Time to start thinking more about that other Library Society of the World project, the LSW zine. I hope to post some more details (progress report, deadlines, guidelines) for the zine later this week.

Please look for me and introduce yourself. As long as the supply holds out, I’ll be handing out Shovers and Makers buttons, though I might try to extract a promise from you that you’ll do a Shovers and Makers post if you haven’t done one already.

So with Josh’s approval and input, I built shoversandmakers.net. We had a bunch of “teaser” posts being fed into the LSW FriendFeed room for the past two weeks, and the site went live today.

In short, Shovers and Makers is open to anyone who wants to call herself a Shover and Maker. Go to the site, read the about page, hit the front page and read some of the other Shovers’ and Makers’ posts about themselves, and then go to the winners’ page where you can write up your own profile and have it posted to the blog. Tell everyone about something that you did that you are proud of, or share some big plans for the future. If you have a blog, you can spread the word by linking to your post or the front page, or by using one of our badges like the one above.

This is supposed to be fun. It’s supposed to be a little inspiring and a little absurd. I’m thrilled that there are already more than 20 people (besides Josh and me) who have participated in the first few hours the site has been open, and I hope we get many more.

I’m pleased to be personally acquainted with several of those folks, and am thrilled particularly to see Dorothea Salo’s profile, as I seconded Laura Crossett‘s nomination of Dorothea. Thinking about what such different personalities as Dorothea, Jenica Rogers-Urbanek, Jason Griffey, Michael Porter, and Sarah Houghton-Jan have in common, I realized that it is generosity. They are all trying to share what they know (or what they don’t know and are wondering about) through their writing and presentations, and they have all been personally generous to me through their kindness, thoughtfulness, and considerable brain power.

The people on that list whom I know less well but have chatted with online or exchanged a blog comment or two (like Dave Pattern, Rachel Walden, Lauren Pressley, Karen Coombs) have the same quality of wanting to share their ideas and expertise. I expect if we asked the friends and coworkers of all the Movers and Shakers, they’d say the same thing.

This is one of the things that makes me happy to be working in libraries. Hoarding information and keeping secrets isn’t a legitimate way to get ahead in libraries. We aren’t competing with one another, so there’s no real reason not to share or be helpful. I’m proud to know these particular Movers and Shakers, but I’m more proud to be part of a profession that values openness and sharing.

Next week, the Library Society of the World will kick off the Shovers and Makers awards, which promises more sharing and openness. I hope you’ll all be able to join us for that.