Blatant Berry: What a Swell Party This Is!
We don’t give enough recognition to enough librarians
John N. Berry III, Editor-at-Large -- Library Journal, 8/15/2006
What a joy it is to be surrounded by leaders of your profession, your oldest and closest friends, and your family. What a joy to sit on stage and listen as so many of them are moved to speak about your achievements and your foibles. And what a joy, indeed, to head back to New York, now fully ensconced as “Editor-at-Large” and still “working” with the talented colleagues who celebrated you in New Orleans. To bask in the honor, the love, and, best of all, the recognition was terrific. It made this high point at this end of my career nearly as exciting as that day in May 1964 when I first came to work at Library Journal. These were my feelings after the wonderful retirement party honoring me at the American Library Association (ALA) conference in New Orleans.
I don’t want to disappoint anyone, but this is no swan song. I’m not leaving yet. I can’t figure out why anyone would ever leave a gig like this one, with its variety, its platform, its centrality, its travel, and its wide-ranging constituency of friends and fans. It has been the dream job, full to excess with that thing we all long for so deeply, attention—especially attention that becomes recognition.
I was basking in the afterglow of New Orleans, gossiping and blabbering with a colleague at lunch a few days ago when she said, “You know, not many people get that kind of esteem, John. You are really lucky to have had that!”
The comment stopped me short, immediately arousing that guilt trip that always hovers just under the surface of my psyche and that old fear as well. The guilt trip is because by observing and commenting on events that I didn’t create or control, I was not only praised for speaking out but often given credit for being an expert on the subject at hand. I always felt slightly undeserving, getting credit for the creativity, hard work, and high risks taken by librarians on the front lines.
The fear, of course, was always that someone with the authority to do something about it would discover my secret and put an end to it—the secret that this job at LJ has been a gas, a total pleasure, a great and joyous funfest from the beginning. I always harbored anxiety that if the ubiquitous “they” realized that fact they would cut my pay or take the LJ job away from me and force me to do real work.
That is what I would have said in the speech I would have given on that glorious night in New Orleans, if I hadn’t ­realized that we’d all had enough speeches and it was really time to party.
The point of this rumination is that few people do get the acknowledgment they deserve. Oh, sure, ALA gives out a pile of awards, as do the state associations and assorted other folks, but that only reaches a very small elite. It doesn’t reach deeply enough to touch the lives of most librarians. We should do much more to recognize them, and I, for one, will devote more energy to this need from now on.
Now don’t worry. I’ll never reveal your deepest secret, that library jobs are usually a hell of a lot of fun. As Sinatra and Crosby sing it in High Society, “What a swell party this is!”
