Happy 10th Birthday, Biblio File!

Picture by Sam Howzit, used under Creative Commons license.

Biblio File is turning 10 years old today. Yes, 10. I know, it’s insane.

A lot has happened in the past decade--I moved to DC. I stopped being a database cataloger and started being a children’s librarian at the public library. I started grad school. I bought a house. I adopted a dog. I graduated from grad school. I became a parent. I went from children’s services to youth services to adult services to management. I served on the Cybils 4 times (and am currently doing so for the 5th time) and the Maryland Blue Crab and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction and YALSA’S Outstanding Books for the College Bound. I started reviewing for School Library Journal and RT Book Reviews website. I’ve presented at conferences at the local, state, and national level. I blogged about storytime. I made a themed book list for every day in 2013.

And Biblio File has always been here, sometimes more active than others, but always here. It’s changed over the years. The first month or so, it was just me generally talking about what I was reading. Then it was very informal reviews and then more formal ones. And then I tried to review everything I read. I've reviewed over 1600 books here. As of this morning, my backlog is over 200 and I just don't want to deal with it. It’s time to change again.

I’m burned out on reviewing here. I’m reviewing for other sources and want to take on new projects and the thought of reviewing everything I’m reading and catching up on all my backlog... It’s not fun anymore. And I don't know why, because I'm not burned out on reviewing for other sources. Maybe it's because the books are assigned? That it's only a small percentage of the books I actually read?

I thought of a few directions--maybe only review the stuff I wanted to review or felt like it? Eh. In reality, right now, I don’t feel like reviewing anything for the blog, even stuff I love.

I could drop the blog, but I don’t want to. So much of my growth as a reader and my professional growth has been because of Biblio File. (I can actually connect the dots from the blog to some opportunities that turned into other opportunities, that turned into... etc) It taught me how to review. It's made me a better reader. It gave me exposure. It gave me a way to talk with other book people. I love this blog.

So, instead, I’m shifting focus a bit. I’ll still talk about what I read, but in a much more general, less review-y way. It's actually going to go back to the way I used to review 8-9 years ago. I’m also going to start posting more about general trends/issues I’m seeing in what I’m reading. Some bigger picture stuff. So, expect regular round-up posts of "what I read this week/month/lately" and some thoughts I've been having on deciding age range (sometimes the hardest part of an SLJ review!) or how authors show respect for their teen audience. And maybe there will still be some more formal reviews on here. Who knows. That's the great part about a blog--it can change and grow and can change and grow back.

(I find it's interesting that as I'm putting the finishing touches on this post I've been writing for a week, Kelly's tweeting about some of these same issues. If I could figure out how to link to a series of tweets, I would because you should read all of them.)

I am personally committed to reviewing the Cybils books I’m reading and I have a handful of reviews that I’ve already written, so I’ll go ahead and post those. But after that, we’ll see what happens and where it goes and how it develops.

Thank you so much for being with me these past 10 years. I hope you’ll stick around for the next 10.

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