Glitter Boots and the Dewey Decimal System

You've got to pursue your passion. 
Different people have different passions.

This week I went to New York with my daughter. Fashion is her passion. Pictured are her Doc Martens custom glitter boots that she wore along with her handmade jacket. The jacket wasn't as flashy as the boots, but quite stylish, and way different than the run-of-the-mill black North Face parkas that so many commuters of both sexes wear these days. Combine that image with my daughter's 6'3" height and we had many people look at us. 

Correction: People looked at her. I was invisible. When we got home I thought I had missed out on the opportunity to bring her to a bank. Could have parked her in the middle of the bank floor and robbed all the cash. Nobody would have seen me. Oh well, maybe next time.

Speaking of cash:

A friend of mine told me about a recent plane flight on which a pleasant middle aged woman sat beside him. Turns out she was a librarian with a burning passion for: The Dewey Decimal System. Told him about it for a couple hours!

"Really?" I asked. Really. She was so enthusiastic he didn't have the heart to stop her.

I asked him how many decimal places did she get into, but it turns out he wasn't paying close enough attention. What a missed opportunity!

That conversation started me on an online quest for more knowledge on the Dewey Decimal System. You know how starting a project like that can spiral you down an endless rabbit hole? I had to stop myself after a while, but I will share this:

The Dewey Decimal System is owned by a non-profit corporation called the Online Computer Library Center, or OCLC, headquartered in Dublin, Ohio. I'm not making this up. The OCLC charges over 30,000 libraries around the world to be members. I looked up the salary of the CEO of the OCLC.

He makes over $2.2 million a year! Not bad for a librarian; someone who doesn't play second base or hit a golf ball at the professional level. That's about $42,300 per week. Who knew?

Well, it's possible the guy has a lot of expenses---overdue library books and such. Maybe he uses thousand dollar bills as book marks. And let's not forget the decision making pressure cooker of stress the fellow is faced with: whether a book about World War II should be classified as general, 940.53, or if it contains info on espionage, maybe 940.5481. Where, oh where, to draw the line?

I'm not an expert on non-profit accounting, but those organizations have to pay out enough in salaries so they don't show a profit. Sounds like a pretty good gig.

Anyhow, it sometimes pays to pursue your passion.

I'll be publishing my new book pretty soon, and if successful I hope to avoid being a non-profit corporation this year. The Dewey System should catalogue it at 813.54, Modern American Fiction, published after 1945.

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