So it seems to me that this is the usual philosophical agonising that Librarians undertake about 'the role of the library' and 'the image of the librarian' in a slightly modified form.
My background is public libraries, where generally speaking we were so busy we didn't have time for this, so generally we just left this kind of soul searching and image making to those within the field plenty of free time on their hands. Frankly, the image that librarians were either supposed to have or wanted to have seemed a million miles from my reality then. I seemed to spend all my time sorting out staffing, sorting out complaints, ejecting the unruly, fixing up building and computer problems, squeezing the very last cent out of the book budget, and generally trying to make the library budget perform miracles. Most shifts had acustomer to staff ratio of 50:1, so reference work was a matter of squeezing one query around another, do a bit and leave them with it, do another query, come back to check up. On and on, so that after several hours you brain was just spinning.
So I'm now hardened into the "I don't care about the image/purpose/values" camp, with a general expectation that working under a blazing hail of customer suggestions, demands and anti-social behaviours, you will get the message about what works & doesn't work, what the customers want (and that's a bottomless pit) and do, and battling with the funding body to actually get it for them. I've never had any problem identifying customer desires, the trick is rolling it out to them within the budget and staff workloads. So Web 2.0 (orLibrary 2.0) better be Cost Effective 2.0, with Time Effective 2.0 thrown in, or it ain't going to work.
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
#17 Playing around with PBWiki
OK, I played around with it, added this Blog to the Favourite Blog's list (UBUTL).
I think there is a lot of potential in Wikis, but can't let the password drift into the wrong hands. Put simply, I think Wikis are the best thing to happen on the Web in quite few years.
Kind of odd trying to remember how to put in HTML code again, I haven't done that in years. MS FrontPage did it all for me, and I forgot the format. You kind of forget just how much formatting goes into these websites.
Now, where is #15.. I think I got distracted out of that by my children. I once wrote down every interruption as I was writing an email. It was frightening, every sentence almost was some distraction. A 5-6 sentence paragraph took me 20 minutes to write.
I think there is a lot of potential in Wikis, but can't let the password drift into the wrong hands. Put simply, I think Wikis are the best thing to happen on the Web in quite few years.
Kind of odd trying to remember how to put in HTML code again, I haven't done that in years. MS FrontPage did it all for me, and I forgot the format. You kind of forget just how much formatting goes into these websites.
Now, where is #15.. I think I got distracted out of that by my children. I once wrote down every interruption as I was writing an email. It was frightening, every sentence almost was some distraction. A 5-6 sentence paragraph took me 20 minutes to write.
Sunday, 24 June 2007
#16 Wikis..
I have to say I like Wikipedia, primarily because it does a reasonable job of sourcing Web references. We are creatures of our culture, so even the same sentence read by two different people will be taken with different assumptions & interpretations. So really everything is subjective (except maths). However, Wikipedia seems to me to try and go directly to first hand sources and reputable commentary, and kudos to them for that.
However, Im always wary of anonymous or pseudonym publications. If someone is prepared to put their name and reputation on their opinion, I can gauge my respect for that.
However, Im always wary of anonymous or pseudonym publications. If someone is prepared to put their name and reputation on their opinion, I can gauge my respect for that.
Folksonomy
'Folksonomy' tops most irritating list
I'm not surprised. I do like the way English is unregulated and uncontrolled in it's use. New words are simply made up, they rise and fall. But truly there are times when geeks and marketing people should be chained up and beaten with the Oxford Dictionary.
#14 Technorati
Clearly I just don't get this..
After the explosion in junk mail I got from signing up to Flickr and Blogger, I'm a bit wary of signing onto anything else.
However, searching Technorati seems .. well like voyerism.
For example, a search for Hurstville produces (amongst others) http://dorcashan.blogspot.com/2007/06/out-of-ordinary.html
and
http://simply-natalie.livejournal.com/1328.html
why do I ever need to know that.. why do people even write this rubbish.. it is like a consciousness dump. It isn't even well written!
For me, Technorati is really GarbageDumpati.. a search tool for rubbish. Might be a great search tool, but if the entire range of results is rubbish.. well it finds rubbish.
After the explosion in junk mail I got from signing up to Flickr and Blogger, I'm a bit wary of signing onto anything else.
However, searching Technorati seems .. well like voyerism.
For example, a search for Hurstville produces (amongst others) http://dorcashan.blogspot.com/2007/06/out-of-ordinary.html
and
http://simply-natalie.livejournal.com/1328.html
why do I ever need to know that.. why do people even write this rubbish.. it is like a consciousness dump. It isn't even well written!
For me, Technorati is really GarbageDumpati.. a search tool for rubbish. Might be a great search tool, but if the entire range of results is rubbish.. well it finds rubbish.
Thursday, 21 June 2007
#13 Tagging and del.icio.us
Words that just chill the spine..
