Unsubscribe web4lib

I left a listserv, to use an incorrect, dying term. The idea that this unsettles me in 2008 is curious itself. I joined Web4Lib in 1995 or 1996. "The Web4Lib electronic discussion is for the discussion of issues relating to the creation, management, and support of library-based World-Wide Web servers, services, and applications." I never was a member of the prime audience. That's not true. The last time I was prime audience was when I was working on the digital collections at MFPOW around 1997-2001. I learned a lot from w4l then. The discussions were always interesting, and some of the best minds on the many related topics were there. They still are. In the last two years as a branch librarian, I'd let them pile up in my gmail. I'd drop in on threads when I saw familiar names, or really hot topics, or things that seemed really cogent for a branch librarian. That got less and less. I was far removed from that world.

I thought I'd still get some use from w4l when I was appointed to the web services committee at MPOW. One meeting, I attended one meeting. Kerbluie--four months disability. Now I am struggling to filter all the info I can. I've unsubscribed from almost all the email lists I've been on for years. Email just feels like some kind of trap, a way to waste time and energy I can't afford. So I am pulling the plugs. At one point, I considered these messages on w4l to come from personal friends. I even met some members in person, or saw them do presentations. It still feels they are friends that way in some cases. But really, I need to concentrate on the people who are right in front of me.

Now I worry I won't be as "in the know." Was I ever? I'm keeping some of the library press electronic subscriptions. I'm not sure if I'll dabble in some library blogs. It's so easy to over immerse, and very little relates directly to me helping the 45 year old who wants to get an email address right now, but doesn't know how to get from our home page to Google. Or the 40 year old scifi maniac who can't/won't learn to place his own reserves. No, he will have a list of six to eight tomorrow for me to do, and no listserv will help me.

All these years, I have loved web4lib, in that most abstract version of agape. I have not been an active participant ever, but I have followed countless links and arguments. Many of them taught me, or gave me food for thought, and I am grateful. Some gave me good laughs, or good sig files. Some exasperated or made me mad. But that's why it is such a human endeavor, and I have to be thankful for the chance to participate. Saying farewell on the list would seem like I am quit full of myself. I have been the teeniest piece of the fabric, but it is always wonderful to be part of something wondrous, something put together by the free will and labor of a group of people who want to share ideas. So farewell Roy, Thomas, Dan, Karen, Karen, Blake, Gerry, Walt, and all the countless other names that have graced all my various in boxes over the years. This may seem like navel-gazing, or inexplicable nostalgia, but I had to note my transition.