A fellow Librarian recently alerted me to an article which says that the mind works best when it is wandering http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124535297048828601.html. The article states that "Left to its own devices, our brain activates several areas associated with complex problem solving" this explains why I have most of my problem solving insights when in the shower. Even the idea for this blog post popped into my head whilst making a packet mix cake.

This is not always a good thing. For a start off it distracts ones brain from more pressing thoughts like why, once you turn 40 do random hairs appear on ones forehead, or today is a pupil free day and you don't need to take your son to school (don't worry, we realised when we got there and no-one was there) Then there are the practical considerations like how do you check your theory when you are naked and notebooks don't do well in water. Often the genius has gone by the time you have dried your hair and thats not good either.

So I have some thoughts on how to put this theory to practical use. My boss is always trying to get us to 'think outside the library.' So, I am proposing that she provide space for my brain to veg out. Maybe a masseur would do it, or a nice warm bath..... or cake....or Home and Away played in the background or..... geez, I had more ideas when I was mixing the cake......I think I'll go back to the cake.....

System librarianing is not what I expected it to be

Whenever I heard the term 'System Librarian' I imagined an IT geek type whose entire universe was data and systems and parameters and computer geekerism.

Its not.

Im pretty new to this game having fallen into it all because I volunteered to look after our old system. Looking after that entailed..... well.....not much.... cos it didn't DO much. Which is why they decided to buy something new and flashy that would do everything Including make coffee.

It doesn't..... make coffee that is.....

There are elements of geekness involved sure. And I have a greater understanding of the nature of 'data' and 'systems' now than I ever did. What fascinates me most though is the peopleness of systems.

By that I mean the impact a system has on its users. This is what takes up my time, and what HAS taken up much of my time for the last two and a half years. Not getting a system to work or making it better, but dealing with people.

People seem to become victims to systems. The system which is meant to aid our work and help us to do our jobs more efficiently becomes 'in charge.' Otherwise intelligent beings will fall into a heap of illogical thinking because the system is not doing what we think it should. People view it as a thinking being which should just know.

An example is one of my colleagues, a great librarian with smarts asked me why a book was appearing on her pick list when it was in a not for loan collection. In our system reserves are placed on a bib record so logic tells you (or me at least) that the system doesn't know what copy you are about to scan, where it lives and what restrictions there are on its loan. Therefore it would appear on a pick list, along with all the other copies. But apparently when the system is in charge human intelligent logic disappears.

There are of course those who lack intelligence or logic for whom the system is a completely foreign world. Like the librarian who couldn't understand why her serial orders weren't renewing and putting in the new price... errr because you have to tell the system you have renewed it.

To me its all very obvious and I don't consider myself particularly intellegent or even IT savvy. But maybe I should stop thinking like a computer system and start thinking like a person.