I don’t follow sports much, but for some reason I made myself watch at least a couple football games over the Thanksgiving holidays. Hearing the phrase “rivals week” over and over somehow piqued my interest, and since I hadn’t had a break in a while, I wanted to celebrate Thanksgiving with every contemporary tradition possible — so that meant lots of food, lots of family, and lots of football.

I admit, I did have fun, eventually absorbed by games that I wouldn’t otherwise care much about (even some NFL games). I was most focused on the Georgia / Georgia Tech game, the Maryland / Boston College game, and the Florida / Florida State game. But I was most excited about the Iron Bowl, the annual game between University of Alabama and Auburn University. The game was decent to watch, but it was hardly a nail-biter, as Alabama trounced Auburn 36-0. In the last few minutes when it was clear that Auburn had lost, one of the commentators observed, “Auburn basically beat themselves.”

The phrase caught my attention, likely because I’ve been frustrated with managing a school-work-life balance and I’ve been beating myself up.  I feel defeated even when I’m really trying, especially when deadlines get too close and to-do lists get too long.  I’m taking a much needed break for the next couple weeks, so I’ll be able to recover — I’ll still be working full-time, but I won’t have to worry about class or homework, and I can dedicate more free time to the people who deserve my attention.

I also wondered a bit about how we as librarians professionally beat ourselves, especially when we don’t take chances that we should, or when we take the “easy way out” instead of sticking to our guns and our principles, or when we stifle input from our users and our frontlines, or when we don’t seize upon golden opportunities to market and transform our institutions (say, the current recession — we should be shouting about our functionally free resources and services from the rooftops).

I don’t want to see a shutout between librarians and, well, librarians.  I’m wondering if there’s  a way to keep that from happening, or if it’s just a problem with organizational culture and something that libraries will have to deal with individually.  I know that in this year’s Iron Bowl, the scoreless first half was hugely demoralizing for Auburn — when you can’t even score a field goal and your important passes get intercepted, frustration definitely rears its ugly, self-defeating head.

We’re in the middle of a struggle for relevance, but we’re also fighting ourselves – the old is clashing with the new, fear is suffocating innovation, and invisibility threatens to render our profession useless, even though we’re needed now more than ever.

These are important games — but then every game is an important game.  Librarians need to win, or at least put a point or two on the board.