Thinking Online

The Oakland Athletics/St. Louis Cardinals in 1989.

Do you ever feel like we are inundated with way too much information?

Information flies at us all day long, from many different directions. I am a technologist and have no problem with the amount(s) of "stuff" thrown at us from the Internet, email, voice mail, news (does anyone really watch TV for news anymore?), newspapers, news magazines, etc.

In addition to the many blogs I subscribe to, I also have home delivery of several magazines. The magazines, though, have really lost their relevance since most of the information arrives via blog on a daily basis. My favorite magazines of all time are The Sporting News, Rolling Stone, and Fast Company. Of course, I subscribe to others, but I devour each issue of those three mags as soon as they arrive. Funny thing, however, I have already read or heard most of the information, so it's the feature of the story that I look at in magazines.

I received my first issue of TSN in December of '82. It's the magazine with Whitey Herzog on the cover as the Sportsman of the Year. I have subscribed to that magazine ever since, with the exception of some time away from it in the mid–90s when they radically changed the magazine and fired some great writers. Are you interested in any back copies? I HAVE EACH AND EVERY ONE!

Why? Why? Why? You ask? Many friends have asked the same question. I am a trivia freak and always want to know the correct answer for questions. In the old days, I would dig out an old issue of some magazine to find and answer. But, I haven't had to do that in about 10 years. Why? The Internet, of course. Heck, I remember in 1990 as a freshman at Central Michigan University looking up vast information on rock 'n' roll bands I liked in old copies of Billboard on microfiesch. I found out great information about Jimmy Buffett, KISS, John Cougar (Mellencamp), etc. Now, it and more is available at All Music. I have so many books about TV shows and movies ... all available online.

For information pundits like me, we have too much information. I have boxes and boxes of magazines and books (I MEAN BOXES ... and they're heavy) that contain so much information. I don't really need them, but I struggle with just giving them to Goodwill or something.

What would you do with a vast information library that has value to only one person (yourself)?