And so it goes, and so it goes*

This is my very last post for It's All Good. It also happens to be my last day as an employee of the House That Fred Built where I've spent ten years. My husband and I are relocating to Vancouver, British Columbia (which is where I lived while I did my library degree twenty years ago) and I am going to take the summer off, and decide what I want to do next. I could have kept my OCLC job, because OCLC is a very flexible organization with regard to where employees do their work, and my boss is a flexible person who would have supported my move, as she has supported other changes over the past several years.

But I like change. I like the feeling of embarking on a new adventure, of starting things, and of new challenges. So, it just felt right to step through this particular door and close it gently behind me, as different ones open up.

I've had a terrific ten years at OCLC and had opportunities that I thoroughly enjoyed and from which I learned a great deal. I have worked with great people at OCLC and got to meet many more great people through workshops and presentations I've participated in. And my co-bloggers Alice, Eric, George and Chrystie have been a large part of my last few years at OCLC, and have been the best co-authors and pals a person could hope for. Thanks. And thanks to all of you in the biblioblogosphere, who have become friends and colleagues through this not-so-new publishing medium.

I am not going to write my final thoughts on libraries and their futures because I will be starting up my own blog as soon as I have a chance to do so, and I am sure one of my IAG buddies will blog about it when I do and so provide a link. Also, it would be sort of anti-climatic as I will be at ALA in June, stage-managing the OCLC Symposium and making sure there are anough pretzels at the Blog Salon. I hope to have a chance to see many of you there.

I am going to leave you with a quote from Miss Gratia Alta Countryman's 1905 address to the Minnesota Library Association because I think it's as "web 2.0" as anything written this week and so is a fitting coda to my IAG career.

“Many of our libraries are now housed in beautiful buildings, in which case, the building as well as the books become a means of social influence. The whole building at all times should be managed in the broadest spirit of hospitality…do away with all unnecessary restrictions, take down all bars, and try to put face to face our friends the books and our friends the people. Introduce them cordially, then stand aside and let them make each other’s acquaintance.”

*And so it goes, and so it goes. This is the title of a Billy Joel song (although my favourite version of the song is by Jennifer Warnes on The Well) as well as the phrase Kurt Vonnegut used like a litany in Slaughterhouse Five to denote transformation

Thanks for the fish.