This week Annoyed Librarian (AL) moved her blog over to LJ and settled into her “beautiful new corner office on the thirtieth floor overlooking the park” (oh really? wish we could find it). She's already ruffling lots of feathers from her new perch--and we doubt we’ll be immune from her barbs, either. In the interest of full disclosure, without actually revealing who she is, we’ve asked her a few questions to help us all better understand where she’s coming from and what motivates her. Later this fall, look for AL’s work in a special issue of the Journal of Access Services (Haworth), with an intro (and editing) by Wayne Bivens-Tatum, philosophy and religion librarian at Princeton. The articles cover the same themes as AL: politics and the ALA, trends in libraries, etc. There’s a final “pseudo-scholarly article on the history of access to libraries,” says AL, which “makes a well-documented case that the history of library access has been driven by librarians’ desire to find more time to knit. Are you really a librarian? Yes. How long have you been a librarian? Sometimes it seems like forever. What kind of job do you work at? I work in a university library, but I don’t want to get too specific. Over the years I’ve worked in a number of positions. What made you start blogging? I read that the ALA Council passed a resolution condemning the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court. Regardless of what I think about Alito, I was annoyed at the way some political groups hijack the ALA Council and get resolutions passed that have nothing to do with librarianship. There are plenty of library issues to address, but groups such as SRRT want to turn the ALA into a mouthpiece for their general political views. After that, I just started looking around for things to annoy me. Somehow I always seemed to find some. Why do you think people read you? I’d like to say because at its best the Annoyed Librarian is the best library blog around, but I’m not sure that’s true. Based on emails and comments, there are several reasons. In general the blog is well written and occasionally witty. The arguments presented are coherent and provocative. I allow anonymous comments with very few exceptions, and the comments section tends to provide a community for librarians to argue about topics they might not feel comfortable talking about otherwise. Numerous people have emailed me thanking me for giving them a way to vent their frustrations with the profession or for providing perspectives that aren’t generally out there in the field. Finally, there are those people for whom the Annoyed Librarian is like a drug, the ones who either love me or hate me, but can’t get enough of me. What have you learned from people by doing this blog? I’ve learned that there are a lot of frustrated librarians out there. I’ve also learned a lot about day-to-day concerns in public libraries. Having never worked in a public library, I didn’t really know what went on. Also, just doing the reading necessary to sustain the blog, I’ve learned a lot about the trends and fears in librarianship over the past few years. I’m always overwhelmed by the number of emails and comments, but I’ve learned so much from so many people sharing their own hopes or frustrations with me. There are a lot of smart, funny, critical, generous people in librarianship who have responded with kindness to my blogging efforts. They don’t necessarily agree with the AL, but they get what I’m doing. Those are the people I write for. The only regret I have at being anonymous is that I can’t meet them all. I want to have a big AL fest at ALA and buy them all a martini. If you could fix anything in libraryland, what would it be? Hmm, that’s hard to say. I once wrote a post suggesting that the most underrepresented minority in the profession is hot, straight guys. I’d like to see more of them wandering the halls of my library. Perhaps ALA or the IMLS could hand out grants for recruitment. Who are your favorite bloggers? I read a LOT of library blogs, and few for enjoyment. Mostly I read them to be annoyed. I read Walt at Random, Information Wants to Be Free, the Academic Librarian, the ACRLog, Lorcan Demsey, Library Stuff, the Librarian in Black, the Ubiquitous LIbrarian and a few others regularly. They all tend to be interesting or informative and do what they do pretty well. I get a lot of my material from all the bloggers who go gaga over the latest trend or from any blog that uses the phrase Library 2.0 and takes it seriously. I’d rather not create a rogue’s list of bloggers, though, because most of them seem like nice folks, at least the ones I’ve met. I just disagree with them a lot. What are the dumbest things librarians do? What are the dumbest things patrons do? Among the dumbest things librarians do is to take the Annoyed Librarian seriously. Either that, or to constantly despair that if they don’t learn the latest technological gadget or believe the latest hype then libraries are doomed. It’s a toss up. As for patrons, I’m not sure. I don’t see a lot of library patrons these days. Based on what I hear from some librarians, not wiping the keyboards with a disinfectant before using the public computers is pretty dumb. You never know where the previous patron’s hands have been.