Knowledge = power = energy = matter = mass

"The truth is that even big collections of ordinary books distort space, as can readily proved by anyone who has been around a really old-fashioned secondhand bookshop, one of those that look as though they were designed by M.Escher on a bad day and has more staircases than storeys and those rows of shelves which end in little doors that are surely too small for a full sized human to enter. The relevant equation is:Knowledge=power=energy=matter=mass; a good bookshop is just a genteel Black Holethat knows how to read"-Terry Pratchett

This is one of my favorite quotes. It reminds me of my used bookstore with 100,000 books of varying types and conditions. I loved my bookstore and I loved the books. I loved every inch of the "knowledge=power=energy=matter=mass" that I called my own. I enjoyed passing it on to others and I felt that I was fulfilling a purpose. When the bookstore closed I felt like I had lost that purpose.

I entered the MLIS program in the hopes of recapturing that feeling of purpose. I am saddened by the focus on technology in my first two classes. Where I respect technology I do not believe that it in itself makes for a library or for that matter knowledge. I am hopeful that as I progress I will find that these classes are not the norm and that there will be more focus on the actual printed material and the maintenance, cataloguing, preservation and conservation of it. I am hopeful that I am not wasting my time on a degree that will be just as mind numbing and as tediously consumed by computers as my current career in software support.