In Principio

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Lately I’ve been editing and writing an introduction to a book based on a blog, running a blog for a writing seminar I teach, and talking about blogs in public as if I know something about them, so I figured it was time I started my own blog. I’ve been waiting until I had the Princeton librarian’s lite version of associate professor with tenure (which we call “Librarian with continuing appointment”) before beginning the blog, so that I could tell the brutal truth about my work and have my academic freedom protected. Effective July 1, I’m a Librarian with continuing appointment, so I can now speak freely.

The brutal truth is that I’ve got a fine job in a great library. I probably could have said that before getting continuing appointment without fear of repercussion, but I’m naturally very risk averse.

For anyone who wonders what “in principio” means, it means I’m pretentious.

7 thoughts on “In Principio”

  1. > For anyone who wonders what “in principio” means, it means I’m pretentious.
    I’ve known you for years; it is good to see you finally come clean.
    Seriously, I’ve just read your first three posts and they seem too well-thought to be on a blog. There are many good bloggers, but must don’t exhibit this precision of phrase.
    Do you actually write in the blog software or do you write elsewhere and then copy into the blog? Just curious about process.

  2. This is just my blog gleaning my teeming brain before I cease to be, or something like that.
    My feeling is, if I’m going to write a blog, I want to make it as good as I can, and I have a feeling that some of these posts are going to act as short first drafts for longer articles published elsewhere.
    On the writing mechanics, I wrote mostly in the Movable Type software, occasionally moving things into Word to get a more comprehensive view.

  3. Welcome to the biblioblogosphere! I came through Walt Crawford’s link, and I’ve very much enjoyed what I’ve read so far.
    Cheers!

  5. Another welcome. It is good to have more academic librarians out there. I am particularly interested in your blog because I am a philosophy student in library school now who is anticipating taking the same route as you yourself have.
    I just wanted to note that your paragraph breaks are not coming though on your RSS feeds (both). For someone who I know will be a loquacious writer, one long paragraph is difficult to read. 🙂

  6. Thanks for the second welcome. Yes, somebody emailed me about the paragraph breaks, and I think I’ve solved the problem. I’m testing now! I think the problem is that I didn’t realize how much handcoding MT required. I’m hoping I’ve fixed the problem.

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