My own thing

I’m glad I’ve finally got round to writing this post as I was greeted by this literary quote when I loaded iGoogle:

"Siempre imaginé que el Paraíso sería algún tipo de biblioteca." "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library" - Jorge Luis Borges (Argentinian writer)

It was quite apt as this was on MSN:

Most beautiful library

Paul Bernhardt/Lonely Planet
Looking down at the interior of the Real Gabinete Portugues de Leitura, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil. Built in 1837, it's home to more than 350,000 works, many dating back to the 16th century.

I’ve had a quite a few flattering remarks from Cam23 bloggers saying how much they like my writing and that I should carry on, so here I am! Thank you Emma, Jenni, Celine, Helen and Libgeek, this is because of you. I expect it will be more sporadic than before, but I’ll definitely be blogging about our library video when it’s ready and I will embed the YouTube version into the blog post. We filmed the last scene the other day. I’m afraid I can’t reveal any more than I already have done on my @judgesarah Twitter feed, but if you click here, courtesy of Kirsty, you’ll find a rather amusing taster. Warning, it contains Andy’s knees.

Before I get started on the thing that inspired this post, a few updates. I’ve finally realised I can change the settings of my JournoTwit page. Of course it’s now purple! JournoTwit was recommended to me as it’s a brilliant website which consolidates all my Twitter information, making it a lot easier to see new tweets, including when someone mentions me. I’ve got columns for my favourite people, BBC news and the Cam23 chatter.

Okay, onto the reason why I’m here writing this. There may not be any more things to analyse, but here is an analysis of my own thing, hence the title. I was one of the librarians who went to the Central Library tour and I was sufficiently struck by what I saw to give me enough material to write about. It was over a week ago now, but a little distance only helps you to gain perspective. Something I wish people would understand sometimes.

I love the quote over the entrance; unfortunately it wasn’t there when we visited. It’s probably incredibly uncool to admit it, but I was a library kid and I'm proud of it. I have very fond memories of the old library. I was in there every Saturday and I thank my parents for encouraging my love of reading, learning and particularly books. I used to have to use my parents’ cards as well as my own because I wanted to take out so many books. I used to browse the shelves and then when I found a book, I sat on the floor and read it there and then. I used to watch the people walk by in Lion Yard below and spend hours there just loving the whole essence of the place; you’d have to drag me away.

What changed? Well the library shut, for four years. In the time it took to renovate the place, with the Grand Arcade growing around it, the technological advances and the endless problems (such as not factoring the weight of the books in so the building sank, that may just be a fabulous rumour though), I learned to live without it. Plus I still had the little library in the village where I live. Since it reopened, I’d only been in once before the tour and that was to while away half an hour or so. I just stayed in the foyer looking at the ‘quick picks’. So a tour was most welcome and I hoped that it would bring back some of the enthusiasm I used to have for the place. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be the case, but it may not have been the library’s fault, or our guide’s who was very knowledgeable, experienced and a long-running employee. I reckon it was mine as I have grown up and moved on.

It was a very grown-up tour as the first thing that became clear was money and natural light issues; strip lighting never makes for a good atmosphere. Right beside the cafe is an exhibition section which people can hire out. The much celebrated Cambridge Collection which is all about the history of Cambridge and its surroundings and includes old maps, communal archives and local documents, is independently looked after. There aren’t many librarians left; I think it was 25 throughout the entire county. They also seem to be keen to promote the library such as the scheme they have running in order to get children reading. If you have children, they will enjoy the bright yellow book train, the games and the toys. The quick picks section is also a good idea, if a nightmare for the librarians as it isn’t organised in the slightest. There are some nice snugs there and the window seat allows you to watch the world go by underneath. I can’t believe they didn’t organise their fiction books into categories at first. I really like their stickers; a gun for war, a magnifying glass for mystery, a heart for romance and so on.

