Things I've Noticed: Hovering at the top of my hold queue can be frustrating

All right, let's start by admitting that this really isn't a problem.

That when it comes to getting (effectively) free stuff from the library should not lead to me complaining.

And most importantly, that my problem is entirely a problem of my own making.

Good.

So my local library (which is wonderful, by the way) allows you to put holds on titles you might like to take out (pretty much like every other library), and even allows you to put holds on items they have ordered, but which have not yet entered the actual collection.

My problem is that my account lets me put twenty five items on hold at one time, and as I regularly check on "just ordered" items and also make use of my library's Inter-Library Loan policy (where one library borrows an item from another library), I tend to have a lot of items on hold at any given time.

Like say, twenty five.

Which means that when new stuff shows up - and yes, I know complaining about my library getting new stuff that they are willing to loan me for free makes me sound pretty terrible - I cannot put holds on anything and instead have to add it to my "for later" shelf - which allows me to keep track of things I'd like to check out someday, but not today (also an amazing service, by the way).

Which leaves me with maybe one or two slots available at any given time to put one or two of the fifty or so items I want on hold...

Aw man - looking back at my complaint I'm pretty sure I've just written a decent advertisement for my local library.

So there you go.

Me and my tunes

After finishing grad school I was quickly able to increase my reading-for-pleasure habit from seven books a month back up to ten. This was excellent, as it gave me another Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction book a month to comment on.

But after a couple weeks, I realized that if my reading habits had slid back a little during school, my music tastes had virtually withered away. I’d spent the last few years listening to my aging iPod playlist, which, to be fair got updated time to time by my wife, who listens to a lot more contemporary music than I do, but for the large part, my musical tastes tend to live comfortably in the years between 1999 and 2004 (ages 23 – 27, respectively).

So, I decided to do something about it, and as a library-trained list making guy, I decided to use some basic filters.

New music comes out at an incredible rate – even if I limited myself to just listening to my local top-40 radio station or watching the music videos linked from the ads at the beginning of YouTube videos I watch, I would be checking out dozens of new songs a week.

So I turned to the Billboard charts – which have been keeping track of the top 100 songs currently in play since 1958, and selected the American list (where the lists originated), the Canadian list (where I live), and the UK list (as my musical tastes tend to lean that way if left alone), and began listening to the top ten on all three lists every Monday.

What I noticed right away is that there is a lot of overlap. With the exception of the UK list, which varies somewhere between 2 and 8 songs from the American list on any given week, the Canadian list tends to be roughly 60% identical to the American, if not in ranking, at least in which songs are on the list.

I’m not sure if listening to all these tunes (which usually means listening to about 18 songs a week, as I don’t listen to the same song if it appears on another list), is making me smarter, more culturally aware, or relatable to my kids, but it does tend to mean I’m a little bit faster in recognizing songs playing on the radio.

And as I'm adding new tunes to my iPod playlist can’t be considered completely golden oldies anymore.