The Half Century Mark or A Long Time to Discover One's Calling

Selfie taken 12/20/2013 at 5:45pm

Today is my birthday. My 50th birthday. I have officially been a member of Club Earth for 50 good years, and it has only been within the last 5 years that I discovered I was a librarian.

That's a very long time, isn't it?

Instead of calling myself "An African American Male Librarian," I should call myself  "The Grandma Moses Librarian". Grandma Moses was the nickname for Anna Mary Robertson Moses, a folk artist who started who art career in her late 70s. 1

Unlike that of Grandma Moses, I don't expect people to celebrate my late entry into a profession. I  hope that I may inspire other Black man (especially the younger ones) to enter librarianship. I also hope that my blog encourage my colleagues to "transgress" their professional and personal comfort zones to advance librarianship. If this blog influences one young Black man to enter the professor or encourages one colleague to change their perspective about being a librarian, I will consider it to have completed its mission. 

Selfie taken 12/20/2013 at 5:44pm

Today is my 50th birthday.  On this special day,  I do the very thing I love: being a librarian who serves the information needs of my patrons by helping them form more critically and socially aware relationships with information.

That is my calling.

Before you go, please enjoy this video. It features Andrew P. Jackson, whom I believe was a protégé of the E. J. Josey, speaking about a recent anthology on Black librarians, The 21st-Century Black Librarian in America: Issues and Challenges. This excellent monograph features the ongoing triumphs and challenges of many Black Librarian in the United States.


Happy Holidays to all!  See you next week.

Links
1. Grandma Moses Wikipedia Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Moses