Welcome to <libraryLand>

Thanks to Günter for posting about <libraryland> in hangingtogether, a blog run by staff at RLG

In his post he asks "why not museumland?" The answer is both simple and complex (and occasionally regetable..). <libraryland> was conceived as a record of my current stint as a student in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and as a way to get my feet wet with blogging.

At the Collaborative Digitization Program we often jokingly talked about the different communities we were trying to bring together as if they were different nation states. Things happened in libraryland, and museumland and archivesland. Each place had its own culture, values, languages, laws and governance. As a collaborative project I often felt like an emissary shuttling between these lands negotiating treaties for a cultural heritage “United Nations” of metadata, standards and best practices.

When I decided to pursue a Masters in Library Science after working in both the museum and archives communities it felt a little like applying for citizenship. But I’m still an émigré, bringing with me the culture and experiences from my previous life. <libraryland> is a bit like the letters and postcards my ancestors sent back to folks at home in the “old country.” I hope it will be filled with the wonders and sites I’m seeing as I tour through the insides of the library community. I also hope, in the end, this tale will be like those of previous generations. That will tell of both assimilation and of infusing the culture and values of museumland into a richer, more diverse digital community.

I’ll be posting more later about why decided to settle for a while in libraryland on the Museumpro blog Stay tuned!