Librarians matter

NEW ADDRESS FOR THIS BLOG

2007-01-01T10:47:00.000+09:00

NO MORE POSTS HERE. I'VE CONTINUED THIS BLOG AT : http://librariansmatter.com.

If you already subscribe to my Feedburner feed, then you should be receiving updates from the new site. The feed is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibrariansMatter.

See you over there....

Changes to this blog and advanced apologies

2006-12-30T21:40:00.000+09:00

I'm putting the finishing touches on migration from Blogger Beta to Wordpress on my own domain, in time for 1 January 2007.

When it's done, I'll do a couple of big posts on the lines of "Wow..THESE are the plugins to use if you're going to do THAT" and "Welcome to my new place, here's the details".

Here's a sneak preview of the header:

If I've previously linked to any posts on your blog, you may notice new pingbacks from my new domain. That happens when my old posts get imported to Wordpress.

Posts from the new blog should just appear in the Feedburner feed, without you having to do anything. If you don't subscribe through the feedburner feed, here's the details: http://feeds.feedburner.com/LibrariansMatter. I'm guessing that when the new blog is fed in, the 111 previous posts from this blog will show up in your aggregator. Apologies for this in advance.

I'm busy, busy, busy and having fun, fun, fun so will update more soon.

New job descriptions for libraries

2006-12-30T09:15:00.000+09:00

When people ask me "what do you work as?", I can easily say "Reference Librarian and Philosophy Subject librarian". The other bit of my job, which is looking at emerging technologies and how we can use them in our library, doesn't have an official label or job title.

Back in June, when thinking about what Librarian 2.0 jobs would look like for Australian libraries, I said:

I suspect Librarian 2.0 positions will be created as people in existing positions redefine their jobs and add a bit here, drop a few responsibilities there.

I'm really excited by a trend in the US, one that I hope will hit here. Entire postitions are being created for librarians to do tasks that didn't even exist 2 or 3 years ago. I'm encouraged by the Emergent Technology Librarian at East Michigan University Library and the ten (yes, ten!!) new positions being funded at the Albany Library at the State University of New York.

1. EMERGENT TECHNOLOGIES LIBRARIAN at the East Michigan Univeristy Library

I chuckled when the ad posted on Web4Lib said they were looking for an applicant with "mad skillz". Made me feel about 100 years old and terribly unhip.

Position Description:
The Eastern Michigan University Library seeks a proactive, creative, service-oriented individual to play a key role on its Information Services Team. The Emergent Technologies Librarian will serve as an explorer of and advocate for the use of emergent technologies to support online learning and enhance the effectiveness of library information and instructional services . The Emergent Technologies librarian will coordinate virtual/chat reference initiatives and provide scheduled reference assistance (face-to-face, email, telephone, virtual/chat).
Responsibilities:

Explore, evaluate, and encourage the deployment of emergent technologies to engage library users and staff in new ways

Provide training and support for other librarians on emergent technologies

Explore and develop opportunities to integrate library resources and services into course management, online learning, and other campus software initiatives

Collaborate with other librarians to develop online learning initiatives

Coordinate, assess, and work with other librarians to evolve virtual/chat reference initiatives

Provide scheduled reference desk and virtual/chat reference service, including some evening and weekend hours

2.Ten new postions at SUNY

Laura Cohen's library has just received "huge, anonymous donation to fund ten new positions for as long as we want them". (Yes, Virginia, there is a Library Santa Claus). They've set aside one position to use later. With the other positions, they are dreaming big, and realise that there is overlap between the positions:

Social Networking Support Librarian
Collaborative Publishing Librarian
Multimedia Publishing Librarian
Coordinator of Student Participation
Programming Risk Taker
OPAC Transformation Librarian
Testbed Technologist
Remote User Librarian..

and the one that really caught my fancy.... After 38 years, I finally know what I want to do when I grow up!!

9. Exploration and Training Librarian:
Does what all librarians should do but wlll get to do it full time: read, experiment, play, develop skills, listen to conference and training broadcasts, imagine and ruminate. Will develop a seminar program to present colleagues with the results of these efforts. Will assist colleagues in determining new ways of doing things based on these explorations. Will recommend readings, Web sites, podcasts, RSS feeds, etc., to assist in staff education. Establishes a culture of fun-loving, beta-craving, humorous attitude toward change.
TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Let go of the past

UPDATE: A couple of hours after I wrote this, into my aggregator popped an article from Michael Stephens on ALA Techsource that nicely summarises the last year of Librarian2.0 job descriptions in the US. Desperately seeking the adaptive librarian: on the 2.0 job description (part 3).

How my local library is getting it right for me

2006-12-30T00:02:00.000+09:00

Just visited my local public library for the first time in about 3 months.

They’ve upgraded their website and a new feature caught my eye. New users can create a temporary membership online. This allows them to reserve items today, and provide their ID when they come to collect the item. A quick trawling of the web reveals this is probably “bog standard” with the Spydus ILS. I also liked the “item not in our library - fill in this request form and we’ll try to get it” option.

As someone who once joined up 4 family members at a loans desk, while trying to control a bored two year old, I applaud this. I would have loved to have entered our family’s details at my leisure and then known that what I wanted was ready for pickup BEFORE I ventured to the new library.

I registered both kids for an interactive storytelling of Charlotte’s Web with riveting “get-em-up-off-their-bums-and-moving” storyteller, Glenn Swift, next month. Having visited Narnia with him last year and re-enacted the battle scene in the library with spaghetti string and balloon swords, they can’t wait (OK…me neither!).

Mr 9 also joined in the Australia wide Summer Reading Club..after seeing at the front door the cool prizes he could win. He received a very nice “showbag” of reading related activities, including a “choose your book type” flowchart quiz, that steered him toward book choices that would suit him. He gets to go to a party where they dish out the prizes at the end of January.

The library also had very bright new signage - not just a small part of the shelf labelled, but large cardboard cutouts taking up the entire side of the shelf, top to bottom. Very clear and made each shelf feel individual, and like it held an adventure.

I left the library as one happy user.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Gentle Okayness

The "To Be Read" Challenge

2006-12-28T21:36:00.000+09:00

This looks like fun, so I'm doing it. The "To Be Read" Challenge from MizB of Literary Cache. I found it via Wanderings of a Student Librarian.

The idea is that before 1 January 2007, you list in your blog 12 books that have been on you TBR list for more than 6 months. Then, you read one per month. And..there's a sweetener from MizB:

Every 3 months, for the duration of the challenge, I will pick one challenge participant's name from a "hat". That person --if they've read the amount of books for that time (ie: 3 books in 3 months; 6 books in 6 months, etc)-- will receive a small gift (via snail-mail) from me.

If you have a "Staff's favourite picks" list on your website or posted in your library, why not add a "Staff's TBR list"? It would be great to share with your users, they'd get to know a bit more about you, about some of your bookstock and it would provide such an interesting talking point.

As I wrote the last paragraph, I thought "of course, this would only apply to public libraries". But I'm wondering...."Why couldn't we do it in an academic library?". Too worried about our credibility as a research institution, or that our users don't come to us for THAT kind of thing. If not, why not?

Here's my list. It turned out to be harder than I thought. I've just found out that I'm pretty good at following up and reading books on my TBR list:

A delicate balance - Rohinton MISTRY

Tipping point:how little things can make a big difference - Malco

Born on a blue day - Daniel TAMMET

A spot of bother - Mark HADDON

Martini: a memoir - Frank MOOREHOUSE

A prayer for Owen Meany - John IRVING

The night watch - Sarah WATERS

I know why the caged bird sings - Maya ANGELOU

The tent - Margaret ATTWOOD

The bone people - Keri HULME

One hundred years of solitude - Gabriel GARCIA MARQUEZ

History of Western Philosophy - Bertrand RUSSELL

Special mentions, but published in the last 6 months:

The inheritance of loss - Kiran DESAI

Chart throb - Ben ELTON

Moral disorder - Margaret ATTWOOD

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

UPDATE 29.12.06: This one has been sitting on my bedside table so long that it's become part of the furniture, so I owe it a mention to prod me into finishing it:

Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna CLARKE

5 things you didn't know about Kathryn Greenhill

2006-12-27T09:30:00.000+09:00

I've been sitting out here on the "C" list in Australia, waiting to be tagged with this meme. I've just had three "driveby" taggings - of the "if you're reading this, you're tagged" kind - so off I go...

Neither my husband nor I were born Greenhill. It's the family name we chose when our first child was born. We changed our names by deed, then registered the birth.
I've just come out of 9 years of looking after small children and dying parents, so the opportunity to choose what I do with some hours of my day is novel and exciting. I'm like a kid in a lolly shop.
In 1991, I was removed by police from a public bar in Swansea, Tasmania, making the front page of the Mercury. I was having a quiet drink with some other women the night after the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission had ruled that the RSL could not legally continue to exclude women from the bar. The RSL President was drunk and belligerent and removing us was how the police kept the peace.
I have a morbid fear of beetroot. The smell, the stains, the texture, the taste, the look...all spine-chilling.
I am very good at yoyo tricks. I had pneumonia when I was 11, during a yoyo craze. While I was off school recovering, I put the time to good use.

Consider yourself driveby tagged if you're reading this, but particularly if you are:

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Strength

YouTube and I say "Happy holidays".

2006-12-24T15:45:00.000+09:00

Here's one I made earlier today at the windy beach.

If the YouTube viewer doesn't appear in your aggregator, try going here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S48nqIH6PvQ

Only 9 more days to help Peter pick his glasses.....

2006-12-22T11:00:00.000+09:00

I'm always fascinated by people using blogs creatively.

One of the students at my uni needs help picking his new glasses frames. The terms of his health insurance means he has to do it by 31 December. On his blog, he's posted pictures of himself wearing different frames and would like people to use comments to vote on the best.

He's shortsighted, so can't see what he looks like in the mirror..without his glasses.

Give him your opinion as a Christmas present......

Pick my glasses.

Oh you cain't getta man with a booooook!

2006-12-19T19:15:00.000+09:00

Oh yes you can..if you live in Victoria.

The State Library of Victoria is running "Text appeal" bring-a-book speed dating sessions. I can't explain it any better than the library itself:

Love is in the air at the State Library of Victoria this summer.
Text Appeal is a new take on the traditional dating formula. Each person brings a book they love, loathe or have recently read to act as a conversation starter. Jane Austen may find Patrick O’Brien, Salman Rushdie could be captivated by Zadie Smith, and JK Rowling - can take her pick. The books people bring may reveal who they are, who they aren't and perhaps who they are looking for, all in a three-minute conversation.

Text Appeal will run once a month from December 2006 to February 2007, with the final event being held on Valentine’s Day.

Time 6 Dec 2006, 17 Jan & 14 Feb 2007; 7-9.30pm
Venue Experimedia
Bookings Registration is essential. Fill in the form below, tel 03 8664 7555 or email learning@slv.vic.gov.au
Cost $20 per session - drinks, entertainment and the promise of a bookish romance included (a three-for-the-price-of-two discount applies to group bookings

Now, I'm not looking for love..but I am really nosy about other people's reactions to their reading. I'd love to take part in something like that, particlularly listening to those who just hate my favourites.

My Co-Pilot has pointed out that if I did go along, I'd probably end up with my nose in the book and ignoring the person on the other side of the table. Hmmmm...after that comment, maybe I am in the market for lurve!

Skype and google..they're talking!!!

2006-12-18T09:51:00.000+09:00

Now that I've installed skype, my google search results display clickable links to some telephone numbers so I can start a VOIP call with just one click. That's them below with the Australian flag next to them.

My vague and not-so-tech-savvy-this-morning-brain thinks....."is this something to do with microformats, and should I find out more about them...they look fun".

Hey Jude! Congratulations

2006-12-17T23:39:00.000+09:00

Congratulations to all winners in the 2006 Edublog awards, but particularly my fellow Australian and fellow librarian, Judy O'Connell.

Hey Jude! won in the "Best Library/Best Librarian Blog" category. I'm hoping she'll answer a few questions I emailed her so that we can publish them on LINT tomorrow.

For a heartwarming ...aaaahhhhh... kind of moment, check out Duck Diaries. This won the convenor's prize, awarded by Josie Fraser who tabulated the scores. It's the story of a duck which built a nest in the playground of a school..told by the kids in pictures and words.

Skype high and Edublog awards night

2006-12-17T22:17:00.000+09:00

My telephony is being dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century. I'm about the only person I know who isn't a dab hand at texting. In the language of my son's school report, this skill is still "emerging" for me. It's my last bastion of ludditism..because tonight, I finally succumbed to:

Why? A nifty llittle email arrived in my gmail box this morning reminding me that the 2006 Edublogger awards are being announced tonight at 11pm Western Australian time.

LINT (librariesinteract.info) has been nominated in the "Best Library/Librarian blog 2006" category. There are 5 entrants in all, three from Australia.

The awards are being transmitted directly from the chat room and Skypecast. It is also streamed live into the Worldbridges building on Info Island in Second Life. A text chat room ran at the same time so people could paste in links and accept awards via text if their microphones didn't work.

Here's how it looks live with a skype window open and the chat window open:

Results were updated live on the blog as announced.

If you love something, set it free...

2006-12-16T19:04:00.000+09:00

Here's some radical ideas...

What if users don't care where their library material comes from?
What if they are happy if they get what they want, when they want it, in a timely and friendly manner?

And more...

What if users don't care where our catalogue records come from?
What if instead of a "no holdings" screen, we told users if an item existed in another library and gave them a "yes/no" option to start an interlibrary loan?
What if individual libraries got out of the business of running catalogue information, centralised that bit..and then we focussed on just getting the material to user?
How many people work at Amazon keeping their bib data accurate? Could we harness the hours and hours of people power, chewed up in library cataloguing departments, to keep centralised records accurate?
What extra could we do for our users if, instead of just interrogating and uploading/downloading our own data from union catalogues, we could manipulate and repackage records from other libraries too?

These are some of my thoughts after listening to the latest Library2.0 Gang podcast from Talis called The Mellon rewards WPOpac...and opens an Open Data door? It discusses Casey Bisson's Mellon Award for his work with WPOpac...and his library's decision to use the USD50 000 award to buy Library of Congress Records and redistribute them under Creative Commons liscence. It then ranged further to discuss what would happen if we all pooled our records.

I've already admitted to not fully understanding the implications of this. Although the podcast made a few things clearer, I think that I need to see more from Casey about what his plans are, and whether he plans to value add, before I really "get" it.

Some of the points I noted were:

The barrier MARC poses to sharing our records with "non library" people. Converting the records to XML would be make them much more accessible.
Libraries could probably have shared records in this way before, but just haven't.
What would be the motivation for an agency with lots of data to share it? ...there was a long silence and then someone tentatively suggested..."Hugs??"
Often in-house standards or the ILS used determines which fields of a MARC record are loaded on a library's system. Often data that cannot be immediately used is not uploaded, so restrospective use is impossible.
What if libraries just went ahead and pooled our records, and then coped with legal ramifications later?
Why do bloggers link book references to Amazon and not a library?
The United States does not have a National Library like we have in Australia. The Library of Congress is there foremost to serve the elected members.
What we could do with pooled records remains to be discovered.

Amy Ostrom's laundry list of features she'd like to see on OAPCs (from the NGC list) dovetails nicely in to this...and no doubt also influenced my thoughts.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: OK as is

Pimp my PC

2006-12-15T20:20:00.000+09:00

Over at Tech Explorer, Corey asks "what does your computer say about you?" He had the thankless task of visiting a large number of staff computers in his library.

I was interested that many people had loaded in a favourite background image. Our electronic services librarian says this reminds her ...and others...that she has a life outside work.

10 years ago, I customised my first work laptop with the album cover for Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Instead of the Windows close down noise, I had Bollywood. I sampled in Sri Devi singing the "awi wiwi wiwi wiwi wiwiw wi" bit of Hawa Hawaii from Mr India.

I think I must have got it out of my system, because after that I haven't really fiddled with my PC settings too much... I just make everything a subltle shade of lilac, nowadays. And set the default browser to Firefox.

But.. I think I might be expressing myself outside my PC, at least at home....

Analyse This !!

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Growth

Caught out at the library....

2006-12-14T08:16:00.000+09:00

Last time our house was broken into, we were at home and the perps. broke a window with a big crash. Why they didn't use the unlocked door next to it, we don't know. Our neighbour remarked:

"If they had more brains, they'd probably be in a different business".

Here's further proof... Prison Escapee cought after checking MySpace.

