Another Gazette Article for My Portfolio
John Cronin quoting Lou Thomas’ thoughts about news librarians writing for newspapers on Monday couldn’t have been more timely. Lou Thomas was a news librarian whose professional colleagues speak about her fondly. The Vormelker-Thomas Student Award gets part of its name from her. During his speech after receiving the Joseph F. Kwapil Memorial Award at the Special Libraries Association News Division banquet, John, a librarian at the Boston Herald, shared a discussion he had with Lou many years ago. He told Lou he had been writing a column for the Boston Herald. Lou told him–those of you at the banquet will notice I can’t do an impersonation of her voice like he can–news librarians should either write for the newspaper or be news librarians, but not both. She apparently shared this opinion with many other news librarians, at least one of whom left the profession to become a journalist.
As I listened to John’s story, I thought about my article appearing in the Gazette on Thursday, which I’ve been working on for at least a month. In some ways, I can see why Lou held the opinion she did. In some positions, though, I’m not sure it’s entirely practical. One way I market myself and my skills is by contributing to other areas of the office, including our newspaper. There’s a lot of that sort of cross-pollination here. I don’t write for the paper often (which I’m sure makes the editor very happy) but I have filled in a few times on easy, brief assignments when we’ve been short staffed, some of the news briefs I write make it to the paper, and I’ve received at least one byline for contributing a lot of content to a writer’s article. (Is getting a research byline the same as writing an article? Would Lou have also disapproved of that?)
I wrote the entire timeline article this year because last year, I did the backbone research, compiled the list of events, then handed it over to a writer who had to get up-to-speed on what I chose and why, whittle the list down, get familiar with its contents, and write an intro. I thought it might be more efficient if I did the entire thing, especially with the amount of work the writers were already doing for this special (and quite large) issue of the Gazette.
The article is on the reverse of the cover of this issue of the Gazette. The front and back pages are a wrap-around color photo of robed graduates walking through the Yard. It looks really good in print. The editor(s) did a great job with the layout.
I should add that I feel lucky to work in an environment that allows me to reach beyond the borders of traditional librarian duties. I like the flexibility of being able to write for the Gazette and our other publications. And I definitely appreciate that the editors and writers are happy to give me credit for what I do. Many news librarians do this kind of work and get no credit or aren’t allowed to do any of this work at all.
