Science Week: Employable Inventions

Published Friday, November 16, 2007 by Kevin Breathnach | E-mail this post

Which invention, asks our organisers, has helped you most with your working life? So, Science Week is getting harder for anybody young-enough or bum-enough never to have had what might be termed a Real Job. I work in a bookshop. Without books I would not be employed by a book shop. Without the invention of the printing press, we would be without books. I could justly pronounce therefore that it is the printing press that has helped me most with my working life. But I think most entrants could - and might - reduce the question to that level. To answer as such would be contrary to the spirit in which this competition is run: it would be downright uninventive.

I have now worked in two large enough bookshops in Dublin's city centre: one had the invention in question, the other had not. I like to think I know a lot about books. If I haven't read a book, I at least like to think that I know of the particular book and could match to it an author's name. But customers listen avidly to Ryan Tubridy, yet not so avidly that they will recall the name or author of the book he happens to be plugging at one moment in time. It might have the word 'boy' in the title, the customer will hazard. Not once has the boy in question been Vikram Seth's suitable one. In the first bookshop I worked in, a vague recollection was unhelpful. We needed the exact title. In the bookshop I work in now, a vague recollection is bountifully helpful. So, yes, instead of the printing press, I am paying tribute to the versatile, flexible, fully functional database. And in doing so, I'm making science fun for everyone.

Labels: bookshop, database, friday, printing press, science week

Science Week: Employable Inventions

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