New "Reviews" page

Note: I've recently resumed reviewing books for Public Libraries magazine, after a hiatus of several years. In order to toot my own horn, I've added a new "Reviews" page to this blog. What follows is the introductory text.

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I've always believed in continuing education.

Even the best degree program for any career only points your attention in the right direction. Any step along the way may turn corners no curriculum could anticipate. Why stop with what you already know?

Besides, I've always joked that my real profession is being a student. My morale and my performance decline when I'm not learning new stuff.

Hence, once I graduated from the University of South Carolina's School of Library and Information Science (August, 2000) and joined Jacksonville (FL) Public Library, I jumped at the chance to review books for Public Libraries Magazine.

If nothing else, I thought, I could fill in the gaps in my MLIS preparation—I was horrified during my last term when I suddenly realized (Duh!) that I could only take twelve courses and had to skip all those electives I'd been looking forward to.

Plus, I would get all these free books!

The result has been a long series of reviews, published over the years in the "By the Book" column of that magazine. Some of these reviews I'm content with, others, perhaps not, yet the books—with one or two exceptions—were well worth reading.

Librarianship is a lifestyle, a way of looking at and interacting with the world. Our tools are our brains, our imaginations and our love of learning. Books and buildings and the Web are just the infrastructure for what we do with the people we meet.

Keep reading.