Cataloging Twilight

So on Sunday, I headed three hours south of my home library to a three-day group of cataloging courses through OCLC. Not only did this turn out to be a physical vacation (I got to stay in a hotel on my employer's tab), but also a bit of a mental one.

Now, I did find out plenty of important things that will enable me to do my job better, and that was good. I can look at a MARC record now and more easily pick out flaws or understand exactly what it is that I'm seeing. This is kind of awesome. But the material itself . . . you don't know the definition of dry until you sit through a cataloging class. About the only interesting thing about it was the view-of-Earth-from-space wallpaper at the very back of the long room and the "Transporter Room" sign taped to the nearby elevator door.

The time I wasn't in class was mostly spent reading Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Between swimming and sleeping, I burned through the first book and a half back at my hotel. Meyer is a masterful suspense writer--her ability to pull you into the world is flawless; her character development is terrific. Her authorship is the only thing powering this "girl falls in love with a vampire" plot and turning a cheesy premise into something so involving.

Getting addicted to this series inspired my creativity too. I felt a desire to write that I haven't felt in years. Juxtaposed to that was the cataloging . . . it's stifling, really. I am so grateful that there are people out there who love it. It is necessary--the backbone of libraries. But despite my detail-oriented nature, I find cataloging to be soul-sucking. There is little room for creativity or imagination in this man-made system constructed to capture man-made knowledge.

Fortunately, my degree can lead me to other areas of librarianship. Navigating this system of knowledge holds much more interest to me than constructing it and making sure it runs correctly.

And with all of this reading about vampires, I think I will feel the urge to bite the next person who asks me, "what do you do in library school? Learn the Dewey decimal system?" I will tell them to come back and ask me the same question once they can tell me what all of this means. Seriously.