Googling yourself / Vanity Posts
Periodically I question how the world sees me. Yes, vanity searches occur. Last month I had a phone call from Nicole Gaudiano from the Washington Bureau of Gannett news service. She was conducting research for an article on Wikipedia and had found my posts on LM_NET. I attempted to sound intelligent and to be respective of the varying opinions on using a resource that can be inaccurate and vandalized. I do belong on the side of social participation. I insist that professional librarians need to be knowledgeable of and capable of using new resources that may have benefits to their students; moreover, if we aren’t familiar with products and activities that have hidden flaws and dangers, how can we teach our students to be good consumers of information?
While the author originally hoped the article would appear in USA Today, it was picked up by strange locations around the country such as : the Green Bay Press, the Honolulu Advertiser, the IndyStar, Central New Jersey’s Home News Tribune, a discussion on the Committed Sardine blog, and Springfield, MO’s News-Leader.com.
While continuing my vanity search, I did find some older newspaper archive and magazine records that quoted me. (Tennessean article on funding for school libraries, SLJ editorial on our authority, ), but many of the older articles have been archived and must be purchased. The funny thing about all of them is that you can talk for 45-60 minutes to a reporter, emphasize the big talking points over and over again, make absolutely brilliant comments, yet only have the funny statements make the press. Whenever a library editor criticizes blogs for their lack of editorial review, I have to laugh. If you truly want to communicate your complete opinion, you need to blog. I am working on official articles , but the time lag between writing and publication is still too long. In the meantime, I will post to LM_NET and write in my blog.
I did find a way to justify my searching today on this lazy Saturday. I am preparing for a one-day class for teachers on “Information Literacy” skills to teach the standards this summer. While I am researching and preparing, I can plan to legitimately teach search engines variances in a way that each user will be involved — I’ll let them conduct a vanity search.
I read recently that job searchers should “Google themselves” since potential employers probably are. That way one is prepared for possible interview questions. “Tell me more about the picture on your blog in which you are holding two pitchers of beer and wearing only a smile.”
I’ve also read that educators ought to look for postings that students have made ABOUT them.
Hey, if nothing else, I don’t see where such a search does any harm!
Doug
Comment by Doug Johnson — April 3, 2006 @ 4:20 pm