changes afoot in blogland: adventures in group blogging

Geraldine assists with wrapping gifts
photo by Hanna (2010-12-14). See ...fly over me, evil angel... for more!

As we head into the Christmas break I plan to take a couple of weeks away from blogging so that Hanna and I can have some time together sans internets. We need to focus on enjoying the vacation time we both get (many thanks for libraries that are closed between Christmas and New Years!). It's been an unexpectedly exhausting autumn for our household, due to some personal health and work/life balance issues -- issues we're working hard to address moving forward! -- and we just need some time to recoup and reconnect. Without outside distractions.

When I come back in the new year, there will be some changes here at the Future Feminist Librarian-Activist, although I'm not yet entirely sure what those changes will look like.

This is my 679th post on the Future Feminist Librarian-Activist. I've been blogging here, more or less steadily, for about three and a half years: roughly the time I've been preparing for and actually attending graduate school (my very first post, back in March of 2007, talked about my financial aid and housing decisions).  It seems somewhat appropriate, therefore, that as I transition out of being in graduate school and into professional librarianship, I pause to consider what sort of webspace I want this blog to be, and become.

 In addition, I've been offered the chance to join the team of bloggers who write over at The Pursuit of Harpyness, a feminist-oriented group blog I've been enjoying since they first started publishing back in January 2009. You'll be able to find me (and all the other marvelous bloggers!) there roughly three times a week starting after the New Year. If you don't already follow them (er ... us), I highly recommend stopping by and adding Harpyness to your blog reader of choice.



I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you, dear readers, what you'd like to see more of / less of / something entirely new in both this space and over at the group blog.  I'll be blogging at Harpyness on issues of human sexuality, sexual identities, gender identities, education, politics, economics, and life on the cultural margins. More or less the stuff I do here. But if you have any specific requests, do feel free to drop me a line at feministlibrarian [at] gmail [dot] com or leave your thoughts in comments. As they say over at tumblr, "the Ask box is open and taking questions!"

In addition to group blogging of the feminist persuasion, I may also be more actively involved in the Massachusetts Historical Society's blog, The Beehive, moving forward, as I take some of the reigns from Jeremy when leaves to begin his position at LibraryThing. We're still hammering out the details.

In other words, I'll have my cyber-hands full in the new year when it comes to creating online content. Hopefully, it'll help me curb my knack for writing impossibly long sentences!

I plan to keep you all updated, here at the FFLA, about my plans for this blog, the feminist librarian reads, and other web-based media as time goes on and life becomes a bit less (fingers crossed!) in-transition.  In the meantime, I have a personal goal of writing 1-2 original-content posts per week for the FFLA (as opposed to cross-posting from Harpyness).  And I do plan to keep up with tumblr since it's how I share those short-and-sweet internet links that are organic matter that eventually become -- or support -- all those blogs posts. Or just exist to make us smile (everyone knows, afterall, the internet is made of cats).



A very, very joyous and restful holiday season to you and yours. I won't promise them, but it's entirely possible more Christmas-themed cat pictures will make their way to this blog before the New Year.