Sometimes I feel like I’m being buried alive by information.
As a librarian, research is at the heart of what I do all day. As a DIY travel enthusiast, it’s even worse! In the past your options for travel research consisted primarily of travel books, official tourism websites and travel agents. Now there are new travel blogs being added every day and travel apps are one of the hottest digital markets. Add to that Pinterest and Instagram, which are exploding with digitally altered photos that are designed to entice people like me to visit these “must see” places. How’s a girl to choose?
I will soon begin a new adventure in my career, which has me pondering why I became a librarian in the first place. Most people know that I love travel, so why didn’t I become a travel agent or tour guide? I also love good design & architecture, so why didn’t I follow that path? And then there’s the fact that I majored in History for my undergrad, so why not a teacher or researcher? And the short answer is…
I’M CURIOUS
After 14+ years of experience working in public libraries, I’ve come to see that curiosity is a common trait shared among our profession. It’s a common trait in our patrons as well. It’s one of the main reasons we read, after all. We want to know what it’s like to experience other places, other times, different ways of thinking or feeling. We want to learn new things. We want to meet new people. We want to improve ourselves or the world around us. And some of us are just plain nosy.
When you only have one day to see a city as large & ancient as Athens, it can feel quite overwhelming. Add to this fact that you’ve just spent a week on a tiny Greek island, isolated from the rest of the world & you can understand how we probably felt arriving in this sprawling mecca. I felt like a mole coming up to ground for the first time, squinting my eyes at the bright light & thinking “can’t I just go back & hide?”
