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Friday, August 14, 2009

What's Your Motto?




A motto is a short saying which expresses a rule of conduct or philosophy of life. My favorite motto is New Hampshire's Live Free or Die. What it loses in length, it makes up for in clarity.

Last year, I found myself pondering what motto would be appropriate for our Readers' Services department. Right in the midst of my ponder, a line from Flight of the Conchords broke through:

In some areas, yes. In other areas, also yes.

I knew I had found my motto.

As the months go by, other mottoes have been honored with the prestigious Readers' Services Motto of the Season Award. For the summer, Mrs. Johnson contributed:


Readers' Services: Advising with Wild Abandon

For the Autumn Motto, I swiped something from a Mary Schmich column in the Chicago Tribune and customized it:

Readers' Services: We are entirely totally down with that.


Which got me pondering again. If we had to have personal mottoes, what would I choose? How about


Honor the Goofy

What would your motto be?



5 comments:

Linda K said...

I think my favorite is... "Books. Cats. Life is good." Or maybe it's "So many books, so little time." Or wait, maybe it's "Enjoy the little things in life for one day you may realize they were the BIG things." Or, hold on, I think my favorite is "Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you'll land among the stars." But then I love so many of those crazy mottos and quotes that it's hard to pick just one favorite. How about this one - "Chocolate, it's not just for breakfast anymore."

Anonymous said...

"Life is short, eat dessert first."
"English major - you do the math."
"Love thy neighbor as thyself."
Yeats: "The only business of the head in the world is to bow a ceaseless obeisance to the heart."

Lately I have been drawn to words made famous by Michael Jackson, of all people: "If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and then make a change." Sometimes you are the best place to start.

Lynne R. said...

When I was younger, my motto was, "naked I came into this world, naked I shall go out of it." Now, though, I favor a line from Howards End: "only connect."

Cheryl said...

I am entirely totally down with this blog post. Way to go Jo!

Looking forward to hearing more Readers' Services mottoes...

Heather I said...

I've always been partial to "everything will be OK in the end. if it's not okay, it's not the end."

Now, this is kind of a Rorschach test of quotes, I've come to find out, because every one seems to read something different into it.

But for me it combines the comfort of "this too shall pass" with the spirit of empowerment I want to have to take responsibilty for creating the outcome I want.

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