Artwork by John LeMasey

I’m indulging in one more post for Show Me the Awesome.


While at BEA this week, School Library Journal picked up the project and wrote this really wonderful piece, spotlighting it on their home page.

What started as a project we began as a means of letting people show off what it is they’re good at and what it is they’re passionate about grew beyond our expectations in the best possible way. The posts in this series highlight not only the smart, savvy, and talented individuals who make up this profession, but it highlights, too, just how wide-ranging librarianship is. There are beginners sharing their new ideas and there are seasoned pros talking about their favorite, most proud moments. These posts are for fresh out of library school grads and those who have been serving as librarians for a long time.

There is something for everyone in this series.

I’m exceptionally proud of what Liz, Sophie, and myself did with #30Awesome. It might be the project I am most proud of at this point in my career.

Why is that?

The project stemmed from a place of conversation that’s been happening for a long time now, and that’s about gender and recognition. It’s about respect for and with our fellow librarians and what it is they do and are passionate about.

The project was our means of letting people talk about the things that fire them up and do so in a way that could reach a wide audience and that would remind those within and outside librarianship how dynamic this field really is.

We have posts about gender here. We have posts about children’s librarianship, about technology, about teen reading programs, service learning, being an expert inside and outside the classroom, about the value of speaking up and out. We have posts that are practical how-tos because as a profession, we pride ourselves in not just talking about what our own achievements are, but we thrive on sharing those insider tips with others.

We are a profession of sharing, of engaging, and of encouraging one another to become better and better.

Rather than spend our time as a profession throwing barbs at one another and cutting one another down, this project was meant to unify librarians. It’s easy to take the other route — it is much easier to cut someone down or denigrate their passions than it is to stand up and not only own your awesome but to celebrate and share the awesome of other people. Even if we’re all serving different communities in different environments, we’re all reaching for the same thing: a little recognition for our hard and selfless work of serving other people.

This project was meant to serve us. To show off just what it is that makes us individuals and to be celebrated and shared and encouraged for that very thing.

Thank you to everyone who took part, either by writing a post or sharing a post. I hope that you’ve been as inspired and motivated to try things as I have been. I hope you’ve discovered a ton of new voices and blogs and people to keep you thinking and you’ve found a network of intelligent, eager librarians to learn from.

For me, the ultimate outcome of this project is the simplest one: it’s about sharing. Rather than worry about who is getting what, it’s a reminder of how awesome it is to share not only what it is that makes other people awesome, but how awesome it feels to share these things because it makes me feel good.

I’ll end with a link that caught my eyes this week, and it’s one that sort of sums up a lot of what I’ve learned in the last month (and beyond): it’s about shine theory and why it’s so valuable to lift other women up, rather than to cut them down. It’s applicable across the gender spectrum, since the point is we further ourselves and become more awesome only when we’re willing to encourage other people.