Keeping up to date (day 10 #blogjune)

I've posted before about some of the methods I use to keep up to date. Con and Kate blogged recently about what they read to stay up to date with what is happening. I still intend to do a post on some of the blogs I read, but as I'm on my iPad right now am not sure if I can get links to work efficiently. Will look at that later.

I also blogged about the fact that #blogjune causes my feeds to explode enormously (at the time of writing I am now under 1000, currently at 857 unread feeds!). I continuously add more subscriptions to my reader and leave them there to read when I feel like it. I don't always read everything, a lot of the time I skim them to see what catches my eye. I've started unsubscribing from feeds that only have a summary post; I don't have the time or inclination to keep jumping to sites to read the post in its entirety.

I subscribe to Library Link of the Day,which is the only way I get news via email now, unless it is sent to me directly. I get a lot of information from Twitter and use strawberryj.am to see what has come through on Twitter that I may have missed.

I'm on the magazine routing list at work and skim through many from Australia and overseas to see what catches my eye. These include journals about public libraries, technology and literacy. I pay more attention to these ones, as they directly relate to my work. I also receive journals on academic libraries and I skim through these to identify any emerging trends that may translate across into my sector. Needless to say, these pile up quite quickly...

Memory keeping (day 9 #blogjune)

And so I have another memory keeping project about to happen. I do this because of course I don't have enough projects happening, I need to add more to the list. In my defence, this is an easy one and should be extremely sustainable, even though it spans a long period of time. 

I'm planning to start a 5 year journal. Sounds daunting doesn't it? Committing to keeping a journal for five years, but I promise it won't be :).  Every day for a year I'll be answering a set question posted by Debbie Hodge on her site. After the first 12 months, I'll start answering those same questions again, building a record of comparisons over a five year period. It should take no more than two minutes of my time every night. As the full month's questions are released ahead of time, I aim to do a little planning and write the month's questions in my diary as soon as I get them. 

There is no need to answer the particular questions allocated to that day; you can even choose to write your own line about the day, but I don't want to be self directed in this instance. Answering a question will speed up the process for me. 

What are your thoughts - prompts or self direction?

A competition with Con, or The top 100 books of all time (day 8 #blogjune)

I don't read much anymore.  Novels that is.  I still read but nowhere near the amount I used to.  It's quite ironic that I stopped reading around the time I qualified and that since that time people think that is all I sit around doing. Looking at a recent post of Con's I thought I would see just how many of these 'classics' I've read (note, I am sure there aren't many!)

I've italicised those that I have read.

1984 by George Orwell, England, (1903-1950)A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen, Norway (1828-1906)
A Sentimental Education by Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880)
Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, United States, (1835-1910)
The Aeneid by Virgil, Italy, (70-19 BC)
Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910)Beloved by Toni Morrison, United States, (b. 1931)
Berlin Alexanderplatz by Alfred Doblin, Germany, (1878-1957)
Blindness by Jose Saramago, Portugal, (1922-2010)
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa, Portugal, (1888-1935)
The Book of Job, Israel. (600-400 BC)
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881)
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955)
Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer, England, (1340-1400)
The Castle by Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924)
Children of Gebelawi by Naguib Mahfouz, Egypt, (b. 1911)
Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, Argentina, (1899-1986)
Complete Poems by Giacomo Leopardi, Italy, (1798-1837)
The Complete Stories by Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924)
The Complete Tales by Edgar Allan Poe, United States, (1809-1849)
Confessions of Zeno by Italo Svevo, Italy, (1861-1928)
Crime and Punishment by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881)
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol, Russia, (1809-1852)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910)
Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, Italy, (1313-1375)
The Devil to Pay in the Backlands by Joao Guimaraes Rosa, Brazil, (1880-1967)
Diary of a Madman and Other Stories by Lu Xun, China, (1881-1936)
The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, Italy, (1265-1321)
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Spain, (1547-1616)
Essays by Michel de Montaigne, France, (1533-1592)
Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, Denmark, (1805-1875)
Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany, (1749-1832)
Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais, France, (1495-1553)
Gilgamesh Mesopotamia, (c 1800 BC)
The Golden Notebook by Doris Lessing, England, (b.1919)
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, England, (1812-1870)
Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift, Ireland, (1667-1745)Gypsy Ballads by Federico Garcia Lorca, Spain, (1898-1936)
Hamlet by William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616)
History by Elsa Morante, Italy, (1918-1985)
Hunger by Knut Hamsun, Norway, (1859-1952)
The Idiot by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881)
The Iliad by Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC)Independent People by Halldor K Laxness, Iceland, (1902-1998)
Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, United States, (1914-1994)
Jacques the Fatalist and His Master by Denis Diderot, France, (1713-1784)
Journey to the End of the Night by Louis-Ferdinand Celine, France, (1894-1961)
King Lear by William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616)
Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman, United States, (1819-1892)
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, Ireland, (1713-1768)
Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov, Russia/United States, (1899-1977)
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, (b. 1928)
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert, France, (1821-1880)
The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, Germany, (1875-1955)
Mahabharata, India, (c 500 BC)
The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil, Austria, (1880-1942)
The Mathnawi by Jalal ad-din Rumi, Afghanistan, (1207-1273)
Medea by Euripides, Greece, (c 480-406 BC)
Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar, France, (1903-1987)
Metamorphoses by Ovid, Italy, (c 43 BC)
Middlemarch by George Eliot, England, (1819-1880)
Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie, India/Britain, (b. 1947)
Moby-Dick by Herman Melville, United States, (1819-1891)
Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941)
Njaals Saga, Iceland, (c 1300)
Nostromo by Joseph Conrad, England,(1857-1924)
The Odyssey by Homer, Greece, (c 700 BC)
Oedipus the King Sophocles, Greece, (496-406 BC)Old Goriot by Honore de Balzac, France, (1799-1850)
The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, United States, (1899-1961)
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Colombia, (b. 1928)
The Orchard by Sheikh Musharrif ud-din Sadi, Iran, (c 1200-1292)
Othello by William Shakespeare, England, (1564-1616)
Pedro Paramo by Juan Rulfo Juan Rulfo, Mexico, (1918-1986)
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren, Sweden, (1907-2002)
Poems by Paul Celan, Romania/France, (1920-1970)
The Possessed by Fyodor M Dostoyevsky, Russia, (1821-1881)
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, England, (1775-1817)The Ramayana by Valmiki, India, (c 300 BC)
The Recognition of Sakuntala by Kalidasa, India, (c. 400)
The Red and the Black by Stendhal, France, (1783-1842)
Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust, France, (1871-1922)
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih, Sudan, (b. 1929)
Selected Stories by Anton P Chekhov, Russia, (1860-1904)
Sons and Lovers by DH Lawrence, England, (1885-1930)
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner, United States, (1897-1962)
The Sound of the Mountain by Yasunari Kawabata, Japan, (1899-1972)
The Stranger by Albert Camus, France, (1913-1960)
The Tale of Genji by Shikibu Murasaki, Japan, (c 1000)
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, (b. 1930)
Thousand and One Nights, India/Iran/Iraq/Egypt, (700-1500)
The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass, Germany, (b.1927)
To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf, England, (1882-1941)
The Trial by Franz Kafka, Bohemia, (1883-1924)
Trilogy: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable by Samuel Beckett, Ireland, (1906-1989)
Ulysses by James Joyce, Ireland, (1882-1941)
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy, Russia, (1828-1910)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, England, (1818-1848)Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis, Greece, (1883-1957

11!!! Well I beat Con (sorry Con, I'm sure you never meant it to be a competition, but when you've read 80 books in 6 months, and I've read, umm, lots too, well I have to take what I can get!).  Note, this list is 10 years old, so are these really still the top 100 books??

My reader is exploding (day 7 #blogjune)

One of the things I really enjoy about the annual challenge of blog June is that I get to read a lot of thoughtful and thought provoking posts. I keep adding more and more blogs to my reader as more and more take on the challenge. My reader is sorted into categories and one of them, is, unsurprisingly "libraries" :)Another very unsurprising fact is that my feeds have blown out to unbelievable amounts. It seems that I can rarely get them under 1000.... I'll share another post with some of my favourite blogs, not all of them, just a brief snapshot!

Free iPads (Day 6 #blogjune)

My previous blog post was about attending ILT2012. This was an amazing conference and I learned so much. One of the things that stood out to me was the prolific use of iPads, both by delegates and by speakers in their programs/presentations. The intuitive nature of the device makes it ideal for those with many different types of learning disabilities. Add to this the fact that you can get a number of applications that will read text out to students, convert text to audio, allow for interactivity and create content. Web pages can be converted to ePub, and then annotated, with these notes aggregated at the beginning of the book. Words can be defined while reading or spoken out loud, again using ePub format.

The conference actually had 200 iPads for usefor free by delegates (nowhere near enough to satisfy all! I think there were 1200 delegates all up) for the duration of the conference. Many delegates tweeted and took notes, but the most interesting use was delegates taking photos of slides rather than taking notes! How would you use your iPad at a conference?

Breaking barriers (Day 5 #blogjune)

Two weeks ago I was fortunate enough to attend ILT2012, an excellent conference on inclusive learning technologies for struggling students.  While the conference appears to have its roots in the teaching sector, I think libraries have a huge role to play here and can offer many valuable contributions via papers and presentations.  That this is an unusual consideration was evident on many levels:

a)      The assumption that I was from a school “Hi, I’m [name].  Which school are you from?”

b)      The continued assumption that I was from a school when I said I was a librarian “Oh that’s great; which school again?”

c)       The absolute total incredulity when I would answer that I was from a public library “Oh I HEARD about you! [name] this is the librarian from Melbourne that [name] was telling us about.”

The reactions were quietly amusing and the overall support for what public libraries are doing for the community was very heartening.  Everyone I spoke to was encouraging and impressed, seeing the role public libraries had to play.  What was less encouraging was the lack of knowledge of what public libraries are, and have been,  doing in the community for years.

This lack of knowledge is from educated professionals in a field that supports research and learning.  Why are we not out there breaking barriers and making ourselves known to others?

A technologically connected social butterfly (Day 4 #blogjune)

The other day @jobeaz posed the question of whether we are too connected nowadays. Are we spending so much time connected to our devices that we are forgetting how to socialise in person? Forgetting the art of conversation?
It made me stop and think about why I use my iPod/iPad/phone and whether I am spending too much time on them at the expense of more real life time with friends, colleagues and associates.
I've always been a technologically connected social butterfly, even when the most prolific form of online communication was email. One of my first uni subjects was about the Internet and my first assignment was to write a paper collaboratively with study partners (allocated at random) using only online methods. Enter ICQ (remember that??) and Yahoo Messenger. While I did enjoy chatting to friends via these mediums (mainly ICQ) what I didn’t like was the fact that I would be constantly tied to the computer during the communication process. For this reason, I preferred email.
For years this was my main way of keeping in touch with those who weren’t close by, along with texting. I still used the phone, but email was far cheaper. I checked my mail regularly and was rarely behind. Perhaps because this was something I chose to do rather than something I was required to do.
When I convened NLS4, the committee was very disperse, coming from all over Australia. Again email was the main method of communication. By the end of the conference, however, I was so over being glued to the computer, out of necessity, that I didn’t want to check my emails anymore! I even went so far as to put a password on downloading email, so I could access old correspondence but not download new email :)
The pattern I see here is the feeling of being chained to my PC. Enter my iPod (first device) and things changed. I could look at my email from wherever I was (with wifi), go ‘flick, flick, flick” (imagine corresponding wrist action) and within a few minutes have actioned and deleted what used to end up being a backlog.
Do I spend more time on devices than I used to? Definitely. Has this been at the expense of real conversation with people? I think not. There is a time and place for everything. There are some that I only speak with face to face, others via some form of electronic medium (including texting) and others using everything.
All my family are connected but I do have parameters in place as a way of educating the children of when is an appropriate time to be connected. Remember, this is the norm for them, so they don’t see tweeting, texting, emailing or wearing headphones at the dinner table unusual, much less rude.
Oh and I’ve resisted 3G as one of my own parameters :) I really don’t want the option of being connected 24/7 wherever I am!

What are you doing now? (Day 3 #blogjune)

I posted a little while ago on my endeavours to declutter things - especially my feeds on Google Reader and reducing the amount of starred items I had.  Some I am relocating to my Pinterest account and others I am being more ruthless with, removing totally, especially *if* I had forgotten about even reading it...

I am across this gem from @sirexkat that I had saved for various reasons (not least of which is that the beautiful building she mentions is the branch I manage :) ).  The main one however, that jumped out at me this particular time was to blog about what you are working on right now.  Kathryn goes on to clarify that it isn't about what you have done, but more about allowing users to be able to offer suggestions for something current.

A lot of my thinking seemed to have been centred around what I am going to do or what I want to do, so that idea from Kathryn's post was a light bulb moment for me.  Why don't I blog about what I have done or what I am doing, and get my inspiration from there?

And so this is what I plan to do.  It's a shame that the lightbulb moment doesn't translate into increasing hours in the day, but I live in hope :)

Library quotes (Day 2 #blogjune)

I recently had the pleasure of following (and thus being followed by) Abigail Willemse on Twitter, editor of Lianza's Library Life (acccess copies here).  We had crazy tweet session, trying to find library related quotes that would fit within Twitter's 140 character limit and then tweeting them, using the hashtag #libraryquotes.  These are some of the gems we came up with:

• A newspaper is a circulating library with high blood pressure. Arthur Baer
• The library is the temple of learning, and learning has liberated more people than all the wars in history. Carl T. Rowan
• Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. Groucho Marx
• He who lends a book is an idiot. He who returns the book is more of an idiot. Anonymous
• Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other folks have lent me. Anatole France
• A university is just a group of buildings gathered around a library. Shelby Foote
• A good library is a place, a palace where the lofty spirits of all nations and generations meet. Samuel Niger
• Good as it is to inherit a library, it is better to collect one. Augustine Birrell
• Librarian is a service occupation. Gas station attendant of the mind. Richard Power
• (Libraries are) The medicine chest of the soul. Inscription over the door of the Library at Thebes
• A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life. Henry Ward Beecher
• A great library contains the diary of the human race. George Mercer Dawson
• I've been drunk for about a week now, and I though it might sober me up to sit in a library. F.Scott Fitzgerald

I hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed tweeting them :) And now, marking awaits!

Busy, busy, busy

And so June has started and with it another marathon blogging session done by a heap of library professionals.  Am I one of them? Yes.  Am I crazy? Yes! Why would I add yet another thing to my already overflowing schedule and to do list?  I have no idea.  Somewhere inside me I want to get more routinely used to writing about what has been happening and thus articulating my thoughts.  Maybe this will happen. Finally.

So here I am writing a blog post about how busy I am instead of trying to knock some more things on the head :)  A pile of marking from Charles Sturt University was sitting waiting patiently, saved on my laptop for INF333, only to now be joined by more marking for INF310.  Yet another pile awaits from Vic Uni.  That is on this weekend's list (along with more domestic requirements, but they're boring :) ).

I'm also Co Chair for the ALIA Careers Advisory Committee and am putting together an outline for a strategic framework of sorts to guide us.  This will be fleshed out in a couple of weeks when I meet up with Anthea and I'm sure the document will drastically change form when we've worked on it for a while!

In the meantime, my head is bubbling full of new ideas to promote and enhance literacy in our community, ideas that can hopefully be implemented region wide eventually, thus reaching even more of our diverse users.

Teen collections

The other day I was discussing with a colleague the issues everyone seems to be having with their teen collections. My belief is that we need to treat this collection the same way we treat magazines – as an ephemeral and much more disposable collection.  Buy what is trending; buy lots of copies of what is trending.  If that is what our teenage customers want to read, then give it to them.  Why have a massive holds queue of The hunger games because we want to avoid having multiple copies left sitting on the shelves once the popularity wanes, when we have copies of other books just sitting on the shelves regardless?  Why do we insist on having well rounded collections in order to adhere to a collection development policy that obviously is not meeting their needs, judging by the static or dropping stats in this area?  Why not change the collection development policy to reflect what teens want, when they want it?  When the books are no longer popular, weed them as you would any other time.  We’re weeding books that have barely been used, if at all.  If ever there was justification for just in time versus just in case, this is it.  For this audience, be reactive, not proactive. 

What was your last...?

In an effort to manage my ever growing number of feeds (an exercise in futility, I'm starting to think), I've been going through my marked feeds and unmarking if I feel they're no longer relevant or, more recently, moving them over to Pinterest.  I'm trying to contain my boards where possible, but am also conscious of the fact that the day may well come (sooner as opposed to later) where I may need to further refine my boards. Being the good librarian that I am, I have also assigned each of my boards a dewey number.  One of my boards (Memory Keeping) is about ways to document the every day in our lives.  I recently pinned some journalling prompts for the 'last day of the world'.  I thought I'd use them as a spring board for getting back to writing.

1. What was the last song you listened to?
   No idea (great start, right?)
2. Who was the last person you kissed?
   My little boy, Anthony
3. What was the last book you finished?
   The hunger games by Suzanne Collins (ebook)
4. Who was the last person you apologised to?
   My son Luke
5. What was the last television show you watched?
   Castle - caught up on two episodes tonight
6. What was the last thing you ate?
   This beef curry, made from scratch
7. What was the last thing you drank?
   Tea, white, no sugar, skim milk only!
8. Where was the last restaurant you ate at?
   Santinis - it's been a while now
9. Who was the last friend you spent time with?
   I had three friends over the other week for an afternoon/evening/night of scrapbooking and cardmaking 
10. When was the last time you hugged your mum and dad?
    A few weeks now
11. What was your last twitter or facebook status update?
    Twitter update: RT @jasonfleming73 So many passwords in my head. I imagine this is like previous generations remembering phone numbers&b4that oral history.
    Facebook Status Update: Lovely curry simmering on the stove.
12. Describe the last picture you took.Anthony sleeping - I try to send updates to his dad at work when I can :)
13. Who was the last person you called?
    My mother
14. What was the last thoughtful thing you did for somebody?
    I made a cup of coffee for my husband.
15. What was your last creative act?
    Finishing 20 cards for the next creative card swap.
16. What was the last thing you did that was brave?
    I drove to Taylors Lakes with no GPS and dodgy directions.

#blog12 daysxmas 6 Managing Twitter

I blogged previously about the accounts that I have and about ways I manage information. My Twitter stream is something that I try to keep on top of – because it is in real time, I can’t simply ’catch up’ two days later. I’ve found using my iPad and my phone (HTC Trophy) help with that – checking Twitter is probably the only time I use data when out, I don’t feel the need to be connected 24/7. I find it isn't as easy catching up with tweets using the web version of Twitter because of the way the page refreshes and loads; it starts at the top of the twitter stream and I have to scroll down to get to where I left off. The same happens with my phone app. Using the iPad (or iPod) app is so much simpler. I was previously using Twittelator (when Twitterific wouldn’t work for some reason) and am now back to using Twitterific because the Twittelator app somehow got deleted. Using the app means that the twitter streams loads where I finished, so I don’t need to scroll down to pick up where I left off. I can look at pictures that my friends upload because it opens in a pop up in my twitter stream, rather than going to a new page every time. It shows my tweets in green, mentions or replies in brown and direct messages in blue, all on the same page. I tap on any tweet and it will show me the conversation it relates to. All so much more convenient.

All this being said, I think potentially the most valuable way that I manage my Twitter stream is to manage my followers. I’m conscious of the fact that the more I follow, the faster my page fills and a brief break means that I either miss out on some conversations or it takes me longer to catch up. I don’t always follow those that are following me, although I do try to maintain the status quo there. If I am following someone who is not following me and I find that after several attempts at interaction there are no replies and no requests to follow me, then I stop following them. If the purpose of Twitter is to network and engage with library peers then not being able to have a two way conversation defeats that purpose for me.

How do you manage your Twitter information?

