Hi, Friends!

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other. I almost posted this during the weekend, but I worried that people would think it was an April Fool’s joke.

So where has the Brash Librarian been? Well, there’s a lot of time to cover so I’ll keep it brief:

I became a library director.

I know, right?? I became the director of a fantastic library in Kentucky. It’s a great place with great staff and a supportive community. I became a director in summer of 2021 when everyone was still knee-deep in COVID-19 scares. It was a crazy time to become a director, but it’s certainly better than becoming a director in March of 2020. At least by the time I came in, some procedures had been established. It’s a wonderful library, and I’m very proud to a part of their team.

Am I more a Captain Crunch, or Captain Picard? I can never tell.

I’ve had life changes.

I’ve added new people to my life that I’m honored to call my family, but I’ve also lost and mourned family members. Since 2020, most of us have lost someone. Whether it’s someone no longer in your life because of irreconcilable moral/political/etc. differences or something more permanent, chances are strong that the people who were in your life 3 years ago and the people in your life now may be different. Ever since I started this site, I’ve been very open and full-disclosures about my adventures and day-to-day life with the public. In this past year or two as I’ve focused on my family, my career, and my community, I’ve come to appreciate having a bit of a private life. I will still continue to post library content on here and my social media, but some my day-to-day “look at me!” content may take a back seat to some professional postings. It’s the Brash Librarian, not the Brash Guy who posts his personal life and what he had for lunch (Unless it’s like, a really awesome lunch.)

That French Toast was really memorable, though.

Basically, The Brash Librarian has been busy. My new staff needed me. My family needed me. I needed me.

When I started this adventure over a decade ago, I was an actor-turned library school student wanting to document my journey through library school. I wanted to break librarian stereotypes and spread my “libraries are more than just books” elevator speech to people across social media – and it’s been amazing. I’ve helped friends enter library school, find jobs that suited their passions, and opened up the eyes of many people who thought libraries were just a pile of books with a roof on it. Who would think a library student would travel across different states, finish an MBA program, then become a director? If you told me 9 or 10 years ago that I would do these things and live in those places, I’d have thought you were crazy. Becoming a leader was always a distant goal – “someday, I could be a director” was in 2011. “I want to be a director some day” came when I started my MBA in 2016. It’s unreal when “someday” became “today”. (Or in this case, over a year ago.)

Where does that leave us?

This isn’t the first time we’ve undergone change around here. I first started with adventures in library school when I was an MLIS student and talked about cool/weird/unusual classes library programs offer. When I worked at the University of Florida archives, I talked about academic libraries and the books contained within. If you’ve never browsed my Instagram, I found alot of crazy books.

Who can forget gems like this? Copyright 1953, I believe.

When I joined public libraries, we covered everything from displays to events, programs to technology. When my posts and videos on RFID rolling out in my previous library went viral, they became the most-watched library-related RFID videos on Youtube. I had library students using my posts as citations for academic papers, and I got recognized at a library convention. I never considered that I’d be a citation in somebody’s paper some day, let alone have a fan excited shout from across a crowded room, “I know you – you’re the Brash Librarian!”

As BL evolves, the content may evolve as well. All new adventures! All discoveries! New topics! I wrote about adventures in library school for aspiring library students, and so I may write about director adventures for aspiring directors. I look forward to hearing from you all what you’d like to see next in the future!

Justin Brasher, Brash Librarian