Hey everyone, how’s it going? Welcome back to The Year I Became.
I’ve been going full speed for the past 4 weeks, but I wanted to slow things down today and share a bit of a story—something I’ve been reflecting on over the past week—that really sets up everything I’ve been doing with The Year I Became, with the company my friends and I are building, and with my professional career over the past 15 years.
It all can be tied directly back to one position. The more I think about it, the more I realize that so much of my creative drive, my love for systems and frameworks, and even my fascination with collecting, stem from that one job.
That job was being a Library Page at the New York Public Library.
I held that position for about five or six months when I was 15 or 16. And honestly, when I look back, I’ve been chasing that same thrill—intellectual stimulation, freedom of thought, and systems-level creativity—ever since.
For those unfamiliar, here’s how Indeed describes a Library Page:
“A library page is an entry-level job in a library that involves organizing and shelving materials, assisting with circulation, and supporting other library staff. Essentially, library pages keep the library running smoothly by ensuring materials are properly placed and readily available.”
That’s a good summary, but what they don’t tell you is the impact of learning these systems firsthand. Working with the Dewey Decimal System, handling and reorganizing materials daily—you develop an intimate understanding of how information flows. You also start to see that these systems aren’t just about books. They’re about how knowledge is structured, and how we interact with that structure.
That mindset—breaking things down, organizing them, building new frameworks on top of old ones—has influenced everything I’ve done since:
It’s why I love building frameworks for analyzing film.
It’s why I naturally moved toward creating educational programs like The Year I Became and my Pen, Paper & Heart Legacy project.
It’s why I’m obsessed with systems design for the creative business we’re now launching.
I prefer working in that “middle ground” space—close enough to the team to inspire, close enough to leadership to drive strategy. But none of that works unless you’ve built solid systems. And that’s where the Library Page mindset always kicks in.
Fast forward to today. In the last year, I’ve built a 2000+ film and TV library—not just to collect, but to teach myself filmmaking on my own terms. I needed a better way to organize and navigate that growing collection, so I began building a system—just like the one I used back when I was a Library Page.
Enter: The Cinematic Decimal System
Inspired by the Dewey Decimal System, this is a flexible, living framework that allows collectors, curators, archivists, and film lovers to systematically categorize and navigate their physical media collections. It works across formats—DVD, Blu-ray, 4K UHD, VHS—and across categories:
Theme
Region of production
Genre
Production style (cinematography, sound design, editing approach, etc.)
Context (film movement, psychological lens, etc.)
Decade
I’ve spent the last month building and refining it (with the help of ChatGPT to accelerate the process). What might have taken six to eight months I’ve condensed into about four weeks. It’s already making my collection far more navigable, and I’m excited to share it with others soon.
The more fluent I become with this system, the more confident I feel—not just about collecting, but about teaching, curating, and building this into the broader ecosystem we’re developing with our creative business.
It’s fascinating to realize that all of this traces back to that teenage job as a Library Page. That was the seed. Now, nearly two decades later, I’m building something new from that same foundation.
I can’t wait to show you more over the coming weeks and months. Stay tuned.
Stay bold. Stay poetic!
-E. A. Bland
The “Great Reads” Section Will Return Next Week
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