Today a small girl asked me "Is non-fiction real?"

I want everyone to take a moment to think about that question.

Also I discovered that we have books on the history of the thimble in Australia and 19th century picture frames. No pictures in the frames, just frames. It's a pity that 'Because I want to send it into 'Spicks and Specks' so someone can reinterpret it through song' isn't a good enough reason to withdraw something.

Some bright spark has gone and tagged the library. So far I've refrained from adding the words 'reads Austen' under his tag, but I just don't know how much longer I can hold out.

Things Overheard in the Library Part 1

"I'm looking for a book, I can't remember what it's called, it's by someone named Susan."

"What do you mean I have to have my library card to borrow? What is this Big Brother?"

"Does anyone know why 'The Zombie Survival Guide' is in non fiction?"

According to today's Brisbane Times 'More than $40,000 worth of library books and DVDs have been discovered in a home south of Brisbane...'

When you think about the amount of effort that must have gone into this...and all for stuff that the libraries would have let them have for free anyway as long as they gave it back when they were done. Why do it? Were they denied an animal sticker or mistreated by a librarian at a young age and now have the compulsive desire to subvert the system that allowed them to be chastised for running in the stacks? Do they perhaps see libraries as a communist plot designed to undermine profits and suppress the free market? Or perhaps they were a brand of anarchist that believes in the pursuit of knowledge and Hollywood blockbusters without a single renewal restriction. I've been thinking about this a lot and I feel it's time for me to extend my library criminal nabbing skills (of the sherlock holmes observational type - "That guy hanging around the dvds looks shifty, let's set up a sting") into a more socio-political direction with an emphasis on the psychological factors that motivate library crime. Now I'm just waiting for the QLD police department's call.
Link: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/articles/2007/12/30/1198949661394.html?s_rid=theage:top5

HuckChuckFacts

diarypic3

diarypic3, originally uploaded by Tish Bee.

Patterns In Patterns

Patterns In Patterns, originally uploaded by Tish Bee.

So I thought maybe I should put some of my own artwork up for once.

#23 Learning 2.0 - The Retrospective

Well this is my last official 'learning 2.0' post since I seem to have run out of discovery exercises. Who'd have thought? There were a lot of things in learning 2.0 that I didn't know about or that I knew of but had never really explored to any extent. Some of it was great and some of the Web 2.0 applications I wont use again, but at least I have been and I have seen so if a borrower needs help I'll know what they're talking about, even if my advice is that there are easier ways to achieve similar things with different applications. There were parts of the course where the instructions could have been much clearer and a few of the tasks were achieved with trial and error more than anything else, which I understand has been quite frustrating for people who really don't have the time to get something wrong sixteen times before they get it right. On the other hand, having gotten everything wrong sixteen times already myself if anyone needs help just give me a yell and I'll be more than happy to help if I can (that doesn't mean that I will be able to help, but I can always try* - at the very least I can tell you sixteen ways not to do it.)


I really liked You Tube and Flickr and I'm glad I got a chance to take a really good look around Library Thing particularly since it's now been incorporated into our catalogue. What's more I never realised how much of this we're already doing and it really does open up a whole new direction in marketing ourselves and providing new and innovative service outside of the traditional sphere of libraries.


Overall learning 2.0 has been both fun and frustrating. I'm really pleased people liked my blog - and I didn't have to use threats or bribery at all! Well, hardly at all anyway. I also know that I had a distinct advantage over others who didn't have the same amount of time to devote to it, or booker prize nominated books to avoid reading. Most of all I think I've enjoyed seeing everyone else do their own thing, coming up with a blog that is distinctly theirs out of a set of uniform tasks. And with that my thoughts are duly summarised.


Peace out.

Titian

* Disclaimer - If your question is about bloglines and rss please refer to my previously stated dislike and complete uselessness with these. I'll still try and help, but it may come with a language warning. Just so you know.

Another Retro Thing

This one is for Greg.

Well as you guys probably know already I won a prize for my blog which was very nice of the Learning 2.0 people. Sadly it was a pair of non-adjustable headphones that are supposed to wrap around the back of your neck but actually don't fit my head and kind of smoosh your ears in a way that ears probably shouldn't be smooshed. Someone clearly has a very strange idea of what shape a normal head is. Either that or my head is an irregular size/shape, also quite possible. I can't help wondering if this is the universe getting back at me for not actually listening to all of the instructional podcasts quite as thoroughly as I was meant to - by giving me a prize that prevents me from listening to them at all. Especially since I won an 'encouragement' award (I swear I'm not making that up.) So Maryka, you were right. Apparently it isn't possible to top the fab headphones that Shaun gave us for this project. It wasn't a complete loss though, I did get a nifty certificate (available for viewing on request- no touching!) and my friend Adam laughed until he cried.

Podcasts Galore

I love podcasts. Years ago when 'Hack' was the regular morning program on Triple J it used to drive me crazy that is was such a good show and I never got to listen to it. Now, sadly it's been cut down to half an hour from 5:30 - 6pm and while it does mean that I get to listen to it slightly more often, most nights I still don't finish work until 6:00. Enter the podcast. I love the idea that you can listen to the radio programs you want to whenever you like. It's completely changed the way I listen to radio programs and I did hear that the audience for 'the science show' has doubled since it was made available on podcast and the Chaser boys sent their ratings through the roof as soon as they started doing the rounds on You Tube (did anyone notice that You Tube launched its Australian site this week?) which just goes to show how gosh darn useful downloadable media is. I regularly download the vodcast of the Chaser's War on Everything (due to it's timeslot clashing with House) and I've streamed episodes of Newstopia due to our SBS reception being crap. Podcasts also mean I have access to programs from all around the globe - my favourite being 'Grammar Girl' although I don't think my grammar has actually improved much as I'm still fairly hit and miss and tend to type in something like stream of consciousness. Plus sometimes I start sentences I just don't know how to stop which I believe is referred to as the 'train wreck' approach to grammar. However I digress.

