Still rambling (probably) but no more a librarian

Hello World.

Today's my last official day as a librarian. Today, 15 March 2014, is exactly 17 years and 5 months since I started work at the National Library Board.

Slightly more than a year back, I reviewed where I was and where/ what I could be going/ doing. The conclusion was that the conditions (personal, external and so on) were right for me to pursue the creative side of things. Fulfilling a childhood ambition, perhaps.

In August last year, I started a modest little media studio with a friend (email me and ask me about it). I've moved from being a librarian to being an entrepreneur. Behind the initial sense of excitement of starting something new, there's a quiet anxiousness of not knowing how things will turn out. I take heart in the support of friends, colleagues and family. I've considered possible success and failure, and concluded that the only real failure is to not try at all.

You could say my Project 365 Sketches was a pre-cursor to my career change, though I've been making music and art for a long time now. The difference is that I hope to do it as paid work.

I started as a Assistant Librarian and left as an Assistant Director. It's quite fitting, the "Assistant" designation. It's an oversimplification, but I'd sum up librarianship as a role that ultimately assists people in their search for connections -- connections to information, ideas and to some extent, people (authors, like-minded readers etc).

In truth, I'm not particularly knowledgeable about library work, library technologies or library management. If anything, I was merely the first Singaporean librarian, who used my real name, and blogged a little about what went on in the library (but even that was largely public programming).

For the folks who have left comments at this blog, or exchanged emails with me as as a librarian, I sincerely thank you all. Blogging has opened new vistas for me. We've largely forgotten why blogging was such a big deal then (leaving "comments" on a website was not the norm). Almost 10 years ago, Blogging had a bad name in Singapore (go search the newspaper archives). Later, people attended talks to understand what was a Blog. I remember a participant asking me (at the very first public talk I gave), after she said she understood what a Blog was, how one "crossed the line" to become a blogger. Those were pretty interesting times.

Will I start another blog? Probably not. Or not yet anyway. I remember telling the journalist, in a 2006 interview, that I'll blog only if I have something meaningful to say.

(Edit: I'll be posting at artistivanchew.tumblr.com until I do start a new blog).

So.

All stories must come to an end, eventually.

I'm still contactable via ramblinglibrarian [ at ] gmail.

Keep Reading. Keep Learning.