Caffeine: the fuel of our library

When you think about businesses that run on caffeine, your mind probably sticks to a few common ones like long haul trucking, computer programming, and 24-hour convenience stores.  Libraries probably don't come to mind.  I certainly never thought about libraries being caffeine-fueled -- at least not until I started working at one as a full-time staff member.

Over the past two-plus years, I've seen that the library runs on caffeine just as much as other businesses do.  Now, we don't have a coffee pot plugged in at all times and in fact, coffee is *not* the caffeine isotope of choice.  But if you take a quick look around the library at any given time, you'll see our caffeine-delivery systems.  Cups of tea, cans of Pepsi and Coke (the cola war is still going strong in our library) and energy drinks litter our desks and fill up our recycling bin far too quickly.

Does our caffeine consumption affect anything around the library?  Not really.  There have been a few days when one staff member or another has expressed a *need* for caffeine, and then has taken steps to fulfill that need, but that's about it.  Do caffeine buzzes affect our work?  I doubt it.  I don't think I'm any more or less productive when I've had a few cans of pop.

Over the past few years, I've tried to cut down my caffeine consumption somewhat.  If you take a look at the Wikipedia entry for caffeine, you'll see a picture taken of a spiderweb that was spun after the spider consumed a quantity of caffeine.  The picture is undeniably creepy.  While caffeine doesn't affect humans the same way it does spiders, it did make me think about how much caffeine I consume.

When I was working on my bachelor's degree, I used to think that 4-5 hours of sleep a night was plenty.  But then I'd have 3-4 cans of pop each day to stay awake, and would often crash in the afternoon anyway.  I don't do that anymore.  Most days I have a single can of pop.  Though I have an occasional latte when I pass a Starbucks if I have a long drive ahead of me, I'm not a coffee drinker by any stretch.

Anyway, in the past month or two, I've thought about trying for a caffeine-free week.  I'd pick a week, announce it on this blog and my Twitter feed, try to recruit some sympathetic co-workers, and go without caffeine.  Given that I'm on the low end of the caffeine consumption scale, I imagine I'd mostly be okay, but I still think it would be an interesting week, especially if I keep everyone up to date on my progress.

So that was the plan.  Then last night I had trouble getting to sleep, then woke up at 4 and didn't get back to sleep until five.  Today will not be a caffeine-free day.  In fact, today will probably be a 3 CU day.  (I wrote on my Twitter feed last week that CU stands for "Caffeine Unit" and is defined as the amount of caffeine in a standard, 355mL can of Pepsi or the equivalent).

Well, I'll try a caffeine-free week at some point, and you'll hear about it on here and through my Twitter feed.  Stay tuned!