There is also a wealth of Podcasts that you just wouldn't find on the radio at all, people who just have something to say - entertaining, educational, completely wacky and utterly useless there is no screening process other than the end user making a choice as to what they want to consume.
It's not hard to see how we could use this in the library. We already have people who come in to read the local paper onto tape for the visually impaired, a spot on Southern FM telling people what's new in the library, plus when we have speakers there's always someone disappointed that they'll have to miss out due to another commitment at that time. We already have downloadable resources for kids and we could promote our holiday drama activities and Bookbugs book club with online clips of just how chaotic, and fun, things can get.

I've downloaded a few audio ebooks - things I couldn't get at the library naturally - which is also much faster than individually loading in the disks from a book on CD. Unfortunately a lot of the things I wanted were prohibitively expensive or only available at an affordable price if they were abridged and I just can't stand an abridged book. It's one of those things that I feel is deeply wrong with the world. I did however get the MP3 version of Yes Prime Minister which made me very happy. I know MP3 books didn't work very well at the library due to compatibility issues (less face it, they were a pain) but I wonder how long it will be before we just skip the middle man and start offering free downloads of audio ebooks, particularly since we're already offering free ebooks on our website. I think the future of ebooks is really in the audio as while I have actually downloaded and read an entire ebook on my computer, it's not something I would like to repeat and not nearly as easy as just picking up the book in hardcopy. It's just not possible to get lost in a book that starts to hurt your eyes after a while and I don't know about other people's computers but there is far too much going on on mine for me to ever be able to concentrate for any real period of time.

I haven't put any of my podcasts into my bloglines account because iTunes is always running in the background of my computer, automatically checks for updates and tells me when a new episode has been downloaded. Then it automatically uploads it to my ipod and deletes any podcasts that I have already listened to. I've already got the whole thing so efficient that I really don't need bloglines to tell me when new episodes become available. Plus, did I mention I dislike bloglines with a passion? I think I did.

Well this has been a very long and rambling post and now you know more that you ever wanted to about what I think of podcasts, vodcasts, ebooks, audio books and MP3 books so I think perhaps I will leave it there. Well done to you for sticking with it all the way through.

"Paper Art"

"Paper Art", originally uploaded by vishwavivek.

See all of Vishwavivek's photos here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/vishwavivek/

(the paper art ones are just amazing)

Library Thing the Third

My new favourite bit of Library Thing is the unSuggestions. There is a Suggestions page where you can put in books you've enjoyed and it will suggest other titles based on the lists of other people who have enjoyed the same book - it's a bit like 'Who Writes Like?' or 'What do I Read Next?' only useful. If a large number of Terry Pratchett readers liked Douglas Adams or Robert Rankin then that's what will pop up - fairly straight forward. The unSuggester is more fun - you put in a book that you liked and it will come up with a list of books that you definitely will not like. These are books that did not appear on a single list of anyone else who liked your book and some of the results are really funny. I can't fault it - I really wouldn't have read any of those books, despite my sometimes eclectic taste. Even when I tried to trick it it could accurately predict books I had no interest in. I particularly liked it responding to Jane Austen with computer programming books.

You can have a go at it here: http://www.librarything.com/suggest

The Suggestions page would also be great for anyone who really does want a suggestion for what to read next since the books actually have all been read - so it's like a mass recommendation from other readers who share your interests. Plus thanks to the wonderful Shaun of IT geniusness we now have this integrated into our catalogue so people can generate their own lists of recommendations from Library Thing tags which will tell them straight away what we have available on our shelves and where. I realise not all library services have this feature yet, but we can't all be trailblazers.

, originally uploaded by beebo wallace.

Oh the atmosphere.

Library Thing the Second.

I was just having a more 'in depth' look at Library Thing since the first time I used it I got a bit distracted by adding books to my library. Just a tad. Anyway this time I was looking at the discussion groups which naturally led me to the 'Librarians who Library Thing' group. There were a couple of threads that I found really fascinating and of course who doesn't love a 'Strange Requests from Borrowers' topic? I've put my favourites down here:

Funny Borrower Requests
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=17962

The Librarian Who Stole Books
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=13089

Patron refuses to return sex-ed books to the library
http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=20500

If you've got time, check them out. They're really interesting.

From the list of Web 2.0 award winners I'd say these

http://www.biblioz.com/

http://ma.gnolia.com/

could be useful from an information perspective.

This one's really interesting http://www.care2.com/

This is full of beautiful things

http://www.etsy.com/

and

these are

just

addictive.


http://www.newsvine.com/

http://www.onesentence.org/

Public Service Announcement

So the time is now upon us, if you still haven't registered to vote or updated your details the deadline is very much nigh. The electoral rolls will close at 8pm Wednesday 17th October. If you're not sure if your details are up to date you can check them here: https://oevf.aec.gov.au/

Technorati Tags Zoho,Document,number18

Extreme: football with cars (Toyota versus Volkswagen)