"Install buttons now >>"
err.. no thanks. I have enough crap in my registry already.
"Install buttons now >>"
err.. no thanks. I have enough crap in my registry already.
#12 Rollyo
Fallen a bit behind here, since I've been a triffle unwell this past week. Some sort of gastric thing sucking the energy out of me.
So I started up Rollyo and registered. I got as far as getting a search complilation on 'Hurstville' running, but for the life of me I couldn't get the search to refine the results down to a useful list. I had more trouble trying to limit the results than getting results, and adding extra websites just exacerbated that. An exercise in quantity over relevance..
So I started up Rollyo and registered. I got as far as getting a search complilation on 'Hurstville' running, but for the life of me I couldn't get the search to refine the results down to a useful list. I had more trouble trying to limit the results than getting results, and adding extra websites just exacerbated that. An exercise in quantity over relevance..
Saturday, 16 June 2007
The GIMP image editior
Looking at all things graphical, this is a freeware image editor that is supposed to be the equal of PhotoShop. I don't know, I haven't tried it.
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
http://www.gimp.org/
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
http://www.gimp.org/
Thursday, 14 June 2007
#11 LibraryThing
Stuck a widget into the sidebar showing 5 books I've read/attempted to read in recent times.
I need to spend a bit more time exploring this, because I may have some uses for this sort of thing..LibraryThing I should say.
I need to spend a bit more time exploring this, because I may have some uses for this sort of thing..LibraryThing I should say.
Sunday, 10 June 2007
#10 Image Generators
Lolcats.. - basically adds a top and bottom text line to photos.. this is better than Photoshop how?
Monday, 4 June 2007
#9 RSS Feeding frenzy
What the heck.. more feeds
went to http://www.rssfeeds.com/ to pick out a new feed or two..
Library Link of the Day
&
Bills Digests
went to http://www.rssfeeds.com/ to pick out a new feed or two..
Library Link of the Day
&
Bills Digests
#8 RSS feeds
Kind of jumped into this already, and put up the ATO, News.com and Learning 2.0 RSS feeds earlier.
3 very different stories
ATO Feed has a couple per day, and generally works pretty well, if unspeakably boring.
News.com rushes by without any hope of comprehensive coverage. It's a glimpse feeder, and if you happen to spot an item of interest, click quick!
Learning 2.0 seems to have stopped. Last post was 13th Jan 2007.
I was intending to put the DEWR feed on today, since the Media Releases out of the Department of Employment & Workplace Relations seem to me to take civil service impartiality to a whole new level! Headlines like "Labor on AWAs Nothing More Than a Political Stunt" and "Hypocrisy of Union Bosses Exposed" are obviously the new neutrality of the public service, and certainly not a publicly funded outlet for Joe Hockey's political statements.
However, DEWR doesn't have any RSS feeds, so let's just hope there is some money put aside in the billion dollar advertising campaign that the government has planned to let us, the tax paying and voting population, know what issues are of concern to us. Is there an adult in this country that is NOT aware of WorkChoices?
Oddly, I've been reading of Athenian democracy in classical Greece. Democracy here was a far more participative affair, where the citizens voted directly on the issues, and attendance of voting citizens was compulsory, (mind you voting citizens was a minority of the population, about 5-10,000 of a city of 40-50,000). Coming from a background of local government, citizen participation in democratic institutions interests me (call me strange).
Even in classical times, voting blocks would form, but there was never any reference to the need to inform the citizenry of the issues. Indeed the issues frequently developed right there in the forum, in sometimes lethal ways. Politicians had to convince a majority of each issue, not every 3-4 years. After many years in local government I have become disenchanted by party politics, and politicians. Liberal, Labor or independant, there are remarkably few who wouldn't sell their mother for a superannuation package, and even fewer that remain trustworthy.
I've digressed, but my point being, do we really need to spend money on informing citizens of the issues they should be voting on (and lets remember none of us voted for WorkChoices, it came out only after the last election), or should we be looking at ways to more directly vote on issues and participate in government. If technology allowed up to vote directly on bills in parliament, I suspect politicians would do a much better job of keeping us informed on why we should vote for or against it, rather than the need for a spending spree at the end to attempt to influence the electorate. What possible justification is there for a democratic government telling the demos what to think and vote on, surely it should be the other way.
3 very different stories
ATO Feed has a couple per day, and generally works pretty well, if unspeakably boring.
News.com rushes by without any hope of comprehensive coverage. It's a glimpse feeder, and if you happen to spot an item of interest, click quick!
Learning 2.0 seems to have stopped. Last post was 13th Jan 2007.
I was intending to put the DEWR feed on today, since the Media Releases out of the Department of Employment & Workplace Relations seem to me to take civil service impartiality to a whole new level! Headlines like "Labor on AWAs Nothing More Than a Political Stunt" and "Hypocrisy of Union Bosses Exposed" are obviously the new neutrality of the public service, and certainly not a publicly funded outlet for Joe Hockey's political statements.
