INFO 282: Seminar in Library Management: Marketing Yourself in a Networked World

OK, so, here’s the thing.

I absolutely suck at this… “marketing yourself” business. This is entirely by design. If you grew up in a particular kind of patriarchal (more than a little bit misogynistic), conservative, Christian household, you may have a similar mental block.

Some of the statements I internalized:

“Work hard, and let the work speak for itself.”

“Don’t call attention to yourself. Be humble.”

“Always obey your elders/those in authority. They are where they are for a reason. Learn from them.”

When I tried to explain this class to my mother (who is one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, competent people I know), this was her response: “I don’t understand. Why would you need that?”

(Because cultural/familial/religious standards generally don’t emerge spontaneously in one generation.)

I mean, sure, there is some truth in all of these statements. it is important to produce work that is useful in some way, and that you’re proud of. Humility is an important attribute to cultivate, no matter who you are. And yes, we should all be willing to learn from those who have more (or more relevant) experience.

But… statements like these can be used to groom people, particularly young women, to believe that they don’t have any agency, that their value is determined by others, and because of those two conditions, their ability of survive in the world is determined by someone else. If, say, a young woman finds herself working for a verbally abusive person with more relevant experience, and end up working for that person for more than a decade… well, let’s just say it leaves a mark.

So in addition to a course about XML (well-formed vs. valid, namespaces, schema… anyone?), I’ll be working on this for the next several weeks. I suspect the XML will be more technical, but the self-marketing will be more… complicated.

To do the work of INFO 282, this blog may be undergoing a radical shift over the next several weeks. So before we get to that, here’s a photo of beautiful and talented Lucy: