Wednesday, November 12, 2008

From control to chaos, or maybe the reverse?

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Now here's a dilemma; from the dictates of high order organisation - spine labels in some sort of standardised position, the fiction/non-fiction dichotomy, and let's not even mention AACR2 (unless you're a professional cataloguer (in which place go for it!) - to the 'controlled randomness' of scrap booking. Can there be room in one life for both?

Having almost mastered the skill of 'letting go' of straight lines and edges for scrapping's sake, the Big Dream Plan for the library sort of demands an ultra-extreme austerity of visual impact.

Probably best not to mention the feng shui catastrophe of my office. Never mind the ideal of having some running water in the proper corner of the room (a full-size Trevi Fountain replica would have been my first choice, but it wouldn't fit), or a picture of a mountain in the other part (which at least would be 'doable'). The shelves overflowing with the backlog of end processing are going to have to be cleared; not to mention the self-positioned trip hazards over the floor.

And yes, thanks for thinking "she should be doing that anyway". Very helpful. It often seems that more stuff gets into my office than goes out. Maybe it feels safe in there, or likes the ambiance?

But the stock-standard downside of a major clean-up is the problem of location identification - "finding stuff" after a Thorough Tidying. For some reason, this isn't a problem in the stacks, but once I 'file' my stick-it notes and other important information (which for some reason gets written on paper the size of oxygen molecules) they become very difficult to relocate. I believe this is most probably caused by mysterious cosmic powers executing "The Revenge of the Trees".

So with the feng shui-ness of positioning perils, I'll also be facing the wrath of air and water if I don't get the polarity right, or I somehow inadvertently create conflict between the Qi and Niao, or any of those similar pitfalls that can be cut-and-pasted off any website. Chaos will reign supreme.

Which I guess will leave my office in pretty much the same state it's in now.



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