I’ve been on the road for nearly a week, attending a meeting and a conference (Code4Lib), and spending many, many mano a mano hours with colleagues who have ideas… vision… drive… concerns… people who share my passion for librarianship. I have a camera full of pictures (remember when you rationed out how many pictures you took because of the development costs and the hassle of lugging film around?), miniDV tapes of events, written notes, and a brain filled with ideas.
At my job, I spend all day communicating with people in my field, but conferences and off-site meetings break through the static created by the “continuous partial attention” that typifies work-related discussions. The quality of learning away from the work setting reminds me of my favorite Far Side cartoon, where a student cheats on a test by pulling a second brain out of his bag. Just the chance to relax and focus, knowing that an interruption isn’t imminent, is like having a second brain.
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