However, DEWR doesn't have any RSS feeds, so let's just hope there is some money put aside in the billion dollar advertising campaign that the government has planned to let us, the tax paying and voting population, know what issues are of concern to us. Is there an adult in this country that is NOT aware of WorkChoices?
Oddly, I've been reading of Athenian democracy in classical Greece. Democracy here was a far more participative affair, where the citizens voted directly on the issues, and attendance of voting citizens was compulsory, (mind you voting citizens was a minority of the population, about 5-10,000 of a city of 40-50,000). Coming from a background of local government, citizen participation in democratic institutions interests me (call me strange).
Even in classical times, voting blocks would form, but there was never any reference to the need to inform the citizenry of the issues. Indeed the issues frequently developed right there in the forum, in sometimes lethal ways. Politicians had to convince a majority of each issue, not every 3-4 years. After many years in local government I have become disenchanted by party politics, and politicians. Liberal, Labor or independant, there are remarkably few who wouldn't sell their mother for a superannuation package, and even fewer that remain trustworthy.
I've digressed, but my point being, do we really need to spend money on informing citizens of the issues they should be voting on (and lets remember none of us voted for WorkChoices, it came out only after the last election), or should we be looking at ways to more directly vote on issues and participate in government. If technology allowed up to vote directly on bills in parliament, I suspect politicians would do a much better job of keeping us informed on why we should vote for or against it, rather than the need for a spending spree at the end to attempt to influence the electorate. What possible justification is there for a democratic government telling the demos what to think and vote on, surely it should be the other way.
Friday, 1 June 2007
#7 Creating Content in your Blog
To a cetain extent that is what the visual tour is entended to do, to try and give a new staff member a visual guide to the library, though I have to say I have had better editing tools to get the picture & text sync'd. I uploaded the pictures to Flickr, but I never seemed to get them to load properly from there.
I had a look at Mosaicr and Mapr, which I found pretty useless really. Why I would want to turn a picture into a mosaic I can't imagine, what purpose does it serve? Mapr could be good if you can upload your own maps, and then add graphics on top of the map, but I'm pretty sure photoshop can do the job better if that was your desire. It would be a good floorplan design tool if you could insert photos of furnishings into a blueprint for fitout purposes. On the other hand, the architects fittings codes work well anyway!
So this brings me to the main point, to what purpose is some technology? Blogging in particular seems to be the re-iteration or linkage of other net published material, interspersed with personal opinions like this one. Perhaps there are some useful collections of materials and thought, but they seem few and far between.
So whilst there is a fun factor here, one has to ask how useful it really is? Things like Feeds just come through so fast it is more glimpse technology than any serious research tool. Generally I'd regard Forum pages as a better place for discourse and the sharing and critique of ideas. Blogs seems kind of shallow..
I had a look at Mosaicr and Mapr, which I found pretty useless really. Why I would want to turn a picture into a mosaic I can't imagine, what purpose does it serve? Mapr could be good if you can upload your own maps, and then add graphics on top of the map, but I'm pretty sure photoshop can do the job better if that was your desire. It would be a good floorplan design tool if you could insert photos of furnishings into a blueprint for fitout purposes. On the other hand, the architects fittings codes work well anyway!
So this brings me to the main point, to what purpose is some technology? Blogging in particular seems to be the re-iteration or linkage of other net published material, interspersed with personal opinions like this one. Perhaps there are some useful collections of materials and thought, but they seem few and far between.
So whilst there is a fun factor here, one has to ask how useful it really is? Things like Feeds just come through so fast it is more glimpse technology than any serious research tool. Generally I'd regard Forum pages as a better place for discourse and the sharing and critique of ideas. Blogs seems kind of shallow..
Visual Tour of Hurstville Library Pt 2
Back Right corner, where we keep the Newspaper archives.
The back corridor with the work area on the right hand side by the window, and my workstation at the far corner.
The work area for the Library staff, and the occasional visitor.
My workstation, filled with paperwork and child's artwork. Note the window views!
My view out southwards. Look hard and you can see a tiny stretch of blue, my water view of Georges River! Must be high tide.
Visual Tour of Hurstville Library Pt 1
The welcoming steel grey exterior of the office shows that the ATO really is trying to overcome it's image as the most feared organisation is Australia. Note the grey block in the bottom right corner, that used to have the organisation name on it, but it has been removed.Lift to Level 2, turn left and left again. The Library entry
On your right as you enter. The Front Desk of the Library, for Issues, Enquiries and Returns. The public face of the Library.
Same counter, but oblique views into the public access areas.
To the left of the entry, the reading area for current newspapers and journals
Oblique left view, into the shelves of Primary legal material, journals and books of taxation and tax law.
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