Darren Bates had escaped from a Georgia county jail and was arrested in Philadelphia after checking his Myspace account. Bates accessed the page from a public computer at the main branch of the Philadelphia Free Library.
Authorities say Bates regularly checked into his account from the library and used his real name. Police aren't saying exactly how Bates was caught, but most websites regularly track visitors by the IP address and those addresses can be traced back to a physical location.

Yep..just what every crim. who's been deprived of the joys of society does...visits his public library.

Librarian's pyjamas

2006-12-13T22:30:00.000+09:00

Today I bought a pair of cool-bananas librarian's pyjamas at K-Mart, not CafePress. What is the world coming to?

Cancel my subscription...I don't want your issues.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Fear

Poor pus-y pierced punk puss

2006-12-13T09:38:00.000+09:00

Beware of gross tale to follow....if you want to read about happier animals, try this article about the rabbits who take ecstacy.

Nougat trendsetting

Poor Nougat had a grass seed surgically removed from her ear a couple of weeks ago. On Tuesday I noticed a lump on her cheek on the same side. Took her into Dr Jess, our neighbourhood vet.

Jess saw that Nougat had been fighting and picked a very small scab off the top of the cat's head. She then gently pressed on the cat's cheek.

A lava flow of greeny smelly pus poured out of the little puncture in the top of the cat's head, and flowed down. Jess kept pushing. I'd say about one and a half teaspoons of gunk came out. Exorcist city!

Nougat had to stay in the night and Jess operated the next day. After Nougat's cheek was drained, it had to be kept open. She now has a piece of fishing line looped inside her head...entering through the wound at the top of her cheek, through the cheek and out the hole at the bottom of it.

For the next week or so, we have to pick the scab off the top of her head, wash off the ooze and turn the string to keep the wound open. And wrap her in a towel to stop her clawing us and stick an antibiotic down her throat twice a day.

So..girls and boys, if you want a nice fluffy kitten for Christmas, just ask yourself....are you prepared for it all to turn out like this??

Look listen read

2006-12-13T00:52:00.000+09:00

Last night, when I had time and inclination to blog, I accepted blogger's offer to take two minutes to tansfer my blog to blogger beta. That was around 8:30pm. When I went to bed around midnight, it was still converting. Hence the 25 "new" posts from this blog this morning in my aggregator.

So...will blog again when I have time. Meanwhile, if you want to know some of what I've been doing:

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Fulfilment

Bloglines..you are sooooo dropped!

2006-12-07T12:19:00.000+09:00

Dear Bloglines,

It's over between us.

You were my first serious aggregator relationship. I know I flirted with RSS Reader and RSS Popper, but I settled on you.

I loved checking in on you and how you responded with new and exiting feeds. I loved those extras you did for me...like providing a blogroll on my sidebar and letting me see what others subscribed to. The "Sub with bloglines" button. Ahh..memories.

I used you as my first blogging software. I know I was misguided and you just couldn't fulfil that need...but I thought your great aggregation made up for it.

I used to visit you regularly and you were always ready with an update. Recently, you've just not been up for RSS fun when I drop by. Your performance is.....slow. I know some users want intimacy and a bit of teasing with their updates, but for me it's all about frequency, frequency, frequency.

I'm sorry, but I've been dallying with google reader. It's not quite as fancy as you are, and doesn't have all the features you have..but it can give good update.

I hope you understand. It's time for me to move on. I hope to keep in touch through my sidebar, but for now I just don't want more than that.

Goodbye and good luck.

Kathrynarium

My Life-hacks

2006-12-03T14:50:00.000+09:00

Was just commenting over at Pop Goes the Library on Sophie Brookover's post, On Not Doing It All -- Further Thoughts on Life Hacking. She reports changes in her life since her column on the life/work balance in the September 2006 Library Journal, Priorities and Professionalism.

Among her life-hacks are:

getting a career coach
using Remember the Milk
chunking her tasks
Ensuring that her extra-curricular activities match her long term goals

Here's how I responded to her question about how I Not Do it All:

I'm mum to 2 little boys, work 2 days a week looking at new web tools for my library, and do professional development many, many hours more. My trap is that my employer lets me do half my work from home, around the household chaos.

Thing 1. For me, it's the maxim "SLEEP COMES FIRST". Sounds simple, but every time things go out of whack with us, it's because I'm not sleeping enough. With babies, that meant restructuring so I slept when the baby slept, no matter what else needed doing, or other interesting adult fun was to be had.

Now, it's turning the PC off at night so I get enough sleep. I've not been doing it in the last few weeks (working on projects, having too much fun) and am a gumpy messy b*tch. I know I need to go back to that first principle for my life to work.

Thing 2. I live by my PDA. Have bought one for my Co-Pilot and we sync. to the home PC, so I can share the load by putting tasks on my calendar I know he'll pick up.(They have his name next to them - he has to :))

Thing 3. I've been experimenting with saying "yes" more. When I did that, I realised that most of the things I'd been saying "no" to were things that I said I couldn't do because I had a family. I was saying "yes" to baking cakes for the kids' schools, but "no" to professional opportunities and fun nights out. Worth the experiment. I've become happier, but now need to re-tweak my life to get it back in balance (see Thing 1.)

Thing 4. Exercise. It works. I sleep better and have more energy, so the time pays for itself by making my other hours much more fun and productive. Now, after a 5 week family holiday, I have to get back into it. (see Thing 1)

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Rest.
(Oh, now you will think I'm making them up..but they ARE random. Honest)

Power of one....

2006-12-02T21:25:00.000+08:00

People with enthusiasm, who embrace what they do with joy and encourage others, can change the lives of hundreds of people...far more than most committees do. Here's a few of them...

Fig 1. Enthuse, embrace, learn, play.

Enthuser 1 - LORI BELL
Lori always seems to be online when I visit Second Life. She was showing librarians around Info Island 10am Western Australian time this morning, yet when I just emailed her (about 9pm my time), she replied straight away. She's getting out of bed at 3am her time to show us around as part of our LINTy party.

She is co-ordinating countless projects in Second Life, creates a Real Life buzz around her project and is a hub around which many folk are empowered to try out skills in Second Life. She's part of a team but she works many extra hours and brings extra ooomph to it.

**********

Enthuser 2 - WARREN HORTON
Director General of the National Library of Australia, 1985 - 1999. I've been doing a bit of reading about Aurora and discovered that the foundation is self funded due to a legacy he left on his death in 2003. He believed in empowering future librarians, and was deeply involved in Aurora's inception and running until he died.

I've been reading how he scrutinized the applications and took delight in matching applicants with mentors. He was affectionately called the "Grand Poo-bah" by participants and mentors when he joined in each 5 day live-in course. He let down his guard and talked frankly about some of his best and worst decisions. He had an extensive knowledge of who was where in the library world, and apparently a talent for suggesting who should be where.

**********

Enthuser 3 - RICHARD RENNIE
Richard runs the Fremantle Light and Sound Museum. He's not a librarian, but a passionate ex-science teacher who won the Premier's Award for Science Communication 2006, He single-handedly runs his collection as a volunteer, in a small room in our local museum..and always seems to be there when we visit. He lets us play with his stuff collected over 40 years, talks to us about it and we leave thinking about it for days afterward.

The last few times we visited, we

Played "Pong" on an old tele-tennis machine hooked up to a portable black and white TV
Ran our fingers along a string dangling from a christmas card and heard it play a tune due to the friction of our fingers over the special bumps in the string
Used a magnet to distort the picture on an old black and white TV set
Wore special red and blue specs and goggled at Michael Jackson and Dr Who in 3D
Placed our $50 notes under ultraviolet light to reveal the anticounterfeiting marks on it
Used a typewriter - a highight for Mr4 who now wants to get one.
Debated whether the baffles on a gramaphone really made the sound quality better
Looked through periscopes and kaleidoscopes and stroboscopes.

**********

Enthuser 4 - REG BOLTON
I've previously blogged about Reg Bolton. He packed an entire circus into his suitcase and inspired and taught thousands of children that they had the power to amaze. He had a few "circus swear words" that he banned from his Big Top

"No, Can't, Impossible, Embarrasing, Difficult"

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Face the situation.

Just missed a classic moment in kiddie rock.. Greg the Yellow Wiggle quits

2006-11-30T11:04:00.000+08:00

Mr4 has an orientation afternoon at his new school this afternoon, and Mr9-next-week has one tomorrow. Otherwise, I would have had a lot of explaining to do.

The fifth wiggle? Mr-then-7 even had the yellow shirt.

For the last couple of years, we joined the pilgrimage of parents and kids worshipping at the alter of The Wiggles for their annual concert in Perth. If we'd been there this morning, we would have been part of kiddie rock history. Greg Page, the Yellow Wiggle, announced he's quitting the group due to health problems.He has a condition called Orthostatic intolerence, which Dr Kathryn understands is "falling over when you stand up".

The official announcement states that understudy, Sam Moran, will take his place. I'm imagining an update of The Red Shoes called The Yellow Skivvy.

After hearing that Steve Irwin had died the day before we visited the Australia Zoo, and then the Big Red car breaking down in the middle of the Wiggle's house at Dreamworld, I'm kind of glad we weren't there, or we would have felt strangely responsible.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Guilt.
(Honestly, these are randomly selected from over 100 cards)

Meme-y begging

2006-11-29T08:11:00.000+08:00

Please, please, please join in on this one....please, please...even if you have to create a blog to do so............does that sound enough like begging?

Please see below.

Via Ruminations:

Scott Kaufmann's trying to measure the speed of memes.

If you'd like to help out, follow these steps, and I quote:

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)
2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I'm one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.) [I have no sob stories: do it if you want to?]
3. Ping Technorati.

He'll be reporting on what he finds at the forthcoming MLA convention.

Via Bitch Ph.D.

Speaking in tongues: Libworm and VLINT

2006-11-27T23:55:00.000+08:00

Two new library resources:

1. Libworm: describes itself as:

"the librarian RSS engine
over 1000 RSS feeds go in
exactly what you need comes out!"

I still subscribe to feeds for individual blogs, rather than feeds for searches. I've noticed that some more techno-savvy bloggers are tending toward the latter. This may just be the tool that makes me switch - but I doubt it, I'm too attached to connecting with people's voices and their individual lives

2. VLINT (Virtual.librariesinteract.info: blog central for Australian Libraries in Other Worlds)

Since Lorelei Junot very nicely offered me a building in Cybrary City for Australian Libraries to share, we've been pottering about the building. VLINT started as a place to record the nuts and bolts, daily operations of the project. This gives whoever takes on the project (soon I hope) a history to work with.

snail suggested that we could broaden it to include Australian Libraries in all "Other Worlds". Great idea. I really hope someone interested in virtual library branches or gaming in libraries starts posting.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Let go of the past

Keep "Library2.0" in Wikipedia

2006-11-27T12:45:00.000+08:00

There is a proposal currently for discussion on Wikipedia that the entry for "Library 2.0" be deleted from Wikipedia.

Initial proposal says that it is...

"A neologism coined by a blogger and used by bloggers, not notable Lurker "

The people I'd expect have jumped in and defended it, using the arguments I'd expect. They cite legitimate academic articles to show how the term has escaped the bilbioblogosphere. It is now being used by librarians who have never read a blog in their lives, to describe a change in our profession.

In itself, it's an interesting debate about the "Library 2.0" concept ...is it just the "2.0" label whacked on the end of another concept, to form a buzzword...or is it a shorthand to describe a new way of serving our clients?

I'm also enjoying learning about how Wikipedia works as a living, breathing "debate" and reflecting about what this means for "set truths" found in an encyclopedia like Wikipedia. I don't remember any entry in my print version of Encyclopedia Britannica changing from one reading to the next. Does this lead to more or less certainty about the veracity of the facts?

I was just as fascinated watching the "discussion" page for Steve Irwin's entry immediately after his death.

found via Panlibus...

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Wake Up

Oil your bras...

2006-11-24T22:02:00.000+08:00

Having pushed our library staff outside their comfort level with the MULTA project, I was at it again today - this time videoing some of them for the 5 weeks screencast. We all contributed to the project, so I wanted their voices heard too.

When it was my turn, LB who knows how to do this type of thing, attached the radio mike to my shirt and I smiled and spoke into the camera. I felt like a prize 'nana.

Half way through.."STOP..the mike's picking up a squeaking noise". Mike clipped higher up. Still squeaking. Shoes removed. Still squeaking. Chair changed. Still squeaking.

"It's happening when you move forward".....

Finally worked out it was the underwire from my bra. Or underplastic in this case.

MY LIBRARY 2.0 TIP FOR THE DAY:
Before you try videoblogging, check your bra for squeaks.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD:Mystery

Party in Second Life for Australian Libraries

2006-11-23T18:12:00.000+08:00

Here's our official notice about the Christmas party LINT is holding for Australian Libraries in Second Life.

By the way, congratulations to fellow-linter, Michelle McClean who has been award a Ramsay and Reid scholarship to spend 3 weeks travelling the US looking at Library 2.0 technologies in public libraries. Imagine getting to visit with John Blyberg and then checking out the Imaginon in Charlotte.

.....................................................................................................

Virtual end of year party for Australian Libraries in Second Life.

The Australian libraries blog, librariesinteract.info, is hosting an end-of year party in Second Life on 13th December, 6pm to 8pm Western Australian time. [This is 1am San Francisco time; San Francisco time also being Second Life time.]

Second Life is a virtual world, with a population of over 1 million, in which large companies, schools and universities (IBM, Dell, Harvard) have set up shop. Reuters newsagency has its own correspondent there. According to a September 2006 Popular Science article, Second Life, through currency trading, shopping and land sales, has a GDP of $64 Million. Recently, Australian Libraries were given a free building for a year on Cybrary City, courtesy of Talis and the Alliance Library System in return for 2 hours per week work on library services for SL residents.

The party will include a tour of Info Island and Info Island II by Lori Bell from Alliance Library Systems. We will follow the yellow brick road from the Oz library to the Kansas State Library Virtual Branch next door. Then, back to our building to hang out... dance on the dance floor, snare some cyber snacks, and go easy on the virtual alcoholic beverages.

You can join in virtually from your own PC, or come and look over our shoulders in real life. If you join in virtually, it would be a good idea to check out Second Life before the event:

1. Go to the Second Life website.
2. Check the systems requirements.
3. Go to the join up page and choose one of the family names offered..and make up your first name.
4. You will be asked for your credit card details, but do not have to give them.
5. Download the Second Life client to your PC.
6. Choose how you'd like your avatar (representation in SL) to look.
7. Enter...explore.
8. Teleport to just outside our building at: 207, 68, 23. (Often passersby can help you out to do this) Alternatively, we can teleport you to our building, if you send a message.

For further details, please contact Con Wiebrands (flexnib at gmail dot com) or Kathryn Greenhill (sirexkat at gmail dot com). If you are already exploring Second Life and would like to meet up, our SL names are Paradoxa Kurrajong (Con) and Emerald Dumont (Kathryn) - feel free to IM us!

Hope to see you on Info Island!

Kathryn and Con

---------------------------------------------

I'm going to Aurora.

2006-11-18T21:06:00.000+08:00

February 2007. Threadbo Alpine Village. 5 days. 31 other potential leaders. 2 Facilitators. Mentors from the top of the field. No idea what it will involve.Thrilled.

From the background on the Aurora Leadership Institute home page:

The Institute's mission is to assist future leaders in the library and associated cultural and information industry to maximise their leadership skills and potential. We want to position leaders to be proactive and effective voices in a dynamic and sophisticated information environment.
This is done through a combination of experiential learning, group and individual exercises, and by working with a strong team of senior and experienced Australian and New Zealand mentors. The Institute programme includes exploration of leadership concepts including vision, risk taking, creativity, communication, and styles of leadership. It is a demanding, challenging and exciting experience.

MPOW and the two librarians who recommended me have been really supportive in the whole process. If you're reading this - thanks.

I had a single motivation to apply. Peta's post on LINT which was, a rather straightforward call for applicants. When someone asked a question about what it involved, 10 people immediately jumped in and basically said "go for it...the best preparation is not to expect anything...it's gruelling but you'll use what you learn for the rest of your career".

To apply, I needed to frame what I do, and what I want to do, as leadership. I'd seen leaders as charismatic and determined sorts who make other people's decisions for them and then somehow convince them that this is what they really wanted to do. Always surrounded by flunkies and constantly watching their backs because they'll be challenged by someone else who wants to be the leader. That's just not for me.

But..if leadership can be keeping a central focus on what the library user wants and sharing and enthusing and encouraging and networking and learning and facilitating, then I'll take that on.

