Nancy Pearl has a Great Job — But so do I!

Evelyn

The favorite part of my job as a librarian is to talk about books and recommend my favorites to other readers. It’s so gratifying to have someone come back and seek me out saying, “I loved the book you gave me, I need another one!”

So, one of the things I do every month is to check out Pearl’s Picks, the latest list of recommend books from reader’s advisory guru Nancy Pearl, for a good book I might have missed. This month I found The Numerati by Business Week technology writer Stephen Baker.

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I’ve been fascinated by marketing and consumer trends since reading Why We Buy by Paco Underhill several years ago. After reading The Numerati, I’m blown away by what data mining companies are doing everyday with those little bits of information we consumers leave behind every time we use our debit cards, cell phones, computers and other electronic devices.

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Baker begins by showing us how much we rely on our computers and Google; even though we know we are being tracked. He tells us, “Even if you hold back your name, it’s a cinch to find you. A Carnegie Mellon University study recently showed that simply by disclosing gender, birth date, and postal zip code, 87 percent of people in the United States could be pinpointed by name,” I was hooked. (And a little scared, too!)  
Chapters on work, shopping, politics, terrorism, healthcare, and even computer matchmaking services detail how pervasive information gathering is in our everyday lives. Now, the biggest question for the future is if our loss of privacy is really worth the potential gains.

Actually, right now I’m wondering what data mining lists I’ve been added to now that I’ve blogged about this book. But, truthfully, it really doesn’t matter because I won’t stop recommending good books to others.

                                                                                              ~Evelyn

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