Cambridge 23 Things: my own personal launch party

Ok.... peanuts and olives are prepped, the drinks have been chilled; bags of different flavoured crisps have been poured into the same bowl.  I think we're ready to go.

At the official launch party Andy Priestner said a few words giving the back story to 23 Things, and expressed what he hoped we as individuals, and as an institution, with gain from the digital smörgåsbord on offer.

I bring to the table these beautiful Creative Commons olives, and a few words- this isn't a post just about olives after all.

I'm hoping to get three specifics from my 23 Things adventure.  First, I'm going to try something new, specifically Zotero and Mendeley which I know little and nothing about, respectively.  Second, I'm going to reassess how I use the everyday tools I've probably taken for granted, and the ones I'm not using to their full extent.  Perhaps it'll even lead me somewhere new- I've been using Facebook since 2004 and I can assure you that familiarity breeds contempt!  The third, and most important, is that I hope 23 Things will help us to build a network for this summer and beyond. Many of us work in small departments, some of us are actually the whole department, and this can leave us feeling out of touch with the library community out there.  23 Things is a great way for us  to reach out and make some connections.  Enjoy the olives!


Olive picture form pink_fish13 on flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ciana13/4236386232/ Used under a Creative Commons Licence.

Save NYPL!

Marsh and I had such a fabulous time In New York last year, the highlight for me was our tour of NYPL, so I was distressed to see that they are facing a pretty big funding cut.  There's a campaign against the cuts, this was my 2 cents:

"I'm a librarian from the UK and visited NYPL last year.  The stunning architecture apart what impressed me most about it was the open and welcoming attitude.  I was amazed to find that anyone could step in to read and to enquire.  It's a kind of openness that one doesn't find everywhere and that makes it even more important to preserve.

In times of economic hardship libraries are often the only places people can go to access current employment publications and access valuable IT resources.  Without these, ordinary people become disenfranchised from  our digital culture.  Tough economic times should prompt us to safeguard library services, not cut them."  

The library is open to anyone who lives, works, studies or pays property taxes in the State of New York, that's 19,541,453 residents alone.  They also make special provision to highlight specific library resources and help for job seekers.  This is just one instance of library cutbacks threatening services, there are many more across the UK and further afield.  I realise that I don't have the unenviable job of balancing the books every year, and that there's a lot to pay for with less and less money, but I believe that cutting funding to public libraries is nothing but a short term solution.

Cam 23 Things

Yay! 23 things has come to Cambridge.  Over the next 12 weeks librarians across Cambridge will be dabbling, tinkering, playing, exploring, and possibly even dipping a toe into all things web 2.0.  I'm unreasonably excited about it and looking forward to sharing ideas, picking up hints and tips and being helpful when I can.

May the ceiling cat smile on our endeavours and the fail whale never darken our doors!




see more Lolcats and funny pictures

New widget launched

Marsh made a movie!  Well, a screencast.  It is all about the new Cambridge library widget, which allows you to renew your books whilst using Facebook, iGoogle, CamTools, or any page where it is embedded- including this one.  

The screencast was put together from by an all-star UL cast: I'm hoping there will be a sequel. 

In an exclusive interview Marsh said "I would just like to thank my producer Huw Jones, my actress Emma Coonan, Anton at the SMS and my mum of course ... " 

The screencast it hotly tipped to take best direction, best original screenplay and best actress in a leading role at the 2011 Academy Awards. 

Training notes- good progress

It is unreasonable to get this excited about producing a series of training guides, but it is the first time I've done anything like this in a while, so humour me. Ange + project = Rottweiler + chop. I've written the text to almost all of them and one, CLSCP, is now complete with screen shots.

Realistically this is all part of a general drive to expand my skill set. I'm going to present some research skills seminars for the new intake in October, including one of my own devising on search engine techniques. Throughout the whole Ange vs. UNIX debacle, I began to doubt my computing abilities, but when it comes to the internet, to search engines: I'm even learning javascript. We are much better friends now, by the way, me and UNIX; a few weeks back I piped something where I shouldn't. Panic? Me? I sorted it.

Exit

Goodbye

Nuggets from New York : two

The joy of NYPL

This rather smacks of boring friends and family to death with seemingly endless pictures of places they have never been nor want to go to, but I just can't stop talking about NYPL and how wonderful it is. Two things: NYPL and 'wonderful'.

NYPL: I pronounce it nipple, which bestows upon it a charm all of its own- a place of true academic pleasure. The motto of my University is about nipples but I have never felt about Cambridge the way I do about NYPL. I feel my pronunciation of this joyful institution is entirely justifiable. Their catalogue, catNYP, is obviously intended to be pronounced as catnip. NYPL- obvious.

Wonderful: A marvel; a genuine jaw-dropper. Aside from the truly beautiful architecture, including a room entirely constructed from marble and a plastic moulded ceiling which looks more like wood than wood does, the true wonder of NYPL is its admissions policy. Anyone can use it. Not just people from NYC, or even from New York state; you don't even have to be an American (and it doesn't help if you are). Anyone can just turn up, order a book and read it in what has to be one of the most palatial reading rooms I have ever seen. They also send fetching slips around the building by pneumatic tube.

My overall impression of Manhattan (I have to confess to not travelling much further abroad) was of a city that was too busy for me; the perceived unfriendliness of the 'herds' of commuters, shoppers and tourists was completely unjustified, when I spoke with people they were open, honest and often passionate about their city. What I couldn't get over was the shabbiness of the place, the tourist areas were tacky as I expected and the richer areas markedly leafier than the poor ones, but on the whole everything looked like it had been updated in the late 80s, early 90s and badly needed a re-fit. It was unlike London, Beijing or Shanghai which had been my benchmarks, all in all it was more like the Glasgow of my childhood- full of promise, but stuck in 1988.

I expected that I'd be disappointed with the standard New York fare and I was, it had the fake glossy veneer of the movies, but was dull and prosaic in its quotidian reality. The exception was the view from the top of the Rockerfeller Centre, which was simply breathtaking. The old wisdom of doing what you want rather than what the guide book tells you rings true. All the things I went for: brewpubs, NYPL, meeting Liz who I hadn't seen for too long, eating breakfast in Absolute Bagels (where they sell cream cheese by the half-pound) with ordinary New Yorkers; that's what made it a real trip to remember for me.

All of this is without mentioning the killer wildlife in Central Park, including the rabbit lady. I have to tell you about the rabbit lady. I will tell you about the rabbit lady, I promise.

Library fines-how do you spend yours? (part of import week)

Sadly the date gives this one away:

http://community.oclc.org/hecticpace/archive/2009/04/overdue-stimulation.html

Readers always think that fines go straight into the librarian's cardigan fund, or the chocolate biscuit kitty but that is very far from the truth. Are these fines sequestered for buying new books or paying for reminder letters? or do they disappear into a budgetary black hole? I don't think too much gets taken at theUL, but when I worked in public libraries I noticed that people regualrly racked up mammoth fines. One reader who was paying by cheque joked to staff that our tips jar would be flush for a while as he paid his three figure fine; I couldn't help but think ot was him that need the tips, starting with bring your books back on time, closely followed by, don't come in five minutes before we shut with a fine like that.

So, cardigans or choccie biscuits- how do you spend yours?


I also ove the bit about probing the library records of Obama supports: PATRIOT Act anyone?

ALA on the PATRIOT Act http://digbig.com/4ynqh


At least here in the UK we can afford Jacqui Smith a bit of privacy on this one. I wouldn't dream of imagining what books her husband checks out on her card when his is full...