The only down side is that it's two weeks after both kids start at a new school. One is going to kindy for the first time, the other starting mainstream school after being in a special educational program. When I talked the application over with my mother-in-law she told me that my boys would see a mum who was following her dreams and fulfilled by what she was doing. Wow! I'd only been stressing out and hadn't seen it quite so positively.

What I'll actually be doing is so mysterious that the naughty little girl in me is imagining Masonic kinds of rituals involving binding books in buckram while reciting Dewey. And finding out that LCSH actually has a sacred narrative meaning authored by Da Vinci. And maybe that Canberra really was designed using spiritual mathematics , and the National Library is a key point in it all.

This blog will be a great place for me to reflect and track my path in all of this.

Need debugging

2006-11-17T06:40:00.000+08:00

...me that is.

I went away to camp for the weekend and came back to find that Mr4 had been throwing up. Mr8 and the Co-Pilot had become very messy by Monday/Tuesday.

Wednesday night during my reference desk shift, I began feeling a bit woozy, but wasn't sure it was the bug. I tried to talk myself out of it, but gave up at 8pm and went home an hour early. Good thing too. What I did next was not fitting for a library.

Staying home from work this morning, but hope to make it in this afternoon to lead a play session with the new internal blog. The launch has been delayed until library renovations are finished at the end of January.

The Co-Pilot is off on his own camp this weekend, so I need to get perky to look after the kids. I definitely need to be better by Thursday when I help with the Year 3 end-of-year-sleepover-at-school camp.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Talk to someone

Oooops

2006-11-14T00:19:00.000+08:00

Wow!!

Be careful what you wish for!

Librarian 2.0 Manifesto and videocasting

2006-11-13T11:34:00.000+08:00

Read the book? Now see the movie.

Kingrss has creatively turned Laura Cohen's excellent "A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto" into a videocast at YouTube.

It's great to see the free and meditative form used, and the shots from Burning Man. Along with David King's "Are you blogging this?" clip, and the St Joseph County Public Library's "Ray of Light" clip, it' s giving me an idea of what's "allowed" in library videocasts (that would be.... personalised, creative, artistic, captivating, free form and alternative visions).

I've written the main points of my screencast for 5 weeks to a Social Library onto Post It notes and shuffled them around in my exercise book. Tomorrow night at work, I start turning them into slides using Captivate, to create a draft storyboard and something I can build into a fully fledged screencast.

The wonderful L. from our Teaching and Learning Centre is very experienced with shooting video and interviewing, so she has offered to slot in some "vox pop" micro-interviews with staff who participated. I just need to tell her what I want asked. We'll experiment in changing the video to the right format, compressing it, then dropping it seamlessly into Captivate.

Not sure where I should draw the line for my screencast between a "professional" feel and a "fun" feel. If I'm alert, I guess I could aim for both...but I don't want to confuse everyone with anarchy.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Service

Everything's up to date in Cybrary City!

2006-11-09T09:42:00.000+08:00

Wooo and hoo! Talis and Alliance Library System have just announced the construction of a new island in Second Life - Cybrary City. Read more about Cybrary City here.

It will have resources for librarians, plus provide space for real life libraries to have a SL prescence. No mention of the word "free", but here's hoping.

Rochelle and CW have recently written about their first experiences in Second Life. Mine was similar when there wasn't an event on, but I had a great time at the Grand Opening of Info Island - watching Lorelei Junot behead herself with a guillotine at the spooky costume party and sitting in the cinema watching Rocky Horror Picture Show with other Library Friends. Oh yes, I also enjoyed the learning in the auditorium.

Image: Home not so sweet. Not sure about the pink hippo either.

The Linden gods of Second Life have played dice with my avatar, poor Emerald Dumont (green hill - geddit?) by making her home inside a small model of a volcano in Mahulu. Everytime I teleport home, I end up in the volcano, thrashing about in fire and have to ask passerbys to teleport me out. At least I'm not like John Blyberg, who in SL had a grand piano stuck on his head for a while.

I'm beginning to think of SL not as a game or a virtual world, but as a user interface, similar to a web browser. A successful game would be interesting all the time. A successful virtual world would feel "real" all of the time.

A user interface can be friendly or unfriendly, but if it works well, then your focus should be on what you used it for, rather than the interface itself. If you browse the web with Firefox and what you find is boring, offensive, or unsatisfying, you don't walk away disenchanted with Firefox.

In academic libraries, we will soon have huge numbers of undergraduates who are used to this type of interface from gaming. They love it and understand it. To deliver the services where they are, we should understand it - and maybe learn to love it - pink hippos and all.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Move away

( I never, ever cheat with these cards, just draw 'em as they come, but they keep being pertinent to my posts!)

Brewing another blog beast.

2006-11-08T23:22:00.000+08:00

I'm setting up an internal communications blog for our academic library using WordPress. Why?

We have too many email lists for internal communications
All of us are saving emails in our own subdirectories on the same server
To create a searchable archive
To introduce staff to RSS feeds
Experimenting so that we know how to create a ridgy-didge one to talk with our users

Image: Hubble bubble. There is no cookbook.

We hope to have it up by Friday. FRIDAY!!!

CW and I huddled around a PC one weekend at her house to set up LINT, so I've done a WordPress install before, but I'm finding out about .php, .css, ftp, plugins and the Gimp as I use them. I know I'm just learning - but I still keep beating myself up about not providing the perfect introduction to blogging bliss for the library staff.

Because I'm not Grand Zen Master Coder, I know it won't look exactly how I want it or do exactly what I want. I still want it to be something that people will "get", and hopefully enjoy. When you're asking people to change work methods, fun and enjoyment is not usually the result, so maybe I'm being a bit naive there.

We're replacing several email lists with the one blog, so I've set up categories with RSS feeds to match each list. The idea is that staff will subscribe to the categories that match the lists they already get, plus have access to all the other information whizzing about - all in a searchable archive.

I'm using these plugins:

Category LiveBookmarks Plus Allows browsers to autodiscover category feeds, plus inserts an RSS icon next to the category name in the sidebar.
Ultimate Tag Warrior so that we can tag posts and create tag clouds.
Dagon Design Import Users . If you give it a file with usernames and their emails, it automatically adds them as users, creates a password and emails it to them.
WordPress Suicide. So I can blow away the data on the test version and upload templates etc. from the copy I've been working on here.
I've also added a patch, Ticket #1790: category-title-in-category-feeds.patch that inserts the category name after the blog name in the RSS title. (Pretty useless if all the feeds have the same title!)

In another post, I'll describe some of the decisions we needed to make in setting up the blog, just in case you're thinking of doing the same.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Action

Librarian bundles for philosophy scholars.

2006-11-05T23:30:00.000+08:00

My last post discusses how some clever librarians are using web tools to bundle useful resources to clients. Here's an example of how a philosophy subject librarian could use them.

1. SEARCH BOX FOR MURDOCH UNIVERSITY PHILOSOPHY OPEN ACCESS RESOURCES.

The search box below uses google to make a single search of these resources. (Try it - it's a real one and works)

Murdoch University Library subject guide to Philosophy
Murdoch University Library guide to Philosophy Internet sites
Murdoch University Library guide to electronic resources
Murdoch University Philosophy Programme home page
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Australasian Philosophy Home Page
Yahoo Directory - Philosophy
philosophy @
BUBL Philosophy links

2. BUTTON TO ADD ABOVE SEARCH BOX TO IE7 BROWSER TOOLBAR'S LIST OF SEARCH ENGINES

If you click this buttonreferral link you'll see a page with a clickable button. Click it to add the search box above as a "search provider" in your Internet Explorer 7 toolbar.

HOW TO: follow the steps at Innovate

3. STARTER BUNDLE OF USEFUL RSS FEEDS FOR PHILOSOPHERS
Some useful blogs for philosophy scholars are:
Epistememlinks list of blogs
Conscious Entities
Pain for philosophers
Philosophy of friendship

I've been playing with OPMLManager.com, but didn't quite get it together to create an OPML file for importing into an RSS aggregator, but I'm sure you get the idea.

HOW TO: Follow the pointers from What I learned today.

Thanks to CM for sparking my interest in this one.

New librarian skill - bundling!

2006-11-05T22:26:00.000+08:00

New toys are fun. Even better when they herald a change in how we do things.

Clever Corey blogged on lint about the LISZEN site's use of Google Co-op searches, then used it himself to put a search box on lint's Australian Library blogs page. It does a full text search of the blogs listed there.
Clever Peta made a button that adds her library's catalogue as a search provider on an IE7 toolbar.
Clever Nicole made an OPML file of RSS feeds relevant to the Internet Librarian conference.

Their play paves the way for regular librarians to combine our collection development skills and powerful web tools to "bundle" electronic information, resources and searches for our clients

Prerequisites to use some of the powerful "bundling" tools are:

Librariany skills to select something useful to bundle
Ability to follow step by step instructions
Ability to cut and paste text
A bit of knowledge about where to embed code in a web page...or skills to use the "View Source" option and steal ideas from other web pages.

I work as a Philosophy subject librarian. In my next post, I've used the "how to's" from the posts above to show some of the relevant "bundling" services I could create for philosophy scholars at my university.

Going back to my village

2006-11-04T07:58:00.000+08:00

I'm off down South for my Aunty Rose's 90th birthday party.

I grew up in a small country town, and once a year or so, I go back and visit my aunts and godmother, and the graves of my mum, dad and sister.

I read a lot of Indian fiction, and it often has a protaganist who leaves their home village for the big city. For the first 18 years of my life, I knew everyone, their place in life, and they knew me. Never saw the parallels before.

OPML and the Internet Librarian conference

2006-11-02T20:25:00.000+08:00

OPML is widely used to group a whole lot of RSS feeds into one bundle, ready for importing into an RSS aggregator.

I just imported my first OPML file into RSS Reader. I tried at Bloglines , but it said it would take 2 hours to import, and I was just too impatient. Bloglines has been a bit flakey recently, anyhow, with outages and delayed updates.

You could use OPML to provide "starter feeds" for people setting up RSS. You could provide information from a subject search, especially if the client wanted to know relevant resources rather than information. The grazr box on Peta's sidebar at Innovate is another use of OPML. To create OPML files, you can use a site like OPML Workstation.

What was in my bundle? Feeds associated with the Internet Librarian 2006 conference held 23 -26 October in Monterey, California. Over 1000 delegates attended and it had sessions like videocasting with David Lee King, RSS feeds and javascript with Meredith Farkas and mashups with John Blyberg. Here's the full program.

The OPML file was created by Nicole Engard at What I Learned Today .The goodies she packed in were feeds for :

del.icio.us tags IL06 and IL2006
technorati tags IL06 and IL2006
flickr photos tagged IL06 or IL2006
conference wiki at pbwiki
conference organiser's blog

This week has been quiet in my "library techie" folder at bloglines. Last week it was full of detailed notes from the conference sessions. If I want to follow up any, I can look at posts from 23-26 October in blogs on this list of people blogging the conf. It was compiled by Jennifer at Life as I know it .

bibl.se
Connie Crosby
David Lee King
Impromptu Librarian
Information Today Blog
Information Wants To Be Free- Meredith Farkas
LibrarianInBlack- Sarah Houghton-Jan
Library Voice- Chad Boeninger
Library Web Chic - Karen A. Coombs
mamamusings- Elizabeth Lawley
nichole’s auxiliary storage
North Texas Regional Library System
ricklibrarian - Rick Roche
The Search Lounge- Chris Fillius
The Shifted Librarian - Jenny Levine
A Wandering Eyre - Jane/Michelle Boule
What I Learned Today . . . - Nicole Engard

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: New beginning

Getting past the blog monsters

2006-11-01T07:22:00.000+08:00

If I want to get past other people's blog-o-meters, maybe I should try some short snappy posts, and change the blog name to something like:

(images follow, so if they haven't downloaded to your aggregator, come visit)

Why I wouldn't subscribe to my own blog

2006-10-31T23:23:00.000+08:00

I read heaps of blogs, but seem to always lust after more.

To feed the monster, every so often I:
1) Check in bloglines who has publically subscribed to this blog
2) Check in bloglines who has publically subscribed to other blogs I like
3) Look at the blogs that those people have subscribed to.
4) If I don't already have a blog in my collection, I run it through my blog-o-meter and subscribe to it if it passes.

More! More! (image)

What twiddles the "yes" dial on my blog-o-meter?

1) Updated within the last 2 - 3 weeks
2) Frequent regular posts
3) Not covering the same ground as something I already subscribe to
4) Description is a bit more unique than "Jane Jones gives her idiosyncratic view of librarianship"
5) Short posts about tools and sites that are useful
6) Posts usually less than 4 paragraphs long

My blog usually does not pass 6). Probably wouldn't have passed 4) either.

It's a good thing that other blogs slip though. How?
1) Recommendations or pointers from other blogs.
2) Looking at the blogs of people who comment here and on other blogs
3) A "something about you" experience where I just know I'll be friends with the type of blog I don't usually mix with.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: This moment.

What you didn't know about my agnosia post...

2006-10-29T20:17:00.000+08:00

Over at lint, I just posted a piece which used the rather grand term "software agnosia". I cut out a bit of the definition of agnosia, because it didn't really move things forward. I kind of liked it, so here it is:

If you're interested in "agnosia as bittersweet comedy", check out Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Dr P had visual agnosia due to brain damage. He could see objects but not recognise them. When he wanted to wear his hat, he reached for the thing he thought was most "hat-like". In this case, it was his wife's head.

Or, you could try the the Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form:

He sees things — just what, he can't place.
That's an object agnosia case.
But with prosopagnosia,
This person who knows ya
Won't recognize you by your face.
contributed by Virge

del.icio.us tags in RSS feed

2006-10-29T19:03:00.000+08:00

If you have subscribed to the feedburner feed for this blog, then you will have noticed that items I've tagged on del.icio.us have been in the feed.

I'm just fiddling with it for a work thing, so soon they will disappear as stealthily as they arrived.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Be supportive.

Introducing...Kathryn Greenhill

2006-10-27T20:38:00.000+08:00

This post is brought to you by the Department of Way-Too-Much-Information

The other day, Iris asked me where I got the name "sirexkat" from, and I told her:

Sirexkat came about when I had already registered on a site as Sirex, then forgot my password, so had to create a new ID - so used the first 3 letters of my name.

I used to post to a ParentsPlace forum for mums who were pregnant at the same time, way back in 1997. I took my handle from my cat (who is in my profile photo and turned 11 last week). She's an almost hairless Cornish Rex . When they breed them with Siamese markings, they are called a Sirex. (sigh-rex).
I called my first blog Sirexcite (as in Sigh-rex site and Sigh-rex cite), but saw that when it was written it looked like "Sir- excite" This gives quite a different impression!

At the moment I'm contemplating ditching it all and just writing everything as "Kathryn Greenhill". I write as Sirexkat on my blog and lint , but then as "Librarian Kathryn" when I moderate on lint. I'm commenting throughout the
blogosphere with sirexkat and Kathryn Greenhill. Getting a bit too confusing for me. (And then there's Emerald Dumont in Second Life......)

Oh..way too much about names...maybe I'll recycle it as a blog post :)

Consider it done.
The tipping point for me was when Jennifer quoted from a post I'd written on lint about "early adopters" as "Librarian Kathryn", and I thought it looked unduly cryptic.
TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Be open.

What do off-duty librarians do?

2006-10-25T19:14:00.000+08:00

Today my good friend S and I had our annual "go to the posh revolving restaurant in the city for High Tea" afternoon. S is a librarian too. Browsing though the shops afterward, we ended up at the new-ish Borders bookshop in the Hay Street Mall, as I'd not been there kid-free.

En route, we popped into the Birkenstock shop (B store) and tried on some Masai Barefoot Technology Sandals. These cost about $400 a pair, but we both have friends who had epiphanies over these shoes - they've cured their back pain; they're going to wear them to balls, the beach and work; never will they wear anything else on their feet. The sole is shaped like a rocking horse's rocker, forcing you to adopt correct posture and use your core stabilising muscles. Of course, you need to be instructed in how to walk in them- so S and I imitated the "strutting dude" kind of walk, following the salesperson in a circle around the shop, looking like a kindergarten music and movement session.

Walking back to the train station in our infinitely inferior shoes, we realised what we'd been doing....

"Looking at books and checking out sensible shoes"

Shhhh.... don't tell anyone or we will have set the image of the profession back by 20 years.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Grace

Can you podcast all night and still be mummy in the morning?