#blog12daysxmas 5 Becoming shewgirl

I’ve often wondered how some people decide on the handle that they use for their online presence. I’d forgotten how mine came to be but reflecting on my first online foray brought it all back. Shewgirl, which always gets autocorrected to “Showgirl”.

In 2007 the State Library of Victoria offered a Web 2 program for all public library staff in Victoria. It was run by Yarra Plenty Regional Library on behalf of the State Library and hundreds of public library staff took part. The purpose of this was to have staff learn through play and familiarise themselves with the various Web 2 tools that were available at the time, such as photo sharing sites, blogs and wikis. YPRL staff assessed every participant’s progress and anonymity was encouraged to reduce apprehension.

I wanted to keep mine anonymous however still representative of myself in some way but came up blank with ideas. I couldn’t think of anything clever with my first name, surname or initials. I thought of things I liked (Bookgirl – taken; Pengirl – blah; Stationeryaddict – hmmm too long) then came up with Shoegirl. I was quite excited by this one but…it was taken. I was really put out that someone got to Shoegirl before me! Somehow I thought to adapt the spelling and so Shewgirl was born!

What’s the story behind your handle?

#blog12daysxmas 4 Yet more things to do

Yesterday saw me forced persuaded by @polyxena and @csmramsden to take part in another challenge for 2012. It's the Friday Photos 2012 Flickr Challenge. I've avoided these challenges, not because I can't make the commitment - I can and I have - but because I am not a fan of Flickr (ducks for cover). I find it cumbersome and not very user friendly. Things may have changed though since I experimented with it last (early 2009 for the NLS4 photos) and so I have another challenge - get up to speed with Flickr.

The photo challenge in itself should be fairly easy to do (Flickr gripes not withstanding) because I am also starting Project 365 again from tomorrow (as opposed to my last one which went from April 2009 to April 2010). My plan is to have one of the daily photos incorporate the weekly challenge theme. Of course, in order to do this, I also need to regularly take the images off my camera. As good as I am at taking photos, I am woeful at downloading them! And so there is a third challenge - download photos regularly so I can upload photos weekly.

Thanks @polyxena and @cmsramsden - three challenges in one hit, because one is obviously not enough....

#blog12daysxmas 3 Moving to the dark side

It happened. I didn't think it would, but it did. I bought an eReader. More so, I am using the eReader. One of the reasons I delayed for so long is one we hear all the time - loving the feel of books, turning pages, cosied up in bed at night, especially in winter. The other reason (and to be honest, the main one) was the inevitable quagmire of information I would need to wade through to find something that suited me and was potentially the most user centric. By user centric I don't mean user friendly; I mean finding an eReader that would allow me to read as many books as possible and not be so proprietary.

So many people tend to use 'Kindle' interchangeably with 'eReader' and I started to get asked quite a few questions about buying a 'Kindle' from people I knew (based on my profession) because they wanted cheap books and they also wanted to have something light and portable. Explaining to them that buying a Kindle did not mean they would have access to all the books they may be after and then trying to further explain that not all books may be released as an eBook and the further complications of DRM made me realise that I needed to increase my own awareness of what was out there and what the suitability is for libraries.

Yarra Plenty is part of a consortia with Brisbane City Libraries offering ebooks and audiobooks for download. Whilst this has taken a while to really become well used, we are now lending out over 2000 eBooks/audio books via Overdrive a month. Unfortunately, not one item is compatible with the Kindle (although I believe it can read a pdf? I need to play more). Because of the tendency of the public to gravitate towards a Kindle as their eReader of choice, I feel we (myself included) needed to find out more about eReaders. I have two staff members who were always very keen to train the public in using eReaders and downloading from Overdrive. They became so proficient that they ran training sessions for the rest of the library service and will be running refreshers later next year. To help facilitate this, Yarra Plenty provided each branch with a 'digital petting zoo', comprising a Sony eReader, iPad and Kindle, for staff to borrow and play with in order to become more familiar with these particular devices. Budget permitting, it’s a wonderful way for staff to learn through play.

I asked flexnib and snail for pointers in starting me off and ended up with more information than I thought originally possible. Even though an eReader may take a particular format (for example .epub), there was no guarantee that actually buying a title in that format would allow me to read it in a device that accepted .epub. Try explaining that to someone who wants a ‘Kindle’!

