It was my birthday the other day. Unfortunately I had a staff meeting and an appointment on that day which was my day off, as well as the regular school drop off, pickup and swimming lessons. So it wasn’t a day to relax. However, it was a day I learnt a bit about myself that I guess I have known, but never really realised and it was a day filled with many moments of happiness, many of which had some sort of electronic origin.

I’m a Gen Xer, a control freak (but not a perfectionist), task oriented and I love music. My work involves virtual services for my public library, which I just love. This is just some background to give context to the rest of this story.

My staff meeting was our Information Services team. The meeting is only quarterly, so I didn’t want to miss it and I do enjoy what we cover and the people I work with on this team. However, my biggest moment of joy in this meeting was sharing an achievement involving solving the issue of being able to search our catalogue from outside of our OPAC. Its been something that I have been working towards, on and off, since we got our new ILMS over 12 months ago and which came together in a very short time due to some timely and very helpful assistance from a colleague at another of our consortia libraries. (Thanks again Maryanne).

Another moment of joy during the day was when I was driving home from my appointment and one of my favourite songs came on the CD player. The volume went up on the music and whilst driving, I was bopping away in my car and singing my heart out (I’m not a bad singer…). I didn’t care what other drivers saw or thought, I was just enjoying the moment, which combined my joy of driving with my love of music. (don’t worry, I didn’t break any road rules or run anyone off the road)

After getting home, I chilled out for a short time, firstly online. I ended up with a small smile on my face for the rest of the day, because of all the lovely birthday wishes I received, both through email and through Facebook. Thanks to both my email and Facebook friends. It was a small thing, but I really did appreciate the few moments that you took to send me a quick greeting. After that I spent the last little time I had spare before getting going with kids and birthday dinner, to watch some of my favourite episodes of one of my favourite TV shows.

I spend lots of time in the electronic environment. Driving my car, working on virtual services, listening to music, spending time online whether in games, social networks, watching TV and more. And I really enjoy it. I always knew I spent a lot of time on computer, in my car and on TV, but didn’t really realise until that day how many moments of joy they provide me. It makes me think that I may be more digital native than I realised.