#blogjune Day 30 - 'Last day Capricorn 23'

June 2011 - A wonderful Sharing Month.






A'giggle' of Librarians at the tweetup (with a-ma-zing hot chocolate)

Last day of June 2011.
Sunset today at 5:15 pm - Corner of Brookman and Lane Streets - Kalgoorlie Western Australia

It has been a long month professionally with a lot happening in the schools on the campus, and at MPOW, still nothing resolved fully about changes so 'heidy ho'...

It is semester break for the University students, however the Highschool have one more week and TAFE finished officially today. We are quiet and getting the jobs done that we can only achieve in the 'quiet' times. We also had two staff off this week at a Senior first aid course, (so I am feeling safer already)one on long service and two casuals away for semester break.

For a sense of personal achievement, I published my first LibGuide today, I felt I had learnt enough, through all the hints and tips in the emails from Perth colleagues and my own reading, to work out how to put it together. Ongoing learning curve there.

I love being a Librarian, and even though it can be very stressful and isolated at times, it is a wonderful thing to help someone find what they want, even if it is only the 'stapler'. (4x today :-)

Another huge plus was I enjoyed my first 'tweetup' on the weekend and my only regret was not enough time to talk MORE with all the Librarians who came along. Thanks to @lutie for arranging such a wonderful treat (and her a-ma-zing texta pen). Everyone was waving ipads and ebook readers and nametags and hot chocolate and talking and talking and laughing and sharing. so good! Wonderful to meet face to face.

I hope your month was enjoyable and you read and laughed and shared as we did.
Next...
July 2011

@kalgrl
#blogjune

ps* sorry about the 'Logans Run' joke in the title, but sometimes phrases remind me of movie lines and this old scifi was full of 'last days'. *grin*

Library 101

FromHere!

Perth Library Camp 2009 - Unconference

Why not sign up for the:
Perth Library Camp 2009 - Keeping the Fire Burning
Perth Library Camp
I attended the 2008 unconference and I thoroughly recommend the experience, just for the networking alone.

I looked at gadgets, tinkered with apps, listened to Library Staff from many different types of Libraries talk about their experiences with Library 2.0 and the 23 Things devised to increase knowledge of the new technologies now being used in Libraries and on the Web.

I was slightly overwhelmed by the amount of information and new tech on offer, but I choose a few of the 'things' to work on in the past year.

Only 100 people can sign up and the unconference rules are: here
SEE you there! :-)
Kalgrl

Shanachietour NLS4 Melbourne interviews

Christine Mackenzie interview from Jaap van de Geer on Vimeo.

Stay out of the Shadows.... or not...

Watched Dr Who on Sunday and it was set in a library, where the shadows will eat you. Scared me silly, I am still checking under the bed for "Proper Dave".

And that got me thinking about Libraries in popular culture. They are still a popular place to set novels and TV shows. Really scary things happen in the dark, in Libraries. One of the most recent I read was by Matthew Reilly, "Contest". This was a gladiator bout held every thousand years to replace war and it was held in the (and I quote the back cover) "Brooding labyrinth of towering bookcases, narrow aisles and spiralling staircases". (2001, Pan ed.)

"The Librarian" was a movie where the titular 'Librarian' was recruited to save the world from the 'bad guys' and had a lot of supernatural help." Even "Ghost Busters" has a dark library with ghosts shushing the noisy people.

I have to say that this has not been my experience of Libraries,(really, no kidding you say...lol) not many dark forbidding corners in the ones I visit. I just wonder what it is in the psyche that makes some of us look at the library in this way? Is it the possible implications of the contents, all that imagination stored? Is it the dust, the older books, the scary Librarian? Or are these places so naff and out of date they need spicing up? Popular culture really tries to do this, in my minds eye, I can still see Indiana Jones smashing the floor of the Library in Venice to find the burial place of the Knight, timing it with the Librarian stamping books, so he wouldn't notice the noise...Years on and I still want to go there! :0)

Strangely naff (sorry, my word of the day) things can also happen in Libraries, books dissappear, especially when they are in demand! Staff go troppo and talk to themselves, wandering around with bits of paper, looking at things, muttering and then walking away. Getting excited when they find a ghost book, that is, a book that was never entered onto the Library system, so doesn't exist. Moving things around, only to move them back again, just to keep the interest up, and the clients needing us! Anyway, go and have a look in the Library shadows, it can be pretty interesting in there!

Oh and anyone want something on China....yes I know the Olympics is over, but we received new items this week on just that subject! (so last week, sigh!)

Thanks to the "Lipstick Librarian" for the link to the following...I wonder what would happen if Andy could read? His imagination would be really scary :-) FeralTB

However, after VALA .....

I came across delegates contributions/comments/blogs.

At Libraries Interact 'Tango' gives a good wrap up of the conference, and informs the 'distance challenged' *-) that the papers etc. will be available on the VALA website by the end of February.

Some the other delegates have blogged about the conference...
Peta Hopkins on Innovate, how fast the time passed...

Kathryn Greenhill gives an interesting rundown of "tech tips at a conference" at librariansmatter, it seems that the wireless connections at the venue were not very good. There is a great post on 'Day three' that lead me to Luke Wroblewski's web site 'Functioning form' and his session on "Designing for todays web".

CW at Ruminations also talks about the 'spotty' wireless connection. However her comment on the speakers...
"The keynote speakers have been GREAT, very inspiring! I love it when someone expresses succinctly something your befuddled mind can only occasionally bump up against, and help confirm and build on ideas, thoughts, and observations"
...will send me back to read the papers when they become available, as 'befuddled' as I am...

The Connecting Librarian has great posts about some of the sessions, one of interest to me was,
Kate Davis - Gold Coast City Council
“Be my buddy: IM and the future of virtual reference”

The Red Dirt Librarian also has a post on IT services to support libraries putting into words some of the general frustration felt in this area.
And for those of us 'distance challenged' its a whole other story....*-)

Thanks must go to those bloggers that have publicised and blogged about the VALA 2008 conference, without whom...
FeralTB