Obsessed with... the British Library in real time

I'm currently adding my two penn'orth/cents to KQED Arts' new Obsessed feature, "a weekly series featuring everything the KQED Arts gang can’t stop talking about." My contribution to Feb 5's post:

Carly Severn: Stalking Book Requests at The British Library

Thrill-seeker that I am, I’m currently obsessed with this video showing “10 hypnotic minutes of real-time book requests from the British Library’s book delivery system.” Yes, this really *is* just 10 minutes of scrolling book titles, and it’s mesmerizing. Marvel as you bounce from Hebrew poetry and a 1963 New York Review of Books to The Life and Lore of the Bird. Like whenever my dad insists on showing me his (admittedly fascinating) historical coin collection, I love wondering about the hands that these objects are being passed back and forth between; all the novels being researched, the PhDs and night classes being labored over. And in case that all sounds a bit insufferable, you’ve also got bizarro titles like London is a Man’s Town, But Women Go There (1930) to chuckle at.