However the way they organise the staff is exceptional. No one spends too much time in one place; they have a very colourful timetable; the floors are all colour-coded which makes finding things a lot easier, as well as locating where you are. There is a back office, but most of the employees work out at the desks on each floor. There is also a brilliant book sorting machine, complete with conveyor belt, which is attached to the book return slot next to the entrance. It uses RFID which I hate; those stickers are impossible to remove. The self-issue machines (in English and Polish) and information points (computers) are scattered throughout the library, and there is Wi-Fi access anywhere in the entire building. Unsurprisingly the VHS and CD sections are empty of people. This is not only due to the advent of DVDs, but also because there is the BFI film room where you can access local history films as well as watch movies.
Even though the new Central Library is superb, I still miss the old one, in the same way I miss the old Parkside pool and the old MGM cinema. To me however, the new library is not so enticing a place. The only comfortable areas are the quick picks, the children’s area and the BFI film room. I still remember the stuffy, velvety, worn, deep blue carpets of the old library, the dark wood shelving, the children’s play room with the round window, the ground floor entrance and the soothingly intimate lighting that only just gave you enough to see by. I could've easily spent the whole day there. But that’s just my nostalgia talking, as usual.

Turn

I wouldn't say I've done an about-turn; I still prefer to do things the old fashioned way: pen and paper as opposed to a computer, tangible CD rather than an ethereal mp3 file and face-to-face instead of phone, skype, email, IM or text. I sometimes feel like Alice in Wonderland with all this new technology, stumbling through a completely bizarre world that's like ours, but not quite right. All the advances are starting to make me feel small, but the power they give just blows everything out of proportion. To further the analogy, the Queen of Hearts is undoubtedly Steve Jobs, bringing out new innovations each year and cutting his opposition down to size at every turn. The Mad Hatter is Mark Zuckerberg, mastermind behind facebook, a genius who has lost his sense of self. Bill Gates is the White Rabbit, a minor character now but still doing a lot behind the scenes, and seemingly always rushing around, never having enough time. The Jabberwocky is a synecdoche for all the nefarious characters who exploit everything in their path: the hackers, the viruses and the spammers. Tweedledum and Tweedledee can represent Twitter, voices struggling to be heard in the sheer mass of communication, saying the same thing over and over, finishing people's sentences and trying to outdo each other. And the Cheshire Cat? All of us. Sending out every aspect of our personalities into the internet ether, until all that's left is a grinning facade. Still looking out for a caterpillar smoking a hookah though...However I must admit, some of the applications we've been looking at have turned my head, if not made me do a double-take. I had one of those the other day; a driver honked his horn at me and I wasn't even wearing anything special. I'm not one of those who takes offense at that kind of thing, but I wish the guy who did it was a bit younger, more attractive and not a white van driver. Here is what I was wearing, sorry about the blatant advertising on the bottle:

My friend Chris' little brother

Being of the right generation (and having a boss who is an advocate of web 2.0 helps), I was using quite a number of the applications already, along with others we haven't covered thanks to my technical wizard of a brother. He's recently got a smartphone and is having fun downloading the free apps. I must admit the GPS one is quite cool; I'm a fan of Google Earth and Street View as well, the supposed Big Brother; privacy issues are blown out of all proportion. I'm on Street View, several times, when looking from behind; I can't believe I missed the camera going past, though it looks like me and my Dad are unpacking the car after coming back from holiday:

Google Street View

The applications I already use are Zotero, facebook personally and professionally, Google Calendar for work timetables, wikis, Delicious - my colleague is well up on it, see their blog here: - Youtube and RSS feeds though I barely have anything to do with ours as it's automatic. I've started to use Doodle, but only because others are: the book club, other communities and colleagues for example. I created a Twitter account for Cam23 and have tried to update it daily, that reminds me... I'm not sure I'll carry it on if others abandon it, but a few friends I've made within the library community tweet, so maybe I will. I'll use LibraryThing for my books at home, but when I find the time. The only ones I know I won't use are LinkedIn as I think professional networking is more insalibrious than social networking (I prefer to make friends with someone I've actually met and genuinely like first and have someone want to help me, rather than contacting an avatar and using them for my own advancement), podcasts as I am disinclined to acquiesce to watching them and Slideshare as I prefer to create my own from scratch. I'm using Flickr more as the Google images set up has changed and it's a lot less user-friendly. iGoogle has been the most successful with me as I can see the weather forecast, the latest news and what's happening each day on our Google Calendar all in the same place. Nevertheless the best bits are the daily literary quote and Calvin and Hobbes cartoons. Here's today's for old time's sake:I can't believe that we've come to the end and I'm missing the closing ceremony; it clashes with my summer holiday. I love writing a blog post every week and I may even keep it up. There's our new library induction video for a start; filming began yesterday and carried on today. It's going surprisingly well and has ben a lot of fun, but can't say much more than that as we're sworn to secrecy. Check my Twitter account for more details @judgesarah. There's also the library blog which is going to usurp our written newsletter. I think the last word should go to Wordle, I adore the eclecticness of my tags:

Re-Offender

The word wiki always reminds me of that Will Smith song: Wild Wild West. The song is good, but the film is bad.



My experience of wikis is pretty extensive as I’ve used them in practically every job I’ve had, except for my paper round, retail jobs and when I processed cheques for a bank. My typing skills come from that job, but it felt like I was working in a stereotypical movie office with the cubicles, alienation and looking at the back of someone’s head all the time, only without Steve Carell, less people going berserk and no water cooler moments. We even had a David Brent-alike boss, a Mackenzie Crook weirdo and an office romance.

Anyway, each of my workplaces used wikis in different ways. I’m going to have to remember them chronologically, which may also highlight how the use of wikis progressed. When I first left university, I had a temporary job doing data entry at the police station. I managed to make myself indispensable which lead me to become an admin assistant. I helped out in all different departments, had my own paper round and everything. I also got to meet criminals, process stop and search forms, see the things they seize/save in the property office including the armoury, cycle and drugs store, experience the darker side of life and discover that policemen are only human which is actually quite scary, unsurprising and altered the way I looked at life. The wiki was used so we could all access the databases, update the website and share documents. It was one of the best jobs I've ever had; the people, the varied work and the atmosphere of the place was so gratifying. I had real job satisfaction, which I know I'll never have on the same level again. Cambridge 2000

My next position was as a content editor for a hotel reservations company. There was a wiki as part of the website, which included a content editing section and a customer review section. We used the former to publish our hotel descriptions, edit profiles and process change requests, sending the proposed text to each other and to the hotels themselves. The latter we used to translate customer reviews into different languages, alter mistakes, though never changing the score or text of the actual review, and deleting any obscene remarks. I could tell you some stories, not as dramatic as the ones from the police station though, but I'm sworn to secrecy.

Lastly, I was a researcher. Here's where I worked, a lovely location, but not a lovely job:

eddiemcfish

Now we didn’t use a wiki in that place, but we should’ve done as it would’ve made our jobs so much easier. It would’ve meant less work, less misunderstandings and a more efficient system. We received a lot of similar research requests and there wasn’t a search function in place showing what we’d already done; it meant hunting through folders which we often gave up on. There were also several requests from different people for the same project; the lack of communication was soul-destroying. A wiki would not only have meant less emails shooting around the office, but also have made it a more sociable and nicer environment. That’s one of the reasons why I left that place; there was a very intense sense of isolation, even within our small team, let alone the wider office. People even sent each other emails and instant messages, even when they were sitting next to each other. It really got to me and I felt like a deaf mute by the end! Idiotically, I changed jobs at the height of the financial crisis, I don't know how I got away with that; it could've gone horribly wrong.

That leads me to now. In our library, there is a wiki on our website; our internet portal where you can access our eBook library, electronic resources, book sale list, guides and tutorials, as well as lots of other information. The wiki ensures the whole team can update the website, add files and post announcements. The entire Judge Business School uses the platform and each course has its own website and therefore wiki. We are actually changing this platform soon to use Microsoft’s SharePoint software, thanks to a lot of hard work from our superb IT team, which means everything will be integrated, searchable and hopefully lead to better interdepartmental communication within the whole building. That last photo is mine

Flowers in the window

I feel very optimistic today and a Manic Street Preachers song is on my mp3 player, So Why So Sad, how ironic. It came on gradually, but it's built up so much that I now feel like dancing in the rain, going around hugging everyone and grinning so far from ear to ear, that I want to pass it on like Joker from Batman, without the fatal consequences of course. The main reason for my contentment is we've had stress management course today. I feel very relaxed, positive and in control. The Manic Street Preachers may be superb, especially You Stole the Sun from my Heart (I've hunted the song out on my mp3 player as the mere mention of it makes me want to listen to it), but the happiest song that always comes to my mind is Flowers in the Window by Travis. The story behind the writing of it is hilarious if not quite as happy; it features alcohol, drunk band members and a lonely Fran Healy. I'm thinking of it at the moment as I've just been on Youtube, enforced I might add by Cam23:



It may sum up my mood, act as shameless plugging for my favourite band and let me dwell on the 90's (again), but it also describes Youtube, look at the lyrics:

Wow look at you now
Flowers in the window
It's such a lovely day
And I'm glad you feel the same
Cause to stand up, out in the crowd
You are one in a million

Yes the single was actually released in 2003, but I'm trying not to be so pedantic; it's a symptom of stress for one and it's also just really annoying. The song lyrics are ironic when I think about them, because you are only one in a million on Youtube. All these people, all these videos, all these flowers in windows, it's overwhelming, but mostly overwhelmingly positive. These people simply want to connect. Although if you do become infamous because of it, like that poor lightsaber kid, it can be a curse as much as a promotional tool. Youtube is for watercoolers, a way of watching music videos, old comedy sketches and Jackass type antics. It's also a medium for indulging nostalgia, schadenfreude and fetishes. I've always been annoyed you can't download videos off of Youtube, but I've never had a blog I can embed them into before, this is brilliant!

Okay, this is why I don't go on Youtube. I clicked on a few of the Cam23 video links and then spent the next half an hour simply watching the suggestions that appear on the right-hand side. I barely watched the Lady Gaga video, was it intentionally that awful? Whose idea was that? And who thought to put it on Youtube? Americans have no shame. I found myself watching videos of Captain Kirk saying he should've been a librarian, Matthew Broderick singing a terrible librarian song and a Monty Python gorilla librarian sketch. The best one I found was the Cookie Monster in the library video, which someone's posted before. Sorry, I couldn't remember who.



I managed to refrain from delving into a Sesame Street nostalgia trip, somehow, even though I came across videos of my favourite character the Count. I managed to keep from looking up Muppets snippets as well, though I do have the Phenomenon video on my mp3 player.

Youtube may be separate from podcasts, but they are part of the same family; related but on the surface they seem to have totally different parents. Youtube is the equivalent of Bart Simpson, the "do what I feel like" kid: reckless, attention-seeking and brazen. Whereas podcasts are like Lisa Simpson: practical, informative and helpful with occasional moments of childishness. I am not speaking from experience as I have never watched or created a podcast, but I have been associated with them. The film magazines I avidly read advertise them; their writers always make them when they go to awards ceremonies, ComicCon and when they have something important to divulge. Podcasts are part of the Cambridge Film Festival, or they were when I did reviews for it, and I know my community radio station used to do them before they went bust as well. The station is back up and running now though, see. I'm afraid I refuse to use a Mac, iPods or iTunes or any Apple products on principle; I feel the same way about Apple as I do about facebook and Tesco. My views can be read here. There was a great recent episode of Futurama satirising web 2.0, Apple and the iPhone, or the eyephone as they called it:
I will definitely use Google docs, particularly when I do my presentation for TeachMeet. We've used it before at work for distributing timetables. I like the drawing function, but Paint is so much easier to use. I've just remembered, last Christmas, my brother set up a Google doc: a spreadsheet with each of our present lists on it. It was fantastic! We listed the things we wanted, their RRP, website links and everything. Then he added a column that was kept hidden where we put our names against the things that we wanted to get for each other so we didn't end up with two of the same thing. It worked really well and no one cheated and peeked, at least I didn't...

I've been very lax on the Calvin and Hobbes department and it's a particularly good one today.

More than us

I used to hate doing bibliographies when I was at university, mostly because I’m totally disorganised and had to hunt out the books I referenced again as I had inadvertently missed out an important piece of information. My university also deducted points if we didn’t use the correct citation style which I feel is a bit pedantic, but there you go. So I reckon students have it too easy now, using software that not only builds the list of references for you, but also converts it into whichever style you want. I have used Zotero before, but not for a while, and I’d forgotten how much easier it is to use than EndNote, thank goodness! Plus it’s free. I attended the Zotero training session that Andy talks about in his blog post and the student who led it was most convincing. It has a lot of good features including the sharing option which would be fantastic for reading lists. Also, every month our library has a journal club, it’s similar to a book club and we take an hour to discuss an article on an element of librarianship one of us has chosen. It ensures we stay involved in the library profession, get together as a team and keep up-to-date with new events, innovations and information. I’m getting better about speaking up as well now. So Zotero will help us build a library of relevant articles we can dip into. However EndNote is still better if a little more complicated; EndNote Web doesn't have all the features of the complete EndNote. I see it as a companion piece along with Zotero, something you can use when you don't have the full software, like having a snack when you don't have time for a meal. Photo by Matt [the esoteric introvert]

