Have you met Vicki?

There's a good chance that you haven't had a chance to meet Vicki. While she helps out at the reference desk, it is limited to Friday nights and every 3rd Saturday. The rest of the time she is behind the scenes making sure that everything you check out is there to check out. Vicki is our cataloger, entering most of our collection into the system so that you can see it in our catalog. This is a very specialized process that takes a detail oriented person that strives for perfection, and we are lucky that Vicki is right there in the top ranks of the field. In fact, she is one of very few librarians in the state that the State Library allows to do some specialized cataloging. Of course she does much more than that for us - but it is all invisible to our users, but absolutely vital to making the library function.

Luckily, Vicki isn't a terribly serious person (except with her work) so her easy laugh and humorous attitude do much to lighten the load for all of us here at the library. And in addition to her participation in a very competitive Sweet Adeline Chorus, she has other unexpected interests. We found out during out 5 questions:

1. When I am not at the library, you can find me: at home on the computer.

2. Describe your perfect day: At a Science Fiction Convention with my friends. In fact, I already have made plans to attend the WorldCom in London in 2014.

3. If you had to live somewhere else than New Hampshire, where would it be? Down in Georgia. I got my masters in Decater and worked there for a while, and loved it. I made great friends, found Atlanta to suit me well and have always planned to move back at some point.

4. What 3 things can you always find in your fridge? Eggs and OJ for my dad, and chocolate ice cream for both of us.

5. You would be surprised to find out that I: Collect hand fans. I started collecting back in 1981 as an inexpensive way to decorate my home. Now I have a large collection and belong to the Fan Association of North America.

So keep an eye out for her, but know that her work is visible every time you look for a book or check out a DVD. She brings a great deal of professional experience to this library, and we gladly benefit from it, but we all treasure her friendship.

Snowed under?

We have all seen them, the ads for Bing where one word sets off a random torrent of conflicting responses, and let's be honest, it is a successful ad because we all have experienced that.

This week has been one of those times where nearly everything that comes up relates to one idea - the overload of information we are all recieving. Being snowed under as it were. It started with a book I ordered in to read. Talk about a service that sucks you in and makes you reach out for so many books, movies and cds! I won't say how many knitting books I have to look over at home. Did I mention we now have two successful knitting groups here? See how easy it is to be led way off track with a single idea.

Anyway, the book. It is a marketing book about catching the attention of your customer: Your attention please. The introduction and first chapter is all about how the overwhelming avalanche of information (ads, emails, web content, etc) is making it almost impossible for people to focus on anything. I see myself doing exactly what he mentions - keeping emails to check later - and never getting to them because of the dozens and dozens that have come in since. Printing off great articles for reading later - and never getting to them because of everything else coming along and swamping them. Making notes of what to do the next day, only to have so much unexpected come up that they are covered with a new series of notes, to be covered again and again.

Well, since then, I have seen an article in this week's Newsweek about how an overload of choices and information is interfering with decisionmaking. I have also seen postings around the web, and have experienced in on the job - just too much going on to be able to sit back and think clearly.

I'm not sure what we can do, except shut off the computer/phone/device. Find something away to occupy yet not overstress your brain: take a walk, sit and watch the view, knit - did I mention all those knitting books? But it is vital to slow the flow, put some brakes on all that we see and hear so we can take a moment to enjoy the moment for more than a moment. One of the most surprising tidbits in the book I mentioned above was the fact that there is more information in a single issue of the NY Times than the average person recieved in a lifetime in the 1600's. Wow. No wonder it is so hard to focus and no wonder it is so important to slow the process a bit.

Book: Making it all work, by David Allen
Book: Information: a history, a theory, a flood, by James Gleick
Book: Winter of our disconnect: how three totally wired teenagers (and a mother who slept with her iPhone) pulled the plug on their technology and lived to tell the tale, by Susan Maushart
Book: Against the machine: being human in the age of the electronic mob, by Lee Siegel