My inner librarian

Yeah, I've always been obsessed with libraries and librarians. I actually went to library school, but only got about halfway through. I took time off when Lena was born, and never went back. It was a tough commute, and the classes were so tedious. Not like law school (which I did finish), where I was never bored, not even in a class called "Secured Transactions."

Anyway, besides the fact that public libraries are what makes democracy great (free dissemination of information, more or less), there is also the endlessly fascinating question of how to organize information. One thing I have learned the hard way, based on my own various collections, is this: once you make a classification decision, do not change your mind later. If you're organizing your books and you decide that an anthology of science fiction short stories should go with other science fiction rather than other anthologies, do not change your mind later. If you're organizing your kitchen and you decide that the pie server goes in with "miscellaneous" rather than "spatulas" because you're not likely to use the pie server while frying onions, do not change your mind later. Because you will never remember which decision came first.

My inner librarian got a good workout recently. I reorganized our entire CD collection. We made the bold move, dictated by space considerations, to get rid of all the plastic cases and put the CDs and booklets in big binders. I bought three of them, thinking: one for classical, one for jazz, one for rock/pop. I deliberated long and hard over whether to create a separate section for movie soundtracks. (I did.) I pondered deeply whether to create a separate section just for my beloved Kingston Trio. (I did.) I debated with myself for a good long time over where to put Steve's CD of Sousa marches. (Final decision: International section.)

I had to decide what to do about 2-CD sets, which threatened to spoil my plan of having booklets always on the left and CDs always on the right. And then there's the question of how to alphabetize CDs that had more than one artist or composer on them. Example: Before the Flood. File under Bob Dylan, or The Band? Another example: I have a CD with one piece by Lalo and one by Saint-Saëns. Saint-Saëns is listed first on the cover, but Lalo is listed first on the spine. Hmmmm . . .

Oh, man! My inner librarian was in heaven!