I promised Kirsty that I would write about how libraries can use social networking sites; I deliberately didn’t come to a conclusion in my facebook post as I feel that it is an intensely subjective issue and there will never be a universal opinion. We discussed exactly this issue in our most recent journals club, that’s why I’ve held off writing about it until now. We couldn’t come up with a definitive answer on how to use facebook, but we all agreed that students don’t want to be ’friends’ with their library and they certainly don’t want to be sociable with their librarians. Therefore I’ve chosen it as the web 2.0 tool I’m going to use for marketing. The main reason for this is that I don’t think you can use facebook in any other way. There are one or two exceptions though. I helped a student extensively with a project and he found me on facebook. I accepted his request, just to see what he’s about and found that he’d been up to the same tricks with everyone. Needless to say I quickly deleted him again. It felt as wrong for me as it would for most students. I didn’t want to see his holiday photos, or find out what he got up to at the weekend, nor was I interested in who his other ‘friends’ were. So instead of using it as a social platform, it should be another point of contact, just like the portal to our databases, our Twitter account and the main library page. On our facebook profile there are links to our information resources, photos and our library induction video which we’re excitingly refilming for the new influx of students, but most of our friends are other libraries and colleagues. We now combine our status updates with our tweets using Hootsuite. However the problem is maintenance; ‘stale’ profiles where there hasn’t been much activity for a while are quickly forgotten. It is difficult, as well as time-consuming, to sustain the freshness.
(By me) The only lake in Scotland, Lake of Menteith, Trossachs

More than us was the first Travis track to be played on Eastenders, that’s when they knew they’d made it. It also refers to the world of social networking; the tendency when using facebook is to make it all about yourself, despite the fact that you’re supposed to be socialising with people all over the world. However in the case of marketing, it is surely the whole point.

Driftwood

This is the one I was dreading, the social networking site. I see it as not so much a time-waster, but as a hungry ravager of time, a ruthless agent of procrastination and a depressing symbol of how we now socialise more virtually than we do literally. I am on facebook in spite of myself, and only because I ashamedly gave into peer pressure in the same way I gave in and got a mobile phone, a MySpace page and then a facebook page. Interestingly, Word just recognised MySpace and corrected the capitalisation, but it doesn’t like facebook and wants to separate it into two words... That said there are some nice touches such as setting the language to English (pirate) to make it less boring. If you haven’t done already, try it, it’s awesome; your profile becomes your cap’n’s log, your wall becomes your plank, events become grog fests, news becomes booty and friends become mateys and hearties. There are also some cool ideas such as when you decline someone’s friend request it sends them to the depths, searching is scouring and you don't delete you throw it overboard.

I started on MySpace, and I’m going to regret owning up to this, through a rumour that they were making a sequel/prequel/reimagining of Free Willy (a childhood favourite) with the late great Steve Irwin’s precocious daughter Bindi. I was looking through the forum on IMDb and found out that the star of the original films, Jason James Richter, has a MySpace page as he’s now a bit of a rock star. So wanting to check him out, I signed up. I don’t know what made me do it, but I sent him an email and we have kept up sporadic communication since, bonding over our love of philosophy, the Scottish band Travis and obviously films. Then somehow old school friends found me, which made me build a snazzy profile page and start doing all the quizzes and I was hooked. So when facebook started and everyone abandoned MySpace, I migrated over.

Well that’s my potted history, so onto the future of facebook, and I’m not talking about the film: The Social Network directed by David Fincher of all people and starring Jesse Eisenberg, Andrew Garfield (the new Spider-Man) and Justin Timberlake?! I’m talking about the future of facebook for me. As I said before I find it boring now, at first I searched out people, even doing positive things like confronting my old school bully of 8 years (distinctly unsatisfying as she hasn’t changed and gave me no “closure”), reconnecting with my old best friend of 8 years (wonderful as we put a lot of water under the bridge) and contacting an old crush who I fancied for also 8 years (he’s still as crushable as ever). What is it about that number? I joined groups such as “I judge you when you use poor grammar”, “I will go out of my way to step on a leaf that looks particularly crunchy”, “Firefly is better than Star Wars because sound cannot travel in space”, “Sydney Bristow would dominate Jack Bauer AND Chuck Norris” and old school networks. I also contributed to the “addicted to...” sites and forums set up by fans of my favourite films and TV series such as the much maligned, underappreciated and misapprehended Alias. I posted lots and lots and lots of photos. And then what?

