What is this thing for, love?

Bibliophiliac, taxophiliac, networking queen, obsessively compulsive data gatherer. Oh, yes, I've been called them all. And I am innocent (of the charge of being innocent). None of the linear thought rubbish for me, give me ALL the data (or better yet, access to ALL the people who KNOW the data and what it means).



Give me encyclopedias and dictionaries (and atlases and glossaries), and keep it all coming.



Yep, I'm one of THOSE people, one of the people who likes to bring order out of chaos, who likes lots and lots of input so that I can see the patterns.



I also made a bit of a career out of this. Working out what the problem is, what the solution should be like (they call it business analysis), and documenting it. I've written training manuals for technicians and call centre operators and shop assistants to name a few, documented the technical, user and marketing aspects of computer systems, and written about technology in newspapers, magazines and on the web.



It's all good fun. I used to write a column called The Garden Voyeur, travelling around Melbourne, Australia for The Garden Guide, taking (and selling) photos, writing up my experiences. Ok, I'm agoraphobic, so mixed in with the fun were the freaky, scary, "where am I" moments.



I also used to review and comment on films (call them movies or pictures if you like). My notebooks are still filled with material that never got to the keyboard.



Nowadays my world is smaller. Both I and my 1200-person address book are retired and living in Melbourne, Australia. But I still have that old hunger for information and things-containing-information, and something-to-store-them-in.



And so, Alizandria. Picture my virtual and real library. Books (fiction and non-fiction). Audio and video materials (CDs, DVDs, cassettes, phonograph records, video tapes and rips). Photos, paintings, maps, slides, digital images ...



Get the idea?



So for the last couple of years I've been writing my own multimedia cataloguing system and slowly moving my old catalogues to the new format and cataloguing anything else that might hide from me when I want it.

Which brings me to the big issues -- time management, data management, records management. What to store, how, something to put it in, and something to find it with.