So what did I end up getting? I bought a cheap Gear2Go from Big W :) It’s compatible with .epub, pdf, .txt, .rtf and .html. It shows pictures in colour and is backlit, although not with the glare of the iPad. Battery life is ok, could be better, but for the price I can live with it.

Who else has gone to the dark side??

#blog12daysxmas 2 Managing my information

It's starting to get harder and harder for me (and I am sure others) to manage accounts I have with various Web 2 tools that I have been playing with (and I'm mindful that I set a January challenge to play with another 5!)

I use Pinterest, Springpad, Clibe, Dropbox and Google Reader, just to name a few. I log in and to be honest, I stay logged in. While some may be appalled at my lack of security, the truth is, if I had to log in every time I wanted to access them, then I wouldn't bother. Some sites take this out of my hands by logging me out automatically if I don't use it for a few hours. The need to keep checking my information makes me think twice before joining something else 'just in case' I may need it at some point. Let's face it, if I wasn't using this site regularly, would I even remember it was there if the opportunity came to use it? Probably not.

It would be lovely to have an aggregator that could somehow do everything all my Web 2 tools do. There is always just one thing that I would like a tool to do that is done superbly by another tool. And now I have been told about Path, another smart journal. Is it any different to the other sites I visit regularly? Not available as an app for a Windows phone makes me less inclined to try it now, however I do have an iTouch and it is probably available for the iPad...

Maybe this will be a January trial :-)

What Web 2 tools do you use and what have you decided to get rid of?

#blog12daysxmas 1 Catch up

Today saw me start another blogging challenge, in the hope that it will kick start my writing and reflecting again. I started the #blogeverydayjune challenge with the same hope and that sadly fizzled out by July 1. If however, I can write for the entire 12 days, then I have at least achieved something.

In January this year, as part of the blogging challenge, I wrote about maintaining a healthy balance in life. As I was going to be home for most of 2011 on maternity leave (this changed - more later), I felt I couldn't quite refer to the post as maintaining a 'work/life' balance. I updated my progress here and wanted to see how much on track I have kept up with things.

1. I will continue to avoid buying items for my scrapbooking stash so I can use
what I have faster (this has been in place for almost 4 years and nothing seems
to have depleted...)

This is still well and truly on track. Although one would think that depletion would occur through heavy use, which has not really happened....

2. I will make all my Christmas cards again this year.

Happened and posted before the end of November!

3. Accomplished by June

4. Accomplished by June

5. I will continue with Project 365 for Anthony

This was completed on December 13, Anthony's first birthday.

6. I will finish crocheting my granny stripe blanket.

Yes I will...

7. I will unpick some jumpers that I no longer want and reuse the wool

Accomplished

8. I will finish scrapbooking Project 365 for 2009-2010

Ongoing, however have progressed majorly

9. I will host more crafternoons

Accomplished. Met with Gemma once a month till she went back to work and with Rachel once a week till I started kitchen renovations

10. I will experiment more with PhotoShop

Done and ongoing. Learned how to use digital brushes.

To up the ante (and potentially give me something to blog about) I am setting a challenge to learn about 5 new social networking tools during January.

Post 30, Careers paths

I was thinking today about the various career paths that are open to librarians, as well as how we ended up where we have. I am going to keep this post short and sweet and finish it by asking some questions of you all.

Why did you decide on librarianship as a career? When did you realise this was the profession you wanted to work in? Did you study as an undergraduate or postgraduate? If PG, is this a second, or even third, career for you?

Looking forward to some discussion!

Post 29 June card challenge, days 25-28

Day 25 Make a vintage type card inspired by lace. I tried to keep to shades of pink for this one. The pink mat was done using the EK Success daisy border trim punch. I lined it up centrally on each side and just did one punch, so it gave a framed effect. Day 27. Make a card with handmade flowers on it. I used a fabric yoyo I had made that coordinated with the rest of the card.Day 28. Make a card with some fabric on it. I used a design I machine embroidered a while ago. The card was finished off with faux stitching in a pink to match the design.