I rarely go on facebook nowadays and I’m looking for an excuse to do so again. That’s why I’ve named this post after one of my favourite Travis songs, as I feel I’ve washed up on the shores of indifference and want to get back out on the open ocean of enthusiasm again. Not sure that metaphor worked, but you get my drift. :-) Plus it fits with the pirate theme I seem to have going on. We already have a library account with 153 “friends” where we post status updates when new books, tutorials and guides are published, as well as important news. I will look into other Cambridge libraries and the like once I’m on the Cambridge network; I was part of my old university network before. Alex Ristea

The one thing I despise about facebook, apart from the way it was created, its creator (loved that Cambridge trounced the Winklevoss twins in the 2010 boat race) and the way it’s become all dominant, pervasive and omnipresent (I don’t like Tesco for the same reasons), is once you’re on facebook, you’re on, there’s no way of deleting your account. It’s scary that facebook users are now so many that they have become akin to the third most populated country in the world. You also get sent emails if you don’t use it for ages or have hardly anything on there; my brother’s experienced this.

As for LinkedIn, one social networking site is enough. I can see if you were thinking of progressing professionally it would be useful, gathering contacts and the such like, it just isn’t for me. Plus I prefer to do that sort of thing in person. I have used the website before, in my previous job as a researcher for an offshoot of EEDA called East of England International; I had to find email addresses for contacts at companies, the marketing director for example, and I went on LinkedIn when I couldn’t find them on their official websites or on databases. I was doing the business development managers’ jobs for them basically. So it has its uses. I guess with social networking sites, you just have to utilise them productively, rather than poking people, playing games and peering into other peoples’ lives. It’s just so tempting though...

Love will come through

When I first saw LibraryThing I immediately thought of Flixster, which is a similar website, but for films. I have a humongous list of films on there, all with reviews and a star rating:

However I'm over a year's behind on that so I don't see myself doing any better with LibraryThing, especially as I don't think it's as good as Flixster, either the main website or the Facebook application. LibraryThing's layout is simplistic in style, complicated in structure and frankly unattractive; if you're anything like me or your book collection is like mine, it will take you a while to build up your list of books, so you're gonna have to want to spend the time on the website. I would have to do a lot of customising to get my profile and homepage the way I need them. The search function is overly convoluted; basically you have to do two searches, one using the LibraryThing search and the other often limited to the website chosen to import from. Downloading the book profiles from elsewhere is necessary, I chose Amazon due to the pretty pictures, but it causes problems; it timed out several times while searching. The zeitgeist tab is useful, but not obvious enough, I only found it just as I was about to give up; it should be the first port of call. That might've been my fault though... Anyway, that's enough of a rant. Here is my LibraryThing list:
It's taken up with all my Alias spin-off books at the moment, mainly as they're the only ones I know I definitely have, but also to promote my favourite TV series. Everyone should check it out and for those who know nothing about it, you can't go wrong with a sci-fi spy show with a spectacular female role model as the heroine. If that isn't enough, it was created by J. J. Abrams who's the genius behind Lost, Mission Impossible 3 and the new Star Trek.
The season one cast, makes me all nostalgic. Yes, that is Bradley Cooper at the... back to the point. The other problem with LibraryThing is that most people don't know what books they have; film reviewing is a lot easier, I should know I've written film reviews for websites, for the Cambridge Film Festival and reviewed films on community radio. My books are scattered across two houses and five separate rooms: my bedroom and living room, and my old bedroom, the computer room and the loft at my parent's house. Problematic. Then there is the subject of editions, which edition of Jane Eyre do I have? Short of going to my bookshelf and digging out the ISBN, I won't know. It's partly my fault as I'm a perfectionist, I suppose most people would choose the first one on the list rather than the exact one. In my eyes, that defeats the object. Or is that we build a library of books that we've read but don't own? which would be frankly ridiculous. So in that case, the only application I can see for it, is on a professional basis. Which is the reason why we're looking at it. However, Cambridge already has a list of all the books in our libraries; the Newton catalogue makes LibraryThing superfluous if not for the reviews, which we can go to Amazon for anyway. I gather it can recommend books either from your list, or from individual books, but I'm always a bit wary about that as what factors are being used for the recommendations? Of those libraries that do use LibraryThing already, the Central Science library lists only 95 books out of how many? And of those libraries that have integrated it into their catalogues, almost all of them are in the US. There's literally a handful in the UK and another