Hat tip to Tame the Web for pointing me to an eloquent description of the one year anniversary of Jennimi’s WordPress.com blog. Jennimi sums up her first year with WordPress.com beautifully:
I had been ignorant of blogs. They bugged me a bit. Who wants to read someone’s rants or opinions? As an LIS grad student trying to find information for projects, blogs coming up in searches annoyed and scooped up valuable time. Still there were a few I began to monitor (they call it lurking, a term I despise) and I started to respect the medium for what it was is: simply put, an easy way to publish online and form cyber relationships.
…I got a bunch of friends blogging, made new ones, found interesting resources, kept at it. I learned much from other bloggers and friends, both in terms of what I liked about what they did and what I didn’t like. In less than a year I was speaking about blogging at a library conference and even presenting about web 2.0 at an interview (didn’t get the job, but it would seem they were inspired by some of my ideas!).
It’s been an interesting endeavor. Sometimes it sucks me in and I have to leave for awhile to get things done. Sometimes I absolutely love it. But always I am cognizant of the fact that I am, in my tiny tiny lower case j way, participating in the web’s creation, not just observing or reacting to it.
I also have begun to see how this process allows librarians to reach out to more people with our knowledge, curiosity, problem solving urges, welcoming spirit, and information organizing ways. It allows us to learn from one another, and to give everyone a look into the diverse world of the librarian – once stereotyped as prudish and cold. I try to be as warm and welcoming as possible here – to bring a human touch to the digital world. Same way I’d be at a reference desk or in a classroom.
Blogging has truly helped me see what an exciting time it is to be a librarian.
Sometimes it takes a year of blogging to see the truth in your blogging.
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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, member of the 9Rules Network
Lorelle on WordPress 
5 Comments
Sometimes it takes longer. As long as it comes to the point where you do see it in the end. All the time it took won’t be a waste of time.
Lorelle, thanks so much for the shoutout. It was fun to realize I’d been doing it for over a year and then to reflect about that… I think, though, that I saw much of this along the way, or I wouldn’t have kept at it. I just hadn’t articulated it for my readers. Thanks again for your kind words.
PS, you got anything on how to add a tagcloud to the free version of WP (I don’t host) without going through that seldom updated technorati business? Been searching the fora and online… but all roads lead to hosting myself, which unfortunately I can’t do at this time. Thoughts?
Agreed. Sometimes it also takes that long to realize all of the ups and downs, and inevitably, blogger burnout, are a normal part of blogging. Whereas hitting the blogger burnout wall used to convince me I was just wasting my time, I now see it was my blogging expectations that needed adjusting.
jennimi, see A Tagging Bookmarklet for WordPress and WordPress.com users to help you create your free “tag list”, though currently, WordPress.com doesn’t offer tag “clouds”. It is often requested, so maybe soon, but so far, categories are your tags and your category list is your “tag cloud” list, though not arranged by popularity.
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