Occupational Hazard at the library

byMozey

78 followers

11 years ago

As my profile says, I work at the library.

Which is why I would like to supplement my income through WA. Because the budget cuts of the past two crashes reduced a lot of positions to part time to avoid benefits.

I love working there anyway. The occupational hazard I spoke of is the stacks of books everyone who works there ends up having on their kitchen tables. You are exposed daily to a wide variety of subjects and ideas you would never come across in the normal routine of your daily life. Your co-workers are similarly afflicted and so expose you to even more diversity.

All sides of every issue imaginable march by every day and fill every nook and cranny of your brain.

Online, my preferences are tracked and analyzed with the result of getting funneled more and more into places and things I already am familiar with. The opposite happens at the library.

Therein lies the rub. I cannot find a niche. I have no niche. I am nicheless.

I currently have on my table: a book on Artificial Intelligence; a book of scientific predictions from futurists in a wide range of fields; a book on how children's brains learn; a book on what would happen with the environment if people disappeared tomorrow; a book on finance; a geology book; a book on the reasons for the collapse of civilization in 1177; three cookbooks; a book on how to talk to your cat; a book on holistic health; a volume of Pearls before Swine, and a half dozen mysteries:)

You see what I'm up against.

I have instant access at work to all the research, books, and information on any and all topics that anyone could ever think up.

i am drowning in a sea of choice, yet the lack of commercially viable areas of interest alarms me.

glug