Prolific

Prolific is the word for your bloggers, my friends! Too bad we're not getting paid by the word.

Just a quick note: Was catching up on my Chronicle of Higher Education reading, and I ran across the latest "Balancing Act" column that made me laugh out loud.

[It's page C3 in the Jan. 28, 2005 print issue--not online unfortunately.]

In the article, a tenure-track professor realizes that a rural, small-town campus is no place to be single. So she eventually leaves the academy and finds a job in industry. She still does history, finds success, etc. Happier with the numerous book groups that she now belongs to, and how much she appreciates the socialization aspects of a larger metropolitan area...

At the end of the article, she mentions her friend Emily, who had pursued a PhD but then dropped out. Emily is "bright, funny and well-read...now working as a librarian."

And so of course our professor cannot understand why anyone would decline a professorship to become *a librarian* --so she finally asks Emily what gives.

And Emily's response is classic: "Early on, I realized that academe has no office culture...but I realized that as a single person, I was going to need some interaction at work. Academe couldn't offer me that—but a library could."

How cool is that. A former tenure-track professor admits that librarians are the socially outgoing species at our universities. (Duhhhhh is probably our collective librarian response...)

It brings to mind that Hepburn film Desk Set where she is the sharp-tongued, quick-witted information specialist...