (minus a few who apparently can't be bothered), plus some of their friends, plus some who've found the site through them, plus some who've found the site through dmoz. Maybe some who've stumbled on it from the Blogger homepage and the "recently published blogs" list. Yeah, I'll admit to some desire to make the "Blogs of Note" list on the Blogger homepage. Part of it is ego (duh), but it's also trying to retain a sense of purpose and continuity. I didn't intend this to be a rambling journal of crappy, self-indulgent bullshit that only people who knew me really well would care about, or that I would be terribly embarrassed by if I ever stopped to think about what I was writing. The point (if I should even be making it this overtly) is the writing.

That brings up the politics. Now that I know that it's not just my initially-projected audience that I'm reaching, do I need to think about what I publish before I do so? Should I be more careful about being candid about, e.g., my colleagues at other institutions? I decided right away that if I was in for a penny, I was in for a pound as far as my job goes, so there was no point in being too cute with who was being ripped apart. I've been relatively careful about handing out the address and someone finds it and takes offense, they need to look at themselves and consider the possibility that there could be more than one truth. I do not lie by commission. (Take that for what it's worth.)

But there are more far-reaching issues, like the rant on the degradation of the English language from 14 January. There's no mystery, if one works in this geographic area, about whom I referred. Particularly since I used the full name of one of the culprits. There could be ramifications (albeit not official) if that were discovered by someone in a position of power over me. Now that I'm aware of the possibility (or even probability?), should I excise the name, or alter it to protect myself? Or should I accept the risk? This is an easy one and doesn't require any consultation of my class notes from undergrad Moral Theory. I accept the risk. I wrote that post in the vain hope that someone who knew one of them would read it and bring it to their attention. Maybe it's the anti-bravery, inverse backbone, insensible stubbornness, but I'll stand up for the little (and correct!) guy in this little way. Even if it means that bonehead EK might find out that I think she's a bonehead and a menace to all things good and right about libraries in Ill.

Oh, did I do it again? Oops.

I'm going to try to turn this self-consciousness about Who's Watching Me? into a more general, blase' self-awareness. If that's the only change, it'll have been a positive discovery.