2006-10-24T07:11:00.000+08:00

NIGHT SHIFT
I work on our reference desk from 5pm to 9pm on Tuesdays. Students don't respond well to zombies on the desk, so I try to be in bed at a reasonable hour the night before.

Can I heeeeelp you?

Last night, however, I was up late making a podcast using Captivate. The abstracts for the Five weeks to a social library course are up and the others all looked so good that I thought I should get cracking on my podcast/screencast. Participant applications close on 1 December.

I wondered whether I could just rant into the microphone, using my abstract for guidance, to get that unforced, conversational feel. Well- twenty minutes later- I discovered that I could, but I would repeat myself several times over, and miss some essential points.

Although I got some good sound bites, I'd need to be more formal and scripted. It was great fun to use the editing facility to cut out my coughs and irritating habit of repeating "Okay" at every small change of topic. Also, I want to work with a team from the library to see whether we can use this presentation to build our skills together.

Happy with my night's work, I went to bed, read Steve Holzner's "Secrets of RSS" for a few minutes and slept until 7am.

Except I didn't. Sleep.

MORNING SHIFT
4:30 am. Mr4 is "hearing beeps". Too tired to put him back to bed, Mr4, Snugglefish and Firebear join us in bed.

5:30am Our sirex cat, Nougat, scrabbles and caterwauls in the roof above our bed until the Co-Pilot gets up and lets her out the loft door.

6:30am Mr8 discovers his little brother's door open and bed empty and, very concerned, comes into our room to make sure we know.

ZOMBIEVILLE here I come.

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Overindulgence (I did not make this up!)

Digital divide - not about gizmoes.

2006-10-21T09:10:00.000+08:00

When I read Jessamyn West's latest post about the Digital Divide, I thought - "that's it, that's my family". The bit that struck a chord was:

... the Digital Divide isn't just about not having access to the Internet, it's about not living in an Internet-aware culture. So in the same way that poverty is really about paucity of options - so not only do you not have money or resources but no one you know has money or resources - the Digital Divide is really about not having access, having erratic access, or not knowing what to do with that access once you have it. Every time I see a web page with ads designed to look like page elements, or pop-ups designed to look like Windows error messages, I cringe because I know that the people I work with are likely to have trouble with them. While I go on the road and talk about library 2.0, I'm still explaining to many of my students that no, they haven't won a free laptop no matter what the blinky ad on the page says. I feel sometimes like teaching computer skills is all about explaining to people why they should dip their toes into a culture that seems hellbent on deceiving them, misleading them and ripping them off.

Mr8's reading book this week is Hunting with my camera , which is a diarised account of some guy snapping photos of wildlife in Kruger National Park. The date is written at the top of each entry and he kept skipping it until I said in frustration "You know how a blog is organised by dates - it's just like a blog". Then, and only then he "got it" and began reading the dates out.

So...I have a kid who understands blogs better than diaries. We are deliberately sending him to a school with high laptop usage, as he'd need to use one to cope with his handwriting difficulties, and that way he'll stick out less. While I help Mr8 with his homework, Mr4 "does websites" on a nearby computer.

Both kids can choose to have one hour of computing or of video/DVD per day - and usually choose video/DVD. We don't have a gaming system like a playstation, but they do game on the PC.They probably use computers recreationally far less than their peers. BUT they constantly see me answer email, sync our PDAs with the online family calendar, read my RSS feeds and write blog posts. Their dad is often working from home, programming upstairs. We have a family blog and write about stuff like great lego models or particularly delicious muffins. At our dinner table we happily discuss topics like Telstra sacking a corporate blogger because of the contents of his blog.

I had wondered whether restricting our kids' computer usage was disadvantaging them. I can now see that they are actually immersed in techno-skeptic culture, so they can assess web culture and use it as a tool rather than a master.

Now...wearing my librarian's hat, I need to ask "Given that providing more gizmoes isn't necessarily the answer, what can I do to help my library users develop skills to evaluate and think critically about the web?".

I'm reassured, however that I'm not breeding super-freakish-techno-geeks. They still have their bewilderments about technology. Like Mr4, who yesterday stepped onto our digital scales to "see how many metres I cost".

TODAY'S HIPPIE CARD: Wait

Technological fads, fridges and hippie librarianship

2006-10-18T22:58:00.000+08:00

Every morning, each member of my family picks a card from the "hippie box". The rainbow cards were bought in Byron Bay and have an "Om" symbol on one side. On the other is a couple of words to think about during the day. For example, today's card for me was"Fulfillment"

They do nothing at all to predict the future, but do provide a focus and promote mindfulness during the day. If I am looking for "fulfilment" during my day, I will view the same events differently to a day where my card is "believe".

Fortune teller?

Here in libraryland, we're all terrified of hitching our wagons to the wrong star. We want to predict the future. What if blogs aren't useful tools that make lives easier and give us a connection to our users? What if they are as flash-in-the-pan as hula hoops or yoyos? What if wikis and podcasts just provide a chance for us bells-and-whistles-loving librarians to play, but annoy our users?

When I bought a fridge last year, I read consumer reports in Choice, talked to family and friends and checked out several appliance shops. No impulse buying for me! But, with some of these new technologies, it feels like the next Next Big Thing comes steamrolling towards us at such a pace, we have no time to evaluate and discuss. We need to make snap decisions whether this is a turkey or will give us wings of eagles. If we don't install platform x, then we won't be able to use application y, and - even worse - play, play, play with groovy application z.

So...what to do?

Focus group ?

I like the approach of the librarians at Carleton College, described in the Pegasus Librarian's blog. They sifted through the oodles of trends/ developments/technologies and changes and came up with a "watchlist" of 38 trends. They range from "RFID" to "collection and management of websites". Staff members now watch a couple of trends each and post to a blog.

Did they get it right? Are these the definitive trends they should be watching? Well... does it actually matter whether they got it right or wrong? They have thought carefully about the future. Even if they missed a couple of trends or gave prominence to something that turns out to be inconsequential, they have still examined a much larger range of issues than those that made the list. If some issues become more important later, then probably the Carleton librarians will spot this before librarians who haven't been through this process.

They have put a lot more thought into their list than I do each day when I pick my "hippie card" , but the effect is similar. They have a "filter" to look at each day with. I would think they would feel more confident and in control than staff where they are stymied by the need to totally road test everything before implementing it.

By the way, there is a way to fasttrack the evaluation of trends. The biblioblogosphere is invaluable for sharing what works and what doesn't...at a pace that approaches that of the newtech steamroller. Keeping up to date with library blogs involves viewing the same set of facts - like "Where the hell do we go now?" - through an absolute multiplicity of filters.

Every day I open my aggregator, never knowing what card will turn up to consider that day. Hooray for library blogs and the generous folk who share what is happening in their corner of libraryland!

Systems Librarianship - some lowbrow thoughts

2006-10-14T08:54:00.000+08:00

...or how sometimes Systems Librarianship is like the Simpsons or Australian Idol.

First, an instant replay of a conversation in my household yesterday....

.............................
ME: "I thought I'd need to know more to be a Systems Librarian".
CO-PILOT: "No, you just need everyone else to know less".
.............................

I've been pondering about the skills I need to do my job.

Why? Well, I've come back from my holiday and MPOW is now actually paying me to spend a couple of days every week looking at blogging, podcasting, RSS feeds and other social software. (Yay, hooray, yippee!). Not exactly systems librarianship, but I'm not sure what you would call it.

Also Corey Wallis recently raised the issue on librariesinteract.info of "What exactly makes a Systems Librarian", referring to the excellent Dorothy Salo post on TechEssence about "Hiring a Systems Librarian".

When I left my Systems Librarians' job in 1997 to go off and have babies, I thought, "By the time I'm ready to return to the workforce, I'll have to be a childrens' librarian, because all the young graduates going though library school will just know all this technical stuff". But, even though more librarians have IT qualifications, it's still hard to find a good Systems Librarian.

Tentatively, I'm concluding that maybe I don't need to be able to code JavaScript while installing a printer driver and cobbling together a really hot mashup. Maybe I can stop being worried that one day my employers will find out I can't do all this stuff. Perhaps they already know and don't mind.

We'd both be delighted if I was technowonderwoman, but maybe it's also OK to pick things up quickly, be able to see gaps in our services that can be filled by technology, know which people in the library know what, and to communicate enthusiastically to other library staff.

Remember the Simpsons episode where the town gets lots of money and, at the meeting to decide how to spend it, a stranger in a candy striped suit bursts in and, via a song and dance routine, convinces the townsfolk to install a monorail ?. By the end, the whole town is chanting "monorail, monorail, monorail" - except Marge, who is rolling her eyes and wondering how she'll get them to see sense.

I've had moments at work where I've felt like the guy in the candy striped suit, singing and dancing about something that I only half understand, trying to drum up enthusiasm from people who trust me. I've also had those Marge moments where I've heard other staff chanting "mono-rail mono-rail", and tried to work out how to put the brakes on without seeming killjoy.

(If you're really keen, the episode has its own wikipedia entry for Marge vs. the Monorail, the Monrail lyrics are here, but it's really much more fun to listen to this 1 minute sound bite of the Monorail song . )

Just last week, however, I found comfort in another trash TV icon, Australian Idol. Ostensibly a singing contest, a contestant with perfect rhythm, pitch and a magnificent voice was voted off. Her technical skills were undisputably better than the other contestants, but the judges concluded that she just wasn't connecting with the public and there was no warmth to her.

Maybe, just maybe, it can be the same with Systems Librarianship. Maybe having perfect technical skills is a big asset, but perhaps if someone with less skill is connecting with people better, they are more suited to the job. Made me feel better, anyhow.

"The End" is on Friday 13th October

2006-10-11T23:31:00.000+08:00

"The End" is nigh.

After selling over 50 million copies, Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events series finishes up this Friday with the publication of volume 13, "The End". Pity I'm a whole hemisphere away from the Fond du Lac Library in Wisconsin, where they are marking the release with a trivia quiz and a chance to win a copy.

If you are not a kid's librarian, it is still worth checking out the series, particularly the 12th volume "The Penultimate Peril". This is set in the Hotel Denouement, that has arranged its services according to the Dewey decimal system. The elevator is on the First Floor at 118 (Force and Energy). The ninth floor includes an Indian restaurant (954) and a space observatory (999). If you want to know the rest of the layout, try the entire entry devoted to it in Wikipedia. (But please don't let those people who accuse Wikipedia of being a shallow and skewed source know it exists..shhhh.)

Although more paranoid librarians whisper that it was a cynical "made to order" effort, with the publishers finding the marketing concept first, then hiring the author, I've enjoyed it immensely. I love the literary and pop culture references. (Sunny and Klaus Baudelaire, two of the protaganists take their name from the von Bulow murder of the '80's. Two of the Quagmire triplets are called "Isadora" and "Duncan" - a reference to dancer Isadora Duncan). The solutions to riddles and mystery in the plot expose youngsters to more literary technique, knowledge and research than the average 5o+ million seller.

The official Lemony Snicket website has a counter showing the hours, minutes and days before the release. I wonder how they feel about the reports on the Amazon.com web page that people have already received their copies? Or about the seemingly genuine review giving it 3 out of 5 stars?

It wouldn't happen to Harry!

GoogleTube and YouGoog ?

2006-10-10T13:17:00.000+08:00

Google has bought YouTube. Google to acquire YouTube in $1.65 billion deal
by Wolfgang Gruener and Mark Raby.

A couple of days ago, Eric Bangeman foreshadowed that: money = copyright litigation = collapse. Will this come to pass?

Not necessarily, according to Gruener and Raby:

"Google's acquisition of YouTube could also possibly help the latter with its recent legal headaches. Because of pressure from copyright holders like NBC and Universal Music Group, whose content was illegally being posted on YouTube, the San Bruno, Calif.-based site was forced to initiate a project that would systematically check for and prevent copyrighted videos.

This big decision comes at a time when content companies have embraced YouTube, most likely because of the Google acquisition murmurs. Just today, Sony BMG, CBS, and once-nemesis Universal Music Group, all announced partnerships with YouTube. Under the music company deals, users have permission to use Sony and Universal music in their own videos. The CBS partnership will give the network station its own "channel" on YouTube."

There are a few gems on YouTube, along with a lot of dross (eg. hundreds of "funny" videos where one 16 year old pretends to take a photo of a group, but is really videoing them [chortle!!] ), so I hope the merger manages to preserve its chaotic soul.

RSS readers and spazzes

2006-10-05T19:20:00.000+08:00

I'm a bit of a comments freak. Love to make 'em. Yesterday, I started writing two on other peoples' blogs, but they soon became a bit of a monologue, so I've combined them into one post here.

COMMENT ON TYPE OF RSS READER USED

This is in response to CW's request to know whether people are reading her blog via RSS and if so, which aggregator.

" I read in Bloglines, but if a post really interests me I click through to the live blog to check the "flavour" of the post...and to see whether there are comments.

Bloglines makes posts feel a bit like a translated text...the substance is there, but the nuance is missing. Even seeing a photo of the author as I read their post on the live site adds a very different feel. (Like "I wouldn't have thought someone who looks like YOU would have thought THAT).

I'm going to experiment in the next few weeks with using portable Thunderbird on a thumbdrive. My main reason for using Bloglines is that I can view it from home and work, but I'd really prefer to integrate my email, browser and RSS reader into the one place.

COMMENT ON DISABILITY AND VISIBILITY AND "SPAZZES".

This one is a rather belated comment on Dee's Temporal Island about attending a workshop about disability studies for the new millenium, and how it would be great if people did research on "how people with disabilities are often excluded from mainstream society, rather than embraced as a normal part of it"

It's a really tricky one, the visibility/normalising debate. On holidays at a medieval castle open day, I saw a sign on the wall near a wishing well saying "Make a wish. Support spastic children. Visitors have donated $22 500."

The medieval sign.

I felt like marching up to them with Mr8 and saying "This is my kid with cerebral palsy, not a spastic. It's a really medieval way you're describing him, can you please change the sign".

Then I thought "Hold on, they are raising money for these kids and people probably are going to give more to the poor little spazzes than to the regular kids who just happen to have brown eyes and cerebral palsy". The Cerebral Palsy League of Queensland was called the Queensland Spastic Welfare League until 1998, so maybe the castle just had not updated the sign.

It means degrading my kid's dignity and doing a bit of emotional blackmail to manipulate the public to give more money. It costs a serious lot of money to support a kid with reallly severe cerebral palsy , so would I be doing a disservice to those kids (and adults) by insisting that my less affected kid gets called the right thing?

Will YouTube survive?

2006-10-05T10:16:00.000+08:00

I'm growing to really love YouTube. I've already added links to library videos I loved here and here.

Pootling about the other night, I followed up a crazy marriage of pop culture classics that I first head about on Library Garden after they had a showing at Princeton Public Library. If you play the soundtrack of Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon while viewing the Wizard of Oz, there are eerie synchonizations. Entire websites are devoted to the phenomena, for example the Dark Side of Oz and the Dark Side of the Rainbow. I don't think it works for the Muppet's Wizard of Oz (2005) but it might be worth the experiment....

If you want to see for yourself, the "Welcome to Munchkin Land" synchronization is on YouTube. Watch out for "black, black, black" repeated over shots of the wicked witch, "down, down, down" over the image of the red slippers disappearing, and "which is which" being sung as we see the witch. Also check out the munchkin ballet in time to the music and the not-so "ordinary men". Search on "Dark side of Oz" or "Dark Side of the Raibow" to see other clips.

I'm not sure how much longer we'll be able to make posts like this one. According to Eric Bangeman in his article YouTube's Future (or lack thereof
"The questions on the lips of most people fall into three categories: how long the company will last, whether it will be sued out of existence, and whether someone is going to swoop in and buy it." .

The lack of "in your face" advertising is something I've always found attractive, but Bangeman speculates that while they have 60 employees and the "monthly bandwidth bill is estimated to be around $2 million" it's not fiancially viable to continue.

And, what happens if they do get money? Well, how about the creepy munchkins above? I'm not sure who holds the copyright in DSOTM and WOZ, but not all corporations have gone the way of Warner who has uploaded their entire back catalogue of music videos plus allows user-created content to use their music. Have profit, get sued.

So, if you want to see the girl who took a photo of herself for three years, or the bloke in Central Park who plays the amazing version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the ukulele, do it now.

Watch this one...today...

2006-10-04T06:44:00.000+08:00

I was half way through writing an early morning post about how thrilled I am that I'll be presenting in Five Weeks to a Social Library when Mr4 (a known bed wetter) wandered up to me in his 'jammies, gave me a big cuddle and said "The only part of me that isn't wet is my head". So please accept this is lieu....

