workshelf is currently using almost 382 megs of ram. do you know what is causing this, or at least what might be causing it?

Whoa.

V10.6 or V10.8 beta?

On the Windows Task Mananager, click View, Select Colummns and enable Memory (Commit Size), Handles, User Objects and GDI Objects. Report back the results, please.

Once you've got them, open WorkShelf Preferences and press Ok. Memory usage will drop like a ton of bricks and will stabilize after a little while. Report the final result too, please.

now this is silly. i just opened task manager and workshelf is down to 17megs being used. i didn't do anything to it. i didn't close it and reopen it, i didn't log-off or restart the comp, i didn't go into the workshelf / nexus preferences and the click ok. i'll keep an eye on it, and if it climbs i'll gather the info you asked for and post it and the results of doing what you suggested. again as always thanks for the fast response.