I Have Disowned the Library Blog!

Unsubscribe, Transfer, Disown

In preparation for retirement from librarianship, I am carefully removing myself from mailing lists; from library reading lists that I set up: and from Whittaker Live!, the library blog I first set up at the Millenium. It’s been a WordPress blog for the past few years.  To manage a blog for 24 years must be some kind of a record?

Since WordPress knows me as Whittaker Live!‘s administrator, I appointed a second administrator. I still couldn’t divorce myself from it! Eventually, my successor discovered I was not just an administrator, but also Whittaker Live!‘s owner.  And so, traumatic as it is, I had to disown the blog I’ve ‘owned’ nearly a quarter of a century. (It feels like when we had to rehome Fergie, our much-loved cat, three decades ago!)

Changed Days

In the early days, I used to post about useful websites for essay assignments, or about forthcoming concerts.  It sounds so naive now, when social media and Google make it easy for students to source that kind of information. More recently, I’ve shared help with referencing; sourcing more diverse repertoire; or the pros and cons of using AI, and ethical considerations.

Letting Go

It’s surprisingly difficult letting go of things in which you were invested – like the blog, or the years I’ve spent making our music collection more diverse.  Even if I know I’ve left my imprint on the collection, it will start to recede into history after 28 June.  Like a handprint in the sand, time will soon wash it away.

On the other hand, I will not miss the 2000-odd jazz CDs that have been the bane of my existence! I won’t even have finished cataloguing all the jazz CDs. That 2000 is the bulk of them, but certainly not the totality. 

Life Continues

But I’m still here!  It’ll be lovely only to wear my postdoctoral research hat, and not the library one. Does that sound disloyal? It’s not meant to. I’ve been a librarian long enough.

And of course, I have my own blog here, KarenMcAulayMusicologist.blog, to keep you up to date with my research activities. Keep watching! There’s plenty more in store.