Working Girl!!
Bad eighties movies and clichés aside. This is what I am now.
Leaving behind the trappings of student life has not given me a pang, until today. I am one of those people who are fascinated by minutia, my most instinctive consciousness is inspired by it. Tiny things representative of bigger things, the physical promising the metaphysical. I am the type of person who can enjoy the idea of a book more than the tale itself, the image or idea more than the ideology…Perhaps I’m shallow???
Now, tangent explored, what made me nostalgic for student life???
Not the vast amounts of flexible time, the reading of articles and engaging in intellectual debate. It was when, at a café, I placed my empty, coffee stained, paper sugar packet between the pages of the book I was reading and put it in my bag.
Like I said, minutia.
The things I relish about my new position as bread-winner, working girl, career woman, nine –to- five-er are things like the walk to the train station, fresh with make-up and perfume, wearing clean walking shoes and carrying my little trippy-trappy things for “the office”.
I relish the brief moments to pray and think on the train, and (when it’s empty enough to sit down) to read.
I relish the sound of my nails tapping the keyboard of “my” computer… of throwing stumpers at my team leader, or better yet, working out the problems myself.
[warning, potentially confusing tangent ahead…)
Not because the 994 field in a MARC record is particularly important, but because the 994 field, the immutable title number….represents that every book with the same title can be found through the same 4-6 digit number.
Because having the same 4-6 digit number for every book called “Divine Secrets of the Ya- ya sisterhood” means that our clients never get the same book twice.
Okay, context. I am working at a library where the books are chosen through a computer system based upon client profiles (using preference encoded by yours truly). The computer shelves the books and chooses the books for vision our clients.
Hence the importance of 4-6 digits.
Like I said, Minutia.
