Learning Curves

Working within the library system provides numerous, almost innumerable, opportunities to learn. Some lessons are those I'd rather do without but many are surprising, the kind that make you ask "why didn't I know that?"

For example, I made it to middle age before I learned that there is Attila the Hun, the female one. Who knew? Further, that for a better grade, teachers like photos of Plato. The parable of a camel passing through the eye of a needle is exactly that: a parable. However, it's much more effective with photos of the camel passing through the needle and why don't we have them?

Libraries are more than an accumulation of published materials. It is that plus the human experiences that both made them and utilized them. While we cannot read nor listen to all of our catalog, our customers do and they report back to us. Listen to them and you'll be amazed at what you learn. Not everything is as stated but then again, you learn how gullible some people can be and how unobservent you can be.

A Japanese proverb states that aging begins when we stop learning. So far, not a day has gone by when I didn't end a shift learning something I didn't know when the shift started. At this rate, I'll live forever. Though I might learn otherwise.