Unintentional leadership

It’s happening again…

When I was 16, I joined a Parish group. Although having been in the Parish for years, I was a newcomer as I had never attended any group there, or taken any active role. The following year, I was asked to take charge of the children’s group, and I accepted.

Fast forward a decade and, after taking part in a Bible Study Group in my Cambridge Parish for a year, I was asked to be the group leader as the leader was quitting due to family reasons.

In 2011, I had barely joined CILIP, and in the bat of an eyelid I found myself in the role of Vice-Chair of the East of England branch. I thought I was going to skip the subsequent chairing task the following year, due to my maternity leave, but somehow I became, nevertheless, chair (not on my own. But still).

And some days ago, I was with my 15-months-old daugher at a playgroup for Italian children in Cambridge, when suddenly the lady running it turns to me and says: “Maria Giovanna, why don’t you take the group on next year?”.

CPD23 Thing 10: Why, how, and what next (my life in libraries)

Why

I can’t say, like many others, that I just fell into it. If I look back, it was quite meant to be, and there have been a couple of milestones (i.e. decisions from my part) who have put me where I am now.

Risking to sound like a freak, I will confess that when I was a child, to the – slightly worried – astonishment of my parents, I used to browse the phone book  to see how many people with a certain surname were living in my town; I loved to look at maps; I used to make lists of everything in my possession (books, stamps, coins from foreign Countries, Barbie doll clothes); I loved to investigate the history behind objects – who owned that book, who wrote that postcard, where that piece of furniture came from – not to mention old photographs; restoring my Mum’s dolls; collecting old stuff, keeping it in order, and making it usable again. These are all activities that should have shouted “libraries and information” to any good observer (I definitely wasn’t one).

Personal post #1: Call me (by my) names

I stated under the blog name that this is a place where I’ll write about “libraries, careers, life in a foreign country and other things”: the reason being that, although I am an information and library workaholic, this isn’t everything that there is to say about me...and somehow it doesn’t sound right to give you only that side of my life. If you are very focussed librarians and really, really don’t want to know anything else about me, you are welcome to stick to the professional posts – I will clearly mark the personal ones, and I promise I will take no offence.

This first personal post is all about a very basic fact: my real, full, first name is Maria Giovanna.

A first name composed by Maria + something else is quite common in Italy so apparently there’s not much originality in this choice, but the combination of Maria and Giovanna is indeed quite rare and I have met only two people with the same name in my life so far. Maria is basically Mary – I know, you are clever and you already got that. Giovanna (to pronounce Jovanna) corresponds to Joanne or Jane.

The problems with this name didn’t start when I moved to the UK. It was a difficult name in Italy too. It’s long. It’s complicated. And the fact that my surname is also composed by two parts (De and Simone) doesn’t really help.

But the problem really escalated in the UK. Nobody seems to get it right – everybody assumes that Giovanna is a middle name and therefore ignores it completely. I don’t mind being called with nicknames or shortened versions of my name, but what really annoys me is people ASSUMING that my name is just Maria. It particularly drives me mad when I sign an email with my full first name and I receive a reply saying “Dear Maria”. Argh. So, request number one: check other people’s signatures. Make sure you address them the way they want to be addressed.

I do understand that remembering and pronouncing my name is difficult for an English speaker; and as I said, I don’t mind nicknames, so here’s a list of the names I have been given by my friends or family during my life.

• Mari (to pronounce: maree)
• Marigio’ (mareejo’, with an accent on the last “o”)
• Mary Jo (you know how to say this one!)
• Giovanna (jovanna)
• Gio’ (= jo)
• MG (pronounced the English way-phew!)

Feel free to choose the one you prefer. I’d say MG is by far the best for an English speaker and I might adopt it as a real name one day (J.Lo, brace yourself!). So, request number two: ask for the owner’s permission before shortening a name. If the name is long, the owner will be more than happy for it to be shortened – and will love to hear new ideas about it too!

Now you will be wondering: why not "Maria"? And why don’t you just shorten it yourself, and maybe even use your husband’s surname (Colli), which is shorter and easier? Well, "just Maria” feels somehow reductive. Moreover, both my grannies were called Maria, and this makes me feel a bit awkward. I must admit that for quick exchanges (booking the hairdresser; signing for deliveries; etc.) I do use “Maria Colli”. However, for some reason that would require a psychologist’s help to be detected and fully explored, I can’t dump my full first name. It’s long, complicated, terribly Italian, and I didn’t like it when I was younger; but the older I get, the more attached to it I feel. So,  request number three: call me (by my) names, and don’t get offended if I correct you.

Thank you!

*This post is dedicated to Niamh and Katie, who encouraged me to fight for my name; to my husband, who has never shortened it; to the colleagues who make an effort to use it (some of them do!); and to my Mum, who chose it and thus started the whole story.