If you're like me, in the last couple of days you've seen links in many library blogs to this YouTube clip prepared for the 2003 St Joseph County Public Library Staff Development Day. You've probably thought "It's a staff development video, how interesting can it be? ".

I exhort, encourage and strongly suggest that you watch it now. It's an uplifting portrait of the day in the life of their library. I found myself not only admiring their library, but thinking about how my library would look portrayed in the same way - "If we were showing people staffing the enquiry desk at night, this is how it would look, and I can imagine us showing Jane in cataloguing doing that".

Michael Stephens encourages us to steal this idea and see what we can come up with for our own libraries. Worth thinking about. I wonder whether he realises that he not only showed the day to day workings of the library, but also let slip how dedicated and engaged the staff are to have spent what was obviously a huge chunk of personal time crafting the piece.

Does it really matter what we call them?

2006-10-01T19:28:00.000+08:00

Waiting in the queue for the Big Red Car ride at Wiggles World, I noticed a sign addressing me as a guest, as in "Guests who choose to ride must follow all instructuctions given by operator, signage and/or announcements".

I spent an hour in the queue, so I had plenty of time to ponder about how we conceptualise and address our library users. I've worked in libraries where we've called them: users, "the public", patrons, "the professionals", borrowers and clients. Often it's determined by whatever the ILMS wants to call them. Does it matter? They are the entire reason we get paid, so it should do.

Here's my knee jerk reactions to some of the terms we use:

1) CLIENTS. We are providing a professional service and bound by professional ethics to serve them well. Implies a give them what they need approach. Reminds me of: architects.

2) CUSTOMERS. We need to serve them well because we are competing with others who provide the same service. Implies a more give them what they want approach. Reminds me of: supermarkets.

3) USERS. We provide products for use, and service is secondary. We are in charge of their experience - they use what we choose to provide. Reminds me of: software vendors.

4) PATRONS. They are in charge of what we do. We are there by their grace and they provide the means for us to serve them. Reminds me of: Medici family and Leonardo Da Vinci.

5) READERS. They are there only for one thing. They interact with the bookstock, not us. Reminds me of: bar code readers

6) BORROWERS. Also there for the books, not the service we provide. Reminds me of: neighbours who want a cup of sugar

7) THE PUBLIC. Includes everyone, but doesn't really posit any special relationship. Reminds me of: an opera diva's audience

8) THE PROFESSIONALS. I actually worked in a law firm where that's what we were supposed to call them. Seemed to imply that I wasn't also a professional. Reminds me of: real estate salespeople.

Library 2.0 is bringing more demands from THEM. They expect to be able to write to as well as read our web sites. They want to see what other works people borrowed at the same time as a specific book. They expect more personalised service, remotely and for longer hours. They want to bring in their own access devices and have them connect seamlessly to what we provide. Do the terms above fit them?

Maybe we could try: "collaborators" (WWII French Nazi supporters?), or "seekers" (buddhists or Quidditch players?), or "people" or "accessors" or "accessories" or.....

If we choose to call them guests, let's hope we're better hosts than the Wiggles. Having made it to the start of the queue and strapped ourselves into the Big Red Car, we had just reached the Wiggle's kitchen and were singing into our microphones "Fruit salad, yummy yummy", watching the cupboard doors grooving along as they opened and closed in time to the music, when we caught up to the car ahead. It had broken down. Wags the Dog ceased his descent down the slide into the lounge room mid-bark, the Wiggles disappeared from the giant video screens and we were asked to get out of the cars and walk back to the start of the ride.

Let's also hope that our "guests" have the initiative of the mum in the car in front, who reassured the children with "Wow! No-one else gets to actually WALK through the Wiggles' house, Aren't we lucky?".

Reader, I married him.

2006-09-21T21:18:00.000+08:00

The Co-Pilot and I were married today on the beach at Mission Beach in Far North Queensland.

We thought it would be romantic to run away to paradise and be married, so we did. We only told the kids about it on Monday. They were ringbearers and bubble blowers throughout the ceremony.

We made the usual vows and exchanged rings and then had a sand ceremony where we poured sand representing us individually into a container representing our marriage. If you are friends or family, we'll email you or send you a postcard with the address of our family blog so you can check out more photos.

It may take a while as I'm going to stop blogging on my wedding night right now.

How do you fit 730 library people in one room?

2006-09-20T05:47:00.000+08:00

The Click06 Conference has begun in Perth at the Convention Centrer and continues until Friday. This is the is the Biennial Conference of the Australian Library and Information Association.

If you are in Perth and see a stranger who looks a little bit more interested, clever and organised than the average citizen, and also looks a little dazed and lost - pop up to them and help them out because they are probably a librarian with information overload.

To keep up with what is happening at the conference, while I'm out of the state on holidays, I'm reading these blogs:

Steve Irwin, visiting his zoo, and Wikipedia.

2006-09-07T11:20:00.000+08:00

I'm using a borrowed computer. Every time I try to upload images for this post, it refuses. I've added some images as separate posts before this one, straight from Flickr. When I'm back on home turf I'll weld it all together.

We visited the Australian Zoo the day after Steve Irwin's death. If we hadn't been holidaying from interstate, I would have left it a couple of weeks. There were a few wreaths and many media outside, but only zoo-goers were admitted, so there were no cameras or roving and raving reporters inside. The general mood at the zoo was a bit subdued, but respectful and celebratory. Numbers were a little lower than usual.

At 11:30, during the main show in the "Crocoseum" arena, many of the staff were watching in the stalls and we all stood for a minute's silence to remember Steve. The commentator said that going on with the show was the hardest thing he'd ever done. There was a huge screen above the auditorium and when Steve Irwin's face came on talking about his love for the animals, Mr3 yelled out in joy "There's Steve Irwin!". I had to explain very quickly that the footage was taken earlier and Steve Irwin had actually died.

The guy operating the bouncy castle said that the day before, staff had initially worked out something was wrong from the behaviour of the senior staff. Staff were informed, and then they watched as zoo-goers received text messages with the news from friends outside.

The most remarkable thing about the zoo was the permeation of Steve's attitudes to animals and people. Staff were friendly and forthcoming. They wandered around carrying baby alligators, snakes, cockatoos and approaching us so we could touch the animals. The philosophy is that once we’ve touched them, we’ll care enough to save them. From the videos, it looks like Steve got a lot closer to the crocs than the other trainers did.

In the enclosures, trainers played (even frollicked!) with the animals - even the tigers where a bloke in khaki had a giant cat toy on a rope, running in front of the tigers, playing tug of war and throwing the toy into the swimming pool so the tiger leaped from the shore to retrieve it. There were two other trainers in the enclosure monitoring the cats. There seemed to be a lot of affection between animals and trainers, including a giant tortoise who was a big sook when it had its shell and head rubbed.

When we left at the end of the day, the front of the zoo had many, many more bunches of flowers. There was much artwork obviously done by schoolkids during the day. A row of khaki shirts was hanging at the front, with people writing condolences on them. Police had set up an electronic sign either side of the entries warning of “changed traffic conditions ahead”.

Steve Irwin did great things to help people understand animals, but he probably didn't expect to help me understand more about how Wikipedia works. I've been watching as the Wikipedia entry has grown, and watching the debates about the content. I found out about the different types of locks that can be on a page and that the style manual says that if an article is about an Australian, then Australian English should be used. Here is the Wikipedia article on Steve Irwin, and here is the the discussion page. Very interesting to see the discussion that took place just as the news was breaking on this archived discussion page.

Like Reg Bolton, Steve Irwin was an example of how extreme enthusiasm, and engagement with other people and what you do well, can ripple out and transform hundreds of lives. Their methodolgy may not have been perfect, but they both died doing what they loved and leaving people determined to carry on their legacies.

flowersforsteve

2006-09-07T10:51:00.000+08:00

flowersforsteve
Originally uploaded by sirexkat.

tigerplay

2006-09-07T10:50:00.001+08:00

tigerplay
Originally uploaded by sirexkat.

crocfeed

2006-09-07T10:50:00.000+08:00

crocfeed
Originally uploaded by sirexkat.

elefeed

2006-09-07T10:49:00.000+08:00

elefeed
Originally uploaded by sirexkat.

Oh Crikey!

2006-09-04T19:42:00.000+08:00

As I mentioned in my last post, I'm on holidays in Queensland. We're currently on the Sunshine Coast staying in a caravan park that we selected because it is just 20 minutes away from the Australia Zoo .

I have plenty of blog posts half written, but haven't been blogging because the only net access I have is a $2 per quarter hour kiosk. Today I'm breaking my resolve.

Mr8 was complaining in the car on the way home from visiting the Co-Pilot's aunt that he didn't get to swim today like I'd promised. After wandering in a hedge maze, walking through the rainforest and visiting a quaint mountainside village , we just didn't have time to fit it in.

"I know", said I, switching on the radio, "I'm really sorry. I did promise it, but we just didn't have time to fit it in. I do promise that we'll spend all day at the Australia Zoo tomorrow".

Cue radio news. Cue story about how Steve Irwin died this morning while filming underwater in Port Douglas. Cue strange out of body experience as the announcer described how Steve was pierced through the heart by a stingray.

Our camera is full of pictures of the kids with stingrays that we saw yesterday at Underwater World, so the kids well and truly know what they look like. They actually seem to be handling the news better than we are.

My quandry is whether we still go to the zoo tomorrow as planned. As far as I can see at the website, they will still be open. I imagine that it will be full of cameras and reporters, and the atmosphere will be very strained. We are only here until Wednesday when we leave so we can spend Mr3's fourth birthday at Wiggles World on Thursday. The TV here has been showing updates every hour or so as the night goes on.

When we planned the holiday, we sat the kids down and explained to Mr8 (who wanted to go to the Crocodile Hunter's Zoo) that the Croc Hunter probably wouldn't be there. We explained to Mr3 that the Wiggles definitely wouldn't be at Wiggles World. Turns out I was wrong...to celebrate the 1st anniversary of Wiggles World, the Wiggles WILL be there on the 15th. We are planning to go, but haven't told Mr3 yet.

After the events of today, I think we might keep that under our hats a bit longer.

Holidays matter

2006-08-28T05:16:00.000+08:00

If there's a nationwide, bienniel librarianship conference coming to your town, what do you do?

Well, if you are me, you book the Big Family Holiday for the same time.

Mr8 changes school next year after 3 years in a very intensive school program. Mr3 starts kindy 3 days a week next year. The Co-Pilot and I have just been working our socks off for the last few years.

We arrived in Queensland yesterday and aren't coming home for 5 weeks. Apart from an obligatory visit to Wiggles World and the Crocodile Hunter's Australia Zoo , we are resting, relaxing and recuperating. We'll leave the Gold Coast for Cairns/Dunk Island on the 17th. Visiting Uluru on the way home.

Apologies if the posting here is a bit erratic for a while. Newer, more invigorated posting will start in October.

Librarian Fit Club - Join Up

2006-08-25T21:28:00.000+08:00

Feel like flexing some bloggy muscles? Been resisting all things del.cio.us? How about joining some other librarians as they learn about Library 2.0 tools AND get fit at the same time?

Keith Engwall who is a librarian in Salisbury, North Carolina is inviting other librarians to join him in a project to use new web tools to work toward a common goal of shifting a few pounds.

So far he has set up a basecamp group, which requires an admin to add you, and a flickr group , which is open. He'd like some more people to weigh in with setting up a bog and a wiki.

A potential participant suggested using the 43 things website to track our goals. The joint goal is be a more fit librarian. It's been a while since I looked at the site, so I went back for another look tonight.

I'd seen it before I delved into Library 2.0, but not joined in. Funny, but I am so much less reserved about giving out a few personal details and jumping straight into a social web site. I remember thinking "hmm interesting", and looking at who was from my home town, but not really thinking that I might participate.

Tonight I was joined up in the first minute and after half an hour or so of playing, I have a list of 8 things that I have done, all flagged as "worth doing" by me. I have 6 things I want to do.

What have I done?

What do I want to do?

Should I choose it, I'll be reminded every week that these are my goals. I can see who else shares my goals and what their other goals are. I can "cheer" someone else to encourage them.

I actually received a cheer within seconds of posting a goal (something to do with my comment on the "go to a nude beach" goal that it was really worthwhile..except for one Easter holidays when I accidentally met my own brother there...hooo boy).

(I also want to go to 12 places:

Make a magic dragon !

2006-08-23T19:46:00.000+08:00

Wow, wow and double wow!

I've been behaving bizarrely for the last day. Every so often I'll stop what I'm doing, walk to my desk, close one eye and rock from side to side. No, I'm not stimming. I'm just marvelling my little dragon friend below, and how his head follows me as I move. Spooky but fascinating!

This paper dragon was made from a template available here. It is cut from a single piece of paper, and has only one part. It involves about 2 minutes of cutting and sticking.

The movement is all optical illusion, based on our brains expecting certain objects to look a certain way - like noses to point outward, not inward. It was created for the Gathering for Gardner event in 1998. Martin Gardner, born in 1914 wrote the "Mathematical Games" column in Scientific American from 1956 to 1981.

If you don't think you want to make your own, then watch the video here. After you watch the video, you probably will change your mind.

Folksomic and Synchronic

2006-08-21T19:09:00.000+08:00

Last night, I listened to a podcast from from Talis of members of the Library 2.0 Gang discussing tagging, folksomies and libraries. You can Download the MP3 here. I'd already written this post before a couple of coincidental things happened. More on that later.

I've been waiting to hear librarians talking about social tagging ever since I poked my duck like beak into Library 2.0. I particularly wanted to hear where our traditional cataloguing tools might fit. I wasn't disappointed. Paul Miller did make the point that it was 40 minutes into the total 45 before authorities were discussed.

Street performers - Australia (LCSH)

It was great to match people's voices with their blogs. All much as I imagined - except Paul Miller. I expected him to be brash and way too forward..something to do with the job title "Technology Evangelist", I guess. He was very English and politely witty in a way that made me think of old BBC radio series like My Word.

Synchroniciity number one - A couple of hours ago, Paul Miller actually commented on my "They DO mash" post. BTW, they received 18 entries in the Mashing Up the Library competition)

Some of the points raised that I found interesting (many of them by Karen Schneider, I think):

Tags and subject categories need not be mutually exclusive. There is merit in assigning both to a work (I'd presumed it was either /or).
Faceting and sub faceting is not really possible with tagging, but is an advantage of traditional classification.
Authority control is less important when you have large volumes of tags assigned to one work. So what if the same thing is tagged by 30 people as "felines", another 20 as "cats", and 5 more as "cat" - all provide access and there is built in "see also" referencing.
This may be a Long Tail issue. Very popular items will have lots of tags, but subject catgories may be the only way to find items in the Long Tail.
Some items are more findable with categories (French history for example), whereas some are better with tags, particulalry contemporary topics (like surferpunk).
Tagging probably works better when the tags others have assigned are offered, or somehow the system detects probable tags for the subject area. (a great project for someone, there).
People need to feel ownership of the enterprise before they will tag (explains why they do it like mad on Library Thing, but on Amazon, not so much)
Casey Bisson is working on a WordPress plugin to allow users to assign their own tags to items in a WordPress blog.

Synchronicity number two - This afternoon, the admin group for the lint blog (aka. the thali) has been discussing categories versus tagging for our blog. A tag cloud would look great and categories can get hard to maintain. You can't have RSS feeds for tags, like you can for categories.

Mummy's Honour Certificate

2006-08-20T07:40:00.000+08:00

About twice a year I receive a note from Mr8's teacher telling me to turn up at the next school assembly because Mr8 is going to receive an Honour Certificate. The whole family drops him off at school and we casually say "Oh, we're here now. Is there assembley this morning? Maybe we'll just stay for that".

Mr8's Honour Certificate

We sing the jazzy version of the national anthem complete with digeridoo and a drum machine beat. We distract Mr3 in an effort to keep him quiet (a pre packed lunchbox works wonders). We join in when the music teacher leads us through today's song, complete with hand actions and bum wiggles. We listen to a description of "This week's virtue".

Mr8 usually receives his for "determination" and "great attitude" and "improvement". We know that every kid will get a couple each year. But it is still special and makes us feel really proud. If you know Mr8, then you'll know that hearing he is still trying his hardest and that the teachers acknowledge this is a big achievement. The last honour certificate commended him on his "friendliness" - for him, that's BIG!.

So, as I was leaving work on Friday, I saw a white envelope in the tray next to my in-tray. In it was a Staff Recognition Award. It's for innovation in using and exploring new technologies throught the MULTA project and the development of screen capture online tutorials. They do have a staff morning tea where they present these each quarter, but it's not on the day I work. I don't think it involves the whole family or digeridoos or bum wiggling.

I took it home and showed the family over dinner. "What's that?" asked Mr8. "Oh, that's mummy's Honour Certificate" said the Co-Pilot. I think they were proud.

They DO mash, they DO.

2006-08-18T21:38:00.000+08:00

I found the entries in the Mashing Up the Library Competition. There are 11 so far. They are located on a forum at the Talis site. Interesting that many of the people who can do amazing stuff like make a mashup don't have blogs, so haven't tagged an entry on technorati.

The one that caught my eye was Lillian, a chatbot who is meant to tell you holdings in a library near you. After exhausting the cities I knew in the UK, I entered London, but she still didn't know what I meant. Looks nice, though.

There's a cute little cover display that shows all the Mystery items added to the library in the last 6 months.

There's an entry from the Alliance Second Life Library 2.0 It's just so uber.

Some were created just for the competition by non-library folk. Some were already in use. I think that both are great - people are thinking about using these things in libraries and those who already are can get acknowledgement.

All I can say is - cha cha cha!

Category: mutl06

MeeboMe out, WorldCat in.

2006-08-18T18:31:00.000+08:00

MeeboMe just didn't feel like my kind of widget, so I've taken it off my sidebar. It felt a bit like I was looking over my readers' shoulders.

And I tried to show it to someone today and I couldn't log in to meebo. Probably a liveware failure. So I'm sulking.

Now, a Worldcat search box is much more my style. And they published super instructions about how to add it in their It's All Good blog.

So now, even if you can't have a good goss. here, you can find a good read.

Are we mashed yet?

2006-08-17T20:07:00.000+08:00

I thought I'd have a peek at the entries in Talis's Mashing up the Library competition that I blogged about on July 2nd. It closes tomorrow. One thousand pounds is up for grabs.

Now, maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I can't find the entries. They are supposed to be tagged on technorati with MUTL06 but I can only see 21 postings under this and only two are entries.

One finds a string that looks like an ISBN from any web page and shows what can be done with it (eg. search Amazon, show your library's holdings, cite the item in whichever citation style you specify). The other bundles RSS feeds that a library might want to provide to patrons (eg. New books, contents of current issues of specified journals) and presents them using an OPML browser. They are both created by Tony Hirst. I like them very much, particularly the first one.

Some possible explanations other than "that's all the entries there will be this year".

Everyone is waiting until the last moment to enter, so no-one else can create a smarter cousin to their idea
I'm just not looking in the right place. A search of Flickr shows nothing under that tag, and del.icio.us has just four entries.

I know that there are people with the skills to make wonderful library mashups (Note to Talis: next year don't ask them all to be judges). I also know that lots of people are just stretching their wings in these areas. I think that next year, or the year after there will be floods of entries. Even better, there will be people entering things that they just had hanging around because they made them for work.

I also feel much, much better about where I am with mashups, APIs, OPML, Ajax etc. I know their names and what they do, but we haven't really met yet and certainly haven't tangoed. Seems like I'm not the only wallflower in libraries. Let's get dancing!

Shiny happy mums

2006-08-17T20:06:00.000+08:00

The post after this is about library mashups, so if you're not interested in crackpot ideas, stop here and move on to some serious library reading.

The last Librarians' Internet Index has an entry about Secrets of the Sexes, a BBC TV series looking at whether men's and women's brains are wired differently. Having a spare half hour, and being a curious puppy, I took the online test, Sex ID. Find out how your mind works. The average woman scores -50% , the average male scores +50%. My score - 0% - my brain is balanced exactly between male and female.

What's inside my head?

Now, maybe it's because the test was co-designed by Simon Baron-Cohen who is a foremost autism researcher, but suddenly - "ping" - one of the mysteries of my universe fell into place.

I know a whole bunch of mums with kids on the autism spectrum. What has impressed me is that D, J, K, C, S, S, D, C, R, A and J aren't just normal people. They are unusually articulate, bright, shining women.The dads who I know are primarily scientist/engineer types. There's something going on there. Mum (bright and articulate) + dad (engineer) = some kids with ASD.

Now I think I have a bit of the answer....
Asperger's Syndrome is often described as extreme maleness (see, for example, Baron-Cohen's The Essential Difference: Male and Female Brains and the Truth About Autism).

Let's call whatever causes autism the M factor and do a "what if".

What if......

You're already male and you get a dose of M factor? You present as extremely male, with characteristics of autism.Your already male brain gets a double dose of male thinking style.
What if you are female and you get a dose of the M factor? Your female brain counters the maleness of the M factor and you get a very well balanced woman, able to use both styles of thinking.

Further ideas around this:

Women with the M factor end up with engineer/scientist types because the man finally finds a rare woman who relates to his very male thinking style. (logically, he does all he can to keep this relationship going :) )
Maybe when women present with autism symptoms, it isn't due to the M factor at all. Maybe it's because they are lacking whatever causes a female thinking style. Or maybe they get the M factor without a female thinking style to counter it. Would that explain why they only represent 25% of the population with autism?

It seemed all so much clearer when my newly outed androgynous brain thought it up yesterday.

Meebo no no !

2006-08-16T15:47:00.000+08:00

I made a post about adding the meebome widget to my sidebar, republished and now the first post is something I posted three days ago. No further posts appear, but I can find them by clicking on the archives for August.

Novel.

I'd be interested to know what others are seeing.

Sevice will resume after the kids are in bed tonight.

Meebome widget is on my sidebar.

2006-08-16T15:36:00.000+08:00

Wanna chat?

I've just installed the meebome widget on my sidebar. Still testing right now. If it says I'm online, then you can type in something and we can chat. Bit like having a brand new car in the drive without a license I'm afraid. I'm still learning to drive it, so please don't think I'm rude if I ignore you.

Meebo allows people using different Instant Messaging systems to talk to each other using their own logins. Someone using MSN Messenger could talk to someone using AIM without needing to be in the same system.

Rock on! For better and for worse.

2006-08-16T06:21:00.000+08:00

I was as excited as Peta when I read over at Inn0vate that Blogger Beta has been released.

Google has begun stamping its own mark on the site. It now allows google ID login. I wonder how long before it's google login only - like Flickr is now yahoo login only (unless you are - and I quote -"Old skool - rock on" ).

They are switching accounts to beta bit by bit, so if you want to play with the new features, you need to get another login and create a new blog. I did this last night and had a play.

For Better
I like the fact that you can now:

tag a post, using a "labels" option.
restrict who you want to see your blog by specifying email addresses, via a new "permissions" tab.
do more fiddling with the templates - although I couldn't see the new templates they advertised.
change my template by dragging and dropping boxes around the screen.
preset the default font and colour by selecting buttons. (Too lazy to change my template, I manually change the colour and font of each post)

For worse

But, in the "publishing" settings for my new blog there is one little line missing.This one:
You're publishing on blogspot.com
Switch to: FTP (publishing on your ISP server) Or SFTP (secure publishing on your ISP server)

You are locked into your blog address being at blogger and cannot use your own domain name.

Why would this disturb me? Well, a couple of days ago I went out and bought a domain name and some hostiing to use for this blog. I had just read this article at How to Blog advising anyone starting out to ensure their blog had its own domain name...and if you already have a blog to switch to your own domain name. This is so your readers can find you regardless of where your blog is based. If the blog host starts charging for what was a free service (like Typepad did), or makes changes you don't like, you can switch.

I'm still planning to use my own domain name so I'll stay on the old version of blogger while I decide whether to switch to WordPress on my own domain. Rock On!

Laugh, cry, reread, resolve, metamorphose - my book list

2006-08-13T16:41:00.000+08:00

CW tagged me with this meme yesterday.

1. One book you have read more than once . Monkey Grip Helen Garner.
First read it at 15 and thought "yeah, I'm going to go to uni and live in share houses and experiment with new ways of doing lurve and have deep political discussions and intimate personal discussions". Usually read it about every 2 years. Last time I read it, I thought "Wow, this woman had a kid and she was doing drugs and going out late at night. How come I didn't notice this before?".

2. One book you would want on a desert island. Complete works of Lewis Carroll
If I'm going to go ga-ga, then it's nice to have a bizarre world to keep me company. If I'm going to stay sane, then his logical conundrums would keep me that way.

Apologies to Mrs S Milligan Manby.

3. One book that made you laugh. What the papers didn't mean to say: a scandalous collection of clangers, misprints and other typographical disasters by Fritz Spegel
A teeny tiny book published in 1965, full of clippings of typos from British newspapers. Also the companion volume, What the Aussie papers didn't mean to say.

4. One book that made you cry. What the papers didn't mean to say: a scandalous collection of clangers, misprints and other typographical disasters by Fritz Spegel

No, it didn't just mildly amuse me, it had me in gaping great gusts of laughter, falling to the floor, crying and actually having an asthma attack.

5. One book you wish you had written. A suitable boy by Vickram Seth
I could pretend it was for the preciseness of the structure, the detailed research, the absolutely consistent internal world, the grammatical exactness of the language, the preciseness of expression, or the playful way it is all intertwined with the lightest touch. Actually, I just fell in love with the people.

6. One book you wish had never been written. Thomas and the birthday party
See last night's post. I may add that the kids LOVED the cake....but Mr3to4 had me perform an act that may have traumatised every child at the party. He had first choice of the cake, and decided he wanted Thomas' face. In front of a 9 small children, I decapitated Thomas.

7. One book you are currently reading. The Meaning of Tingo: and other extraordinary words from around the world by Adam Jacot de Boinod

8. One book you have been meaning to read. Web 2.0 and Libraries: Best Practices for Social Software by Michael Stephens

9. One book that changed your life. The Optimistic Child: Proven Program to Safeguard Children from Depression & Build Lifelong Resilience by Martin Seligman
My mum died of cancer almost six years ago, with very little time between diagnosis and death. All the books I read said "people with positive attitudes live longer with terminal cancer". Boy, did that piss me off...she hadn't had time to absorb it all and knew that she was going to die and leave people she believed couldn't survive without her. She hadn't had time to get to sweet, gracious acceptance. She was mad and confused. "This stuff is all just blame the victim", I thought.

Seligman was president of the Amercican Psychological Association. He uses psychological method not to treat problems or abnormality, but to define what happiness is and how we can attain it. Reading his books restored my faith in optimism and in positive attitude and made me less angry at the "just smile and accept it" school of thought.

10. Now tag five people:

Morgan - tag!
Tom Goodfellow - your turn.
Jan M S - I know you don't blog, but email me and we'll save it for when I convince you to start one!
Peta - you're it!
Bronwyn - can't duck.

One book I wish had never been written.

2006-08-13T00:28:00.000+08:00

I was quietly minding my own business, enjoying CW's list of books meme describing those that made her cry,laugh etc. when I was tagged . The list is already written in my head and I'll post it soon, but there is one question I MUST answer tonight.

What book do you wish had never been written?

How I spent my evening.

Thomas and the birthday party (ISBN: 043497616).

A seemingly innocuous book about Thomas the Tank Engine attending his first ever birthday party, held for his driver. The driver's wife greets them at the engine shed wearing her special best dress and shares a birthday cake in the shape of Thomas.

WARNING: Encourages three year olds who are turning four to point to the page and say "Mummy, THAT's the cake I want for my birthday party".

What I learned during the MULTA project.

2006-08-11T20:38:00.000+08:00

Today at the MULTA project wrap up meeting I listed 10 things that I learned during the MULTA project.

An image I used to encourage staff to take part in the project.

1. Forums are probably not the answer to internal communications that I thought they'd be.

2. Blogs are not online journals. They are just a convenient way to make a web site and can be used as an OPAC, a review site or a regular web site.

3. Blogs are most useful if they have an RSS feed and are part of a network of bloggers with an interlacing comments culture.

4. Wikis are easy and useful, and make me more inclined to share what I know.

5. Wikis need wiki gardeners.

6. A large proportion of the people who will enter first year Uni in five years use MySpace today.

7. If you expect your site to be used one way, users will probably find a way to use it that suits their needs (eg. Flickr started as a photo sharing site, but is now used a place to upload images for blogging). I think this is true of our library web site - our users probably don't use it in what we see as the best possible way.

8. If you know enough about the layer underneath your web site, there are great new tools that allow you to do amazing things if you have the skills.

9. Social tagging can't be explained in just one session.

10. Many library staff have secret talents that blogging brings out.

If you'd like to see more about what happened each week at MULTA, you can visit our weekly recap page.

It's a wrap!

2006-08-11T20:16:00.000+08:00

We had our wrap up meeting for the MULTA project today. This was a two month collaborative project where library staff used a tikiwiki environment to find out ablout blogs, wikis, social tagging, forums, RSS feeds, Library 2.0 and some of the associated memes. I wrote a wiki page defining each one and set weekly tasks involving one technology per week. I also ran a "hands on" workshop once a week.

The reminder I sent out to staff about today's meeting. Thanks to Librarian in Black for the pointer to says-it.com.

We decided how we wanted to continue to use the site, and to continue MULTAting new technologies (what about podcasting and screencasting and virtual worlds and....). We are forming a group to implement some of the recommendations we created as part of a group wiki editing exercise.

We finished up with an amazing spontaneous conversation . It just showed that people had really "got" the implications of the new tools. The topics ranged from:

the budget for our online journals and whether people could access them well
google scholar
what our younger users are up to
how these tools are a bit like the internet when we were first exposed to them - we know that they will change what we do, but can't exactly see how,
Second Life and Universities with campuses there
how we can find out how our users are using our site
how the number of information sources has grown so large that we can't afford the luxury of providing subject heading access like we used to
how far we should go to meet students where they are instead of where we think they should be. (is this new for academic libraries? - I don't think so)
where intellectual rigour fits into students' searching strategies.

Being able to talk about these things in a knowledgable way without seeming totally confused, scared or bewildered was the aim of the project, so I was just sitting there thinking "yes, yes, yes..yaaaay!". We raised many more questions than we answered, but I think that also might have been the whole point of the project.

Yes,yes,yes,yes,yes.

2006-08-09T18:31:00.000+08:00

This morning, CW posted a "5 words to describe your life right now" meme.

Glibly, I thought mine would be:
1.Unbalanced
2.Balanced
3.Unbalanced
4.Balanced
5.Unbalanced

I blame Danny Wallace and his book Yes Man.

He tried saying "yes" to absolutely everything for a year, as long as it didn't go against his fundamental moral principles...and the requester didn't know what he was doing. So, while he wouldn't kill anyone if requested, he did end up taking Scientology personality tests, being told about God by Jehovah's witnesses, going to parties on weekdays and taking many opportunities he would previously have walked by.

"Like to visit Singapore?" ,screams a travel poster.."Yes".(ticket bought and weekend away).
"Like another credit card? ", asks the letter..."yes"...
"Are you staring at my girlfriend, mate?" asks burly drunk in nightclub.."yes"
"Are you looking for a punch in the face then?"..."yes". (And he survived..the guy thought he was clearly mad and left, muttering).

While not going to Danny's extremes, I've tried saying "yes" a lot more when opportunities have come my way. I guess it led to helping to start up the lint blog. I guess it led to me to agreeing to find out about social software for MPOW. It's why I said "yes" last night to doing something legal involving Microsoft that I should have said "no" to. It's why I was a single person audience for Mr3's "kinda dance" session at daycare today, during my child-free day.

Interestingly, most of the "yeses" have been to things not involving my kids and family, where previously I would have said "No, I just don't have time".

It's why I looked at CW's "5 words" meme and said "yes, I'll try that too".

Public version of WorldCat is live

2006-08-08T00:09:00.000+08:00

OCLC's public version of WorldCat went live yesterday, 6 August 2006. It is the world's largest computerised library catalogue with more than 70 million records and one billion location listings.

It's something that founder, Frederick G Kilgour, just missed seeing. He died on 1 August aged 92. See OCLC's blog, It's All Good, for a tribute to this inspiring man.

Give it a burl. There has been debate about whether public users will understand what it all means and will now expect to be able to trot into any library with holdings on WorldCat and borrow.

WorldCat home page

I don't think this has been an issue with the public interface of Libraries Australia, launched on 30 November last year.

Libraries Australia home page

Feel the power - safe and unsafe ways

2006-08-05T10:21:00.000+08:00

UNSAFE

Yesterday I was almost an ex-librarian and ex-mother-of-two and ex-blogger.

I was moving a laptop from my Co-Pilot's office to Mr8's room. It was switched on and plugged in. While I was unplugging it from the power point, I accidentally touched the pins of the plug and "zap" however many volts were going into the laptop went straight into me! I felt a bit of an "ouch" and my upper bicep has been sore since. Glad the kids weren't watching.

Don't try this at home

SAFE

At least twice a week, I'm an iron pumping librarian..and I just love it. If I can get through the sqats and the lunges and curl my biceps, I know I can handle most things a library and kids can throw at me. It's a bit of Little Engine That Could Therapy a couple of times a week ( "I think I can, I think I can..").

I do it in a class with funky music playing to make it interesting. The class I take, Body Pump, has worldwide releases of new moves and music evey three months. It even has a web site where I can suggest music that they can use in the next release.

If an interesting experiment started by a Liverpool library becomes a trend, then maybe I won't even have to leave my library to get my power fix. They have installed squat machines and shoulder presses next to their OPACs, so that people waiting for the PCs can workout. Personally, I'm all for it!

Should Librarians dump Mel?

2006-08-04T06:28:00.000+08:00

Mel Gibson has behaved like a cockroach. Already known for his homophobic statements, under the influence of alcohol and an arresting officer, he's come out of the closet as an Anti-Semite as well.

Mel Gibson is also a poster boy for the American Library Association's Read campaign (since 1984).

Poster boy

"Should they dump him?", asks Karen G Schneider over at The Free Range Librarian. She says "yes". In the poll at LISNews about two thirds say "no" and one third say "yes".

The arguments centre around whether ALA is endorsing Mel's other opinions when he endorses their "Read" campaign. Do they want to be associated with his views? Should they use his celebrity power and appeal to people who otherwise wouldn't look at their library?

A look at ALA's online store shows that there are also "Read" Posters of Brittany Spears, Bill Gates, Colin Farrell, Kiera Knightly. Personally, I find the Indigo Girls, Tim Robbins, Melissa Etheridge and Yo Yo Ma posters very appealing, but know that some people would have real problems with the lifestyles or opinions of some of these.

Maybe an association that sells an "I read banned books" badge, isn't in a moral position to ban one of their own posters due to slimey beliefs of the person in it? (But, is the logical extension of this that they should actively go out and find people with a wide range of views...even offensive..for their campaign?).

I like the approach of the University of Wisconsin law librarians, who created a series of "Read" posters featuring UW Law Faculty members. Or the Lansing Public Library, who has a series of Read posters featuring prominent local citizens like the Fire Chief or the Youth Centre Director.

I think the Australian Library and Information Association got it right with their poster promotion. See their "webcards" page for more. Who needs Mel, when you can be associated with a super-purple-cosmic-librarian ?

The super-purple-cosmic-librarian.

Random idea generators have overtaken my life.

2006-08-01T21:27:00.000+08:00

My hair is unwashed, my children go hungry and the cat meows at my feet. Why?

Because I discovered via snail's trail the Library 2.0 Generator at Dave Pattern's weblog. To get sucked right into its vortex, click here.

Some ideas just can't be implemented.

My favourite so far has been "reclassify your staff using a folksonomy". ( Does that mean we could replace their job descriptions with tags like "loudlaugh", "funkyshoes" or "tidydesk" ?).

But I can never be quite sure that something even more bizarre won't be generated if I push the click for another idea button one more time. It's like playing the poker machines. I keep walking away and pretending to do something serious, but always return to my screen for just one more try.

If I allow it into my work time, and end up jobless, maybe I could hop over to Web Two Point Oh!: Create your own Web 2.0 Company and randomly generate a company to get me out of debt. How about Tripkoya: rss-based classifieds via instant messaging, or Zimelirati: streaming textbooks via flash or...just let me press that button one more time.....just once.....

A goodbye celebration

2006-07-30T19:58:00.000+08:00

I took the kids to the goodbye celebration for Reg Bolton this afternoon. To describe him as a circus educator would be underselling him. He was teacher, clown, scholar, stage manager, director, committee member, writer, friend, bulls**it detector, raconteur, father, husband, innovator, leader and transformer of young lives.

Fig2. Life enhancement aid

I'd seen him perform a couple of times. Both kids had done workshops and performances with him, (I'd been lured into doing my first handspring in 15 years at one of them). He'd asked me a couple of questions when I was on the ref. desk while he was doing his PhD at MyUniversity. I wouldn't have said we were mates, or even that he would have known who I was particularly. But, I'm sure that if I had asked him if it was OK to attend, he would have said "Yeah, of course, come along, join in". And he would have meant it. I wanted the kids to understand the difference one person could make, and to see how to make life a circus.

It was a colourful group of people packed into the Camelot Theatre ...most wearing bright clothes and with hair that would certainly stand out in the boardroom. Lots of little kids. Average age of everyone was about 30. Reg was almost 61 when he died a fortnight ago.

Simon ,an internationally acclaimed unicyclist performed and told us how he started unicycling in a workshop with Reg at the Woodford folk festival. Mike Finch, the artistic director of Circus Oz told us how he emailed everyone in his contact list on learning of Reg's death and a large proportion emailed back saying how they'd just recently had this conversation with Reg, seen that performance of his, received this email etc from Reg. Mike noted that if Reg had given so much of himself in the last two weeks, then how much he must have given over his lifetime.

He also mentioned that celebrations of Reg's life are taking place in several places in Australia and one in New York. Circus Monoxide planned a celebration where memories of Reg were written down, placed into a suitcase that was then set alight and floated away on water.

Two young jugglers showed us their tricks. Two older jugglers demonstrated a belt that Reg had designed, allowing a juggler with a bad back to clip juggling clubs in a "hula skirt" around his waist and not bend down to get them . People told of starting careers teaching circus skills after reading his book, Circus in a Suitcase. Several other performers involved us all in their enthusiasm and joy, balancing children, singing, performing "the Hunter" routine with large sticks, showing a video of a kids' performance.

There were many, many stories of Reg encouraging people to be better than their best. The story of the one legged stiltwalker over at the Theatre Australia forum demonstrates how Reg constantly showed people how they could improve, even when they hadn't considered the possibility.

Reg's son, Jo, showed a series of slides of Reg's life and his family. Daughter Sophie gathered us around in a circle and danced a comedy Charleston, complete with crowd "oohing" and "aahing" on cue. Reg hadn't seen her do this before, so she dedicated it to him.

At the end of the performances and open mic, we all grabbed our circus props - diabolos, juggling balls, clubs, rings, hoops, spinning plates, stilts, unicycles, a couple of fitballs and made our way across the road to a local reserve. Everyone juggled, balanced and threw until there was a countdown 10...9...8...7..6..5...(energy rising)..4...3...2...1..and Up! all the balls and hoops and diabolos and other equipment were thrown into the air. Show over? No..we all stayed on the reserve, playing for another hour and a half. Kids and adults , seasoned performers doing amazing tricks and beginners learning simple tricks for the first time.

For me, the spirit of Reg was there when Mr3, who was too reluctant to come forward when a circus mum encouraged parents and kids to join her in a balancing act, spent the next 30 minutes that we sat in the audience practising standing balances on my lap.

Wait for meeee

2006-07-28T18:06:00.000+08:00

When I was 4, one of my favourite Little Golden Books was The Wait-for-Me Kitten. I probably identified with the little cat who could never keep up with the rest of the litter and was left plaintively crying "wait for meeeee". My parents' friends all had kids several years older than me. I remember trailing the big kids from game to game, wanting to join in. Sometimes they'd even climb a tree to avoid me.

Plaintive puss missing social network.

OK...now to relate it to libraries. Yesterday, I read in The Ubiquitous Librarian about how he has uploaded his library's instructional material to You Tube. "How cool, that's where the users already hang out", I thought. This morning I wasn't quite so sure. It was definitley an appropriate use of the site, and he describes very well how he set it up and the technical gap it fills. I'm just not sure about my knee jerk reaction.

Meredith Farkas has talked extensively about whether we are invading our clients' "personal web space" by having a facebook or MySpace. presence. She concluded that we are not, but with the proviso that it should be done well if we are going to do it. (Read the post, as that is a very slim description.)

Our younger users are definitely there. The question is "should we be there too?". Or would we come across like a little kid following the big kids around, yelling "wait for meeeee?".

I guess it's a bit like blogs. If there is a need for them, then they are great tools. A couple of times recently I've heard of organisations considering starting blogs "because there's an expectation", but without really knowing what they'd post. Same applies with some of the social web sites. If there is a need that they fill and we enjoy using them, then we should do so. If we are just doing it to join our users on their own turf, I'm not sure it is a good enough reason, and that we won't come off looking like prats.

I'd like to see us focus on the big, big advantage we have over Amazon.com, YouTube and MySpace. We have physical space as well as web space. We have realtime, realtouch, realsee chat available with realpeople. We can create a social environment that should leave the social web spaces crying "wait for meeeee".

Bananas matter.

2006-07-26T07:48:00.000+08:00

This morning CW gave the background to the recent shortage of bananas in Australia:

I haven't eaten a banana since the end of March this year, when Tropical Cyclone Larry devastated Northern Queensland and wiped out most of the banana crop. According to the Australian Banana Growers' Council, 90%, $300 million worth, of our commercial banana crop was destroyed

Fig. 1 Inflation in the last quarter

Strangely enough I drafted a post about bananas last night. I tried to turn it into a comment on her blog, but it just grew too big. Here's my take on bananas....

It all starts with a tale about a proud king. This version is taken from Look Smart Find Articles.

Once upon a time, a proud, old king asked his daughters, "How much do you love me?"
"I love you more than gold and silver" one daughter replied.
"I love you more than diamonds and rubies and pearls," her sister said.
"I love you more than salt," answered the third daughter.
The king grew angry when he heard this last answer. "How dare you compare me to something as poor and common as salt?" he raged, and he banished the unfortunate girl from the kingdom.
Storytellers from many lands have long told versions of this tale. The details of each story differ, but the end is the same in all. The foolish father is served a meal without a single speck of salt in it. The food is so dull and tasteless he cannot eat it; and so he learns how truly valuable is common salt and he is reunited with his daughter.

Like the proud king, we are discovering what the lack of a common table item does to our daily life. CW talks about the personal effects of this deprivation, but there is another side. One that involves riches like diamonds and rubies.

Inflation is on the rise in Australia. Usually this is due to rising house prices, petrol going up again, resource prices lowering...but, this quarter what is applying inflationary pressure is ...bananas. Or rather the increase in price of fruit by 52%. Banana prices have increased 250%. (Source: As CPI goes bananas, RBA is sure to shift rate The Age Online, 25 July 2006)

I'm just tickled by the absurdity of economists mentioning my favourite fruit in the same sentence as "Reserve Bank" and "CPI". Should be more of it.

Mr3 has just been introduced to banana smoothies. I won't give an exact location, but most days we walk to a deli nearby and buy our overripe bananas for $4.99 per kilo. The price of petrol was up by 11% in the last quarter also. I guess we're just doing our bit for the economy.

Not quite as good as a couch...

2006-07-25T21:33:00.000+08:00

MyUniversity Library has a new book display. It has comfy couches. I can watch what other people are choosing. I can flick through several books in one sitting..not reading, browsing. It is in a corridor between two buildings, and right near our reference desk. This means people strolling past or waiting for the ref. desk are introduced to our new stock.

Comfy chairs, books on wall.

I don't like the list of new books in our catalogue. I can't absorb it in one glance...and it takes too much effort to read each title. I do like the way it displays the cover of one new book on the backlinked page.

AM sent me a nice half way idea for those times when I can't get into the library and browse. Edward Vielmetti , who writes the Superpatron - Friends of the Library, for the net blog has made a mashup using the RSS feed from the Ann Arbor District Library 's Innovative Interfaces catalogue. He's taken the cover pictures of books featured in the new books list and placed them all on a single screen. He explains it here and has an image of it here. Clicking on a cover takes you to the catalogue record.

Now, all I need is someone to somehow integrate the Amazon.com function that lets you "look inside" an item, sit on my comfy couch and pretend.

librariesinteract.info going swimmingly

2006-07-23T19:11:00.000+08:00

HAPPY BIRTHDAY...

librariesinteract.info (affectionately known as lint) is two weeks old today. So far we have had 23 posts and 83 comments...and not all of them from me. We had 256 hits on Friday. We have had some really great feedback via other blogs. Try a google blog search on our name ( like this ) to see them.

My favourite post so far has been VALA meeting (melbourne) 28th June brief report
from sparkle, where she passed on some very useful information about RFID, got really personal and told us what she had for dinner and amused us by telling us how she momemtarily mistook Barry Jones for Bob Ellis. Blogging at its best.

My favourite comment so far has been one from Kate in response to Hoi's Blogging and the public libraries post. Hoi described her planned thesis topic. Kate mentioned a relevant paper she was in the middle of writing for presentation at Information Online 2007. Why is it my favourite? Because I have been rabbiting on about new technologies like blogs allowing academics to bypass academic libraries as the conduit for scholarly discourse.

If this type of hook up is happening on our blog, then I'm sure that it is happening everywhere in all disciplines. Kate might have talked about her research to Hoi if they met while attending the same function, but the chances are slim. While blogs may not become formal sites for scholarly exchange, the informal linkups between researchers are increased.

I'm not going to republish my posts from librariesinteract.info here, but I will every so often add a pointer. Here's one to my post on Blogs: Who’s reading? Who’s writing? .

Now I shall finish my leek, potato and lentil soup and continue on with my (kid free!!!) evening, again with the cat stuffed up my poncho. Excuse me.

All linked up

2006-07-20T16:28:00.000+08:00

Connections abounded last night.

CW and I gave our workshop about how to blog a conference at the State Library, then moved on to the monthly Perth bloggers meetup at a pub about 100 metres away. I drove home thinking about so many things, but this morning I'm dwelling on how people want to interconnect, arrange things so they can connect, help others to connect, and accidentally connect.

Reg Bolton bringing out the best in Mr3.

Where were the connections?

JJ talking about the need for country librarians to link up and how blogs and wikis may help.
K3 seeing that the conference blog could be a conduit for matching spare rooms in Perth with attendees needing accomodation.
Richard talking about holding barcamp in Perth on August 5th, the same day as they happen all around the world.
Chatting about the effect that Reg Bolton had on so many people in Perth and around the world. He taught not only his circus skills, but also empowered others to teach them. No-one will ever do it like he did, and certainly is not likely to touch so many lives in the same way.
Finding out that Dee had gone to school in the same Southwest town as me and even knew a couple of the same people.
Talking about how I was at a party a few years ago and everyone co-incidentally had some kind of link to Z, except for me. Toxic Purity telling me that she knew someone, W, who tended to be the same. Yes, it then turned out that most of us sitting around the table actually did know W.
Comparing notes about breastfeeding with Toxic Purity and Skribe and marvelling about the networks that are set up by people who have been there, done that to help parents and babies learn how to do something that no-one expects to have to actually learn.

Like yesterday, a good day...but this time, no reframing necessary.

Reframing

2006-07-19T07:04:00.000+08:00

Now, if my last post left you waiting in anticipation for something called "Why write another post about blogging", then you'll be disappointed. But disappointment is where I'm going today, so please come along. (I'll guarantee you won't be disappointed).

Last night, 14 months after my father died, my brother signed the papers accepting my offer to buy his share of the house that we both inherited. Yesterday, CW and I changed the name of the Let's Blog Click06 blog to blog the conf, after the Click06 committee asked us to. Both events were the tail end of much to-ing and fro-ing and many phone calls.

Let me tell you about how I learned about "reframing". You'll see why further down. Every year we take Mr3 to the Kalparrin family camp while Mr8 has a weekend with his grandparents. This year we had breakfast with two Clown Doctors, who are people with real hospital name badges and the very serious job of using humour to lighten the stress for everyone in hospital. After much fun and laughter, the kids went of to be even more silly and we parents settled down to learn about using humour in our lives.

One of the exercises involved breaking up into small groups and each of us describing a problem that was bugging us. These people have kids with disabilities, so as you can imagine, the problems not trivial. What did the others have to do? Reframe it. Describe why it was actually an advantage. Make it funny. Take it to ridiculous extremes. Have fun with it. One person complained that she had to go to work the next day. "Well, you won't need to do housework". "You'll be in airconditioning and out of the heat", "That makes you appreciate being here more", "You're out meeting people", "You may be discovered by a talent agent and go on to be really famous". All around the room, we were erupting in gales of laughter about the most serious and complicated things.

So, do you want to know what I did yesterday? I learned about some people. I discovered how supportive other people can be. A couple of things finished up so I can use my energy on other things. I had a chance to really piss some people off and refrained. I learned that the workshop CW and I are giving tonight to help librarians understand blogging really is necessary. I went on a picnic with my kids and rolled down the hill in the sun and got grass stains all over my jeans.

Hope your day was as much fun as mine.

Twists and turns of blogging part 1

2006-07-16T23:03:00.000+08:00

Played Twister in the sunshine at a park today. Not relevant to my topic, except to give the title and images for the next two posts. Part two is "Why write another post about blogging?". This one is...

PART ONE- CAN'T FAKE THIS

My boss asked me to look at blogging and similar tools and how we could use them in our academic library. I was on the reference desk during a public holiday and thought I'd polish off a report in a couple of shifts. That was 3 months ago. I'm now one month into facillitating a two month project for libray staff where we use new technologies- like blogs, RSS and wikis to assess whether they are useful to us. It's called MULTA (My University Library Thinking Aloud).

This week we do blogs. Participants already have blogs within the site. (Its a TikiWiki installation, so they are a bit ''toy" ,but adequate for the project ). I've written a wiki page giving the basics of blogs, which probably anyone who could research could fake. But...in the past three months, I've learned a few things that you couldn't fake without hanging out in the biblioblogosphere:

1. Comments are a huge part of the blogosphere.
A hidden iceberg this one, but a delightful one. Posts make up the starting points and the catalysts, but the comments are where you'll find the good goss. And where you'll make the connections and networks to link your blog posts to others. I know I click through to the blog of everyone who leaves a comment here.

2. Quoting other blogs is not stealing, but creating community.
I hope I'm right on this one. I was worried when I first started quoting and linking to others' blog posts. I thought that it meant that I was being unoriginal and not using my own thoughts and voice. Now I'm beginning to think that it's another way of creating community. One of my posts was mentioned in another blog, then re-quoted by another blogger. I was so flattered, and interested in where they would go with what I started.

3. Be very careful when you talk about blogging to non-bloggers.
Do not presume that non-bloggers know about what type of things are blogged, and how informal and celebratory this can be. Say, for example, you told a non-blogger that you and a bunch of other passionate soccer fans were blogging the world cup. Don't presume that they'd understand that you weren't part of FIFA or speaking on their behalf. You may need to spell it out.

4. Remember the aggregators when you design your template.
Many of your casual readers can become regular readers if you add a feed from your blog. If you do want this, go to a site like feedburner and create a feed, or find out how to add a feed to your template directly.

If the point of your blogging is to get as many clicks as possible, you might was to try these tips from blogger about promoting your blog. Or take a reality check about why you blog in the first place.

5. Remember the aggregators when you design your content.
My last post had an embedded video. Looks great on my blog here at blogger. Does it show up on my PDA ..Naaah. Does it show up on my bloglines feed?...Naaah. Don't presume that your posts will be read at your blog site and add links accordingly.

Now when I get my act together, I should revamp my Flickr account and store the image from this post there. Then I can add the link to my post.

6. Remember the aggregators and searchbots when you think noone's watching.
My groovy stats meter shows me what link brought people to my blog. Who would have thought that a google search on "hot water bottles" or "library sleepover Illinois 2006" would land a reader here...but they did. You can't predict who will get here and how..but they will come.

7. Does it fill a gap for you ?
Recently some participants in MULTA have been discussing what makes something blogworthy. I guess I'm writing the posts that I would like to read, rather than those I think other people want to read. A big difference, but one that I think gives a better voice to my posts, and is more likely to link me to oher people like me. I don't much care for basenjis, so I don't blog about them..but I'm sure some people would like to read about them..they'll just do it on someone else's blog. Me, I'm sticking with my Cornish Rexes.

Extreme librarianship?

2006-07-14T21:39:00.000+08:00

Pottering about in Library Garden I found this post about the Bookcart Drill Team World Championships held at the 2006 ALA conference.

Now I had visions of frantic librarians (or more likely attendants) powering toward shelves, loading on as many books as possible, speed arranging them by Dewey and incurring injuries as they lunged toward the finish line. But..no..it's something altogether more elegant, more courtly, precise and restrained. Eat your heart out Esther Williams!

Watch the winning team here:

Don't try this in bed.

2006-07-13T22:26:00.000+08:00

My Co-Pilot snores. Loudly. It wakes me up. Nothing could be more disturbing, right?

Uh, uh. He's going to a specialist about it soon. Specialist wants me to go too. Why? Co-Pilot is asleep when it happens, so doctor will ask me about it.

We even have homework.
Co-pilot has to .....sleep.
I have to....make a recording of the snoring and when Co-pilot stops breathing (sleep aponea).

So, last night I was awakened by an end-of-the-world chainsaw noise next to me. Shall I get up and find my PDA? OK. Snoring settles down. Doze. Snoring starts.

Turn on PDA

"Bip". The "recording started" noise wakes Co-Pilot slightly. I'm too tired to get out of bed, turn on the light and switch off quiet bipping setting. Doze. Listen to breathing become shallower, shallower, shallower... building up to an aponea "Bip". No good. Noise stops the snoring.

Inadvertently have discovered the cure for Co-Pilot's snoring. Works better than hitting or turning him onto his side. Inadvertently have discovered cure for sleeping for me. 4:30am and I was up for the day.

Mr 3 had previously woken me up at 12:30am, wanting his wheatbag microwaved again. (We use them instead of hot water bottles).

Today I was a bleary-eyed semi-human traveller.

Tonight I'll unbip my PDA and see whether I can tape my Co-Pilot's snoring. Wish me luck and pleasant dreams.

Raise a glass to the techies, the generous and the thieves.

2006-07-12T19:20:00.000+08:00

Currently I have four web sites I'm nannying. They are always open in my browser and often send me auto-generated emails to tell me what is going on there. This blog is one, the librariesinteract.info blog is another. There's the Let's Blog Click06 blog and then a work project, MULTA (My University Library Thinking Aloud), which is a tikiwiki installation.

What amazes me is that I can do this at all, without crashing the whole kit and caboodle and bringing shouts of ire from users and other administrators. I've been a System Librarian and I've done a unit in computing at uni (mainly programming in PASCAL - really relevant today). I wouldn't say that this qualified me to administer any site...yet here I am.

I wouldn't have attempted anything like it a few years ago, although I had the same skills. What's changed?

"Off the shelf", free sites that hold your hand abound. They know how to give you power and safety all at once.
Open source software is easily available with lots of documentation, so I can easily evaluate it before installing it.
More techie sorts with "can do" attitudes. Once I thought I'd be bugging a tech if I spoke to them in lay terms, now they are much more approachable (or I'm less overwhelmed).
I've found that people who get a buzz out of doing something are usually very generous about helping newbies. Now I'm finding that I'm meeting more "regular people" who can do this type of site admin and will share, share, share.
Nifty stuff that I can nick is everywhere. So far I've stolen a site counter from someone else's blog. I have my eye on a nifty way of adding subject headings to my blogger blog. I don't even have to wait until her back is turned.
Previously special interest groups with the best collaborative spirit possible just didn't have the tools to create and administer a group run site. Now we can do it together and act as a cheer squad and tea and coffee makers for each other. Not only do we run the site we want, but we hothouse skills together as well.

So...I'm learning,learning, learning thanks to a bit of techie friendliness, generous spirits and old fashioned theft.

Not the official web site...

2006-07-11T07:22:00.000+08:00

A couple of weeks ago two male contestants were kicked off the reality TV show Australian Big Brother for putting their privates just where they should not be.

Where could you go to see a downplayed, spin added description of the event? The official site. Where could you go to find pointers to the footage that was broadcast, a discussion of the ehics of the contestants and the show and get a feel for how passionate fans felt about it. A fan site like Behind Big Brother Australia, or Australian Big Brother's Journal .

This lead me to think about whether a "not the official site" is a threat or an asset to an organization. So I've dot pointed my thoughts and Cluetrained them up a bit. Also in the style of "The user is not broken" (over at Free Range Librarian).

Why our non official web site is good for your official site:

1. You spending money on market research, focus groups and stakeholders meetings? Come to our site and see what we really think.
2. People at our site care about what you do. Passionately. We give up our free time to hang out together and talk about you.
3. Do things that please us and we will talk about it. LOUDLY
4. Do things that we think are crap we will talk about it. LOUDLY
5. We'd love to hear from you.
6. We don't own you. How you present yourself is your business.
7. You don't own us. How we present ourself is our business.
8. If we are not right for our users, they will drop away from our site and not tell us.
9. If you are not right for your users, you will hear about it here.
10. You probably don't want to send traffic to our site :) ,but we are certainly sending it to yours.
11. All publicity is good publicity.

Ever the evangelist....

2006-07-10T14:20:00.000+08:00

I'm showing my good friend S how a blog works. We've just taken Mr 3 and Mr 8 to see the Enchanted Wood performed by a children's theatre company.

S is also a librarian, so I've given her a 5 minute tour of blogs and wikis.

Very collaborative blogging

2006-07-10T07:10:00.000+08:00

Spent a couple of chunks of the weekend setting up a couple of new blogs with CW. My blog count is now 11 in two months. Counting the new two, that's four active "real" blogs.

We'd muttered and mumbled about blogging the upcoming Click06 conference here is Perth. We were also muttering and mumbling with some other Ozlibloggers about a collaborative Australian libraryland blog.

We stopped muttering, bought some webhosting,got a domain name, installed some software, set up some templates, found a structure, decided a scope and we got ourselves two blogs ready for Australian Librarians to play in. Well, not quite ready...the RSS feeds aren't up and there are a few "under construction" signs about.

librariesinteract.info is a collaborative blog to track what is happening in Australian libraries. We want to include things like events, ramblings, job postings, interesting pointers to web sites and "how to" posts. We want it to be more conversational and informal than any official organisation could set up.

Let's Blog Click06 is set up so that a team of bloggers can track the September conference. Nothing to do with me being away on a family holiday during the conference!

It was great to work with CW. We follow the same kind of serpentine work path. We get to the goal, but she meanders in similar places where I would.

It's also great to have someone who can make more time to work on the project than me. And doesn't mind me saying "we need to do x, y, z, so how about you do x and y, I'll get a phone number for z and you can do the other 10 steps involved". I guess you could call that collaboration.

While I'm tied up finding a bandaid so Mr 3 can smell it and helping Mr 8 get his behaviour under control, I know someone somewhere is doing what we mapped out. It's a good feeling.

I need to say a thank you to my Co-Pilot and M who looked on bemusedly while their houses were invaded and they lost their life companions in the blogosphere for the weekend. And supported us with advice and cups of tea.

Hey, I was just blessed !

2006-07-09T19:15:00.000+08:00

Folk just don't do enough blessing these days.

As I turned into my street tonight, I passed a young mum and her son carrying large suitcases in the rain. They'd just got off at the bus stop. I was going their way, so I offered them a lift.

Turned out they were going to a house a couple away from mine.

As they left the young mum said to me "That's good karma for you. God bless you".

It quite made my day in the way a simple "thank you" just wouldn't have.

If your'e reading this, bless you.

From there to here....

2006-07-08T06:43:00.000+08:00

I drove two very nice library practicum students to OurUniversity Sattelite Campus Library on Thursday. Both are finishing their graduate diplomas in library studies, which will qualify them to be ....LIBRARIANS....

C. had her mind on the "what job will I do when I get my bit of paper?", "how will I get it that job?" and was asking questions around it. I found it enjoyable, because it made me think about my own path from there to here.

I tried to tell her that often, it's "right place right time"...or making it so. Applying for "job I never thought I'd take in library sector that doesn't interest me that is available NOW"...and seeing where it takes you. Proving to an employer that you turn up regularly to work on time, don't offend your clients, can make your job interesting and are open to networking. Same as any job really.

So...where have I been...how did I find the job and why do I think they employed me? The only one I thought I wanted to do at library school and seemed to have the best skill set for (law librarian) was the one that made me unhappiest.

1. Library Officer at OldStateUniversity. Ad in student newspaper. I was a second year student, probably with another 3 years to go. Didn't even get interviewed. Suspect academic record and name of colleges I'd attended helped. Rating on a good for me scale: 9/10 for putting me through uni and making library school a lot easier.

2.Law Librarian/Researcher at Small Private Law Firm. Ad on student noticeboard in library school. Firm wanted a cheap, unqualified student to replace contract librarian. I was cheap, unqualified and was planning to go back to studying law. Rating on a good for me scale: 10/10 for making me decide to never, ever be a lawyer, 10/10 for looking good on my CV and giving me great networking and useful skills, 3/10 for making me unhappy for 18 months.

3.Contract cataloguing all resources in state branch of Large International Accounting Firm.Ad in small print employment column in State newspaper. With inexperience I named an hourly rate that seemed like a fortune to me and very low to them. Running a special library had given me cataloguing skills that suited the job. Being a relatively recent graduate meant I hadn't yet forgotton all my cataloguing. Rating on a good for me scale: 8/10 for getting me a job after extended holiday. 6/10 for interest.

4.Systems Librarian at Suburban Public Libraries Large ad in State newspaper. I still had "new graduate" gloss. My CV had a "familiar with" section where I listed any software that I'd been in the same room as in the last 5 years. No-one else really applied and their Good Person had just left and they needed somone NOW. Rating on a good for me scale: 9/10 because I "grew up" in that job, gained a really useful skill set, was mentored and allowed to stretch my wings, loved the work environment and could set my own direction for most of my day.

5. Community Infromation Librarian at funky seaside TinyCity Large ad in State newspaper. I'd always wanted to live in fsTC and I get my kicks from promoting community cohesiveness. I wasn't the strongest applicant in any single area, but they told me they liked what I offered in all areas...and my boss at SPL had told them that I coped very well with b**chy staff. Rating on a good for me scale: 10/10 for learning new skills, loving the job itself, some of the colleagues, being at the centre of fsTC. 2/10 for staff environment and the 2 hour daily commute.

6.Systems Librarian at Suburban Public Libraries Large ad in State newspaper. Old work colleagues telling me job was availalbe. Ex-boss phoning me and asking me to apply. I already liked them and lived 5 minutes away, they liked me. It was my old job. Still had to have an interview (where I gushed over one of the interviewer's pregnant tummy and then realised that I should straighten up and be proffessional). Rating on a good for me scale:10/10 for even more encouragement and opportunity for professional growth. 0/10 for not being something I could still do with a new baby and when I finally moved to fsTC.

7. Reference Librarian at OurUniversity Library Ad on WAIN listserv, the library listserv for our state. Submitted CV via email. Don't really know why they employed me. I could work Sundays and funny hours and was relatively young? Rating on a good for me scale:10/10 for getting me back into the workforce, updating my skills, great work colleagues and letting me do a project that challenges me, but is nothing to do with the rest of my job.

You know you're new to blogging when....

2006-07-05T22:16:00.000+08:00

you are checking your feeds at bloglines, enjoying each update of your favourite bloggers and unthinkingly you click on your own blog...and actually EXPECT THERE TO BE A NEW POST THERE.

Is this just my quirk or did other people do this at first?

Do we wiki in WA? We do!

2006-07-04T14:06:00.000+08:00

Two recent presentions at WA academic libraries now have wikis with summaries of the papers:

WONDERFUL WIKI ONE:

Western Australian University Libraries Resource Access Group
Held at Murdoch University Library May 2006

Curtin University of Technology
Linda Sheedy, LIS Reserve Supervisor
E-Reserve - Library and Information Service - Curtin University of Technology

Edith Cowan University
Erin Smith, Library Technician Subscription Services
eReserve @ ECU Library

Murdoch University
Jean McKay, Manager, Liaison Services
Electronic Course Materials Service at Murdoch University Library

University of Western Australia
Jill Benn, Acting Humanities & Social Sciences Librarian
E-reserve at UWA Library – the CMO & EPO in the LRS: Building the Foundation Project

WONDERFUL WIKI TWO

Collaborative Action for Reference Competencies and Information Technology
Held at Murdoch University June 2006.

New Technologies and Libraries

Constance Wiebrands, Senior Librarian Curtin Business School & Sue Grey-Smith, Senior Librarian Research Services

Curtin Library & Information Service

Podcasting@your Library

Jaya Berk, Librarian Learning Services; Jody Atkinson, Librarian Resources & Access and Sonja Olsen, Librarian Learning Services
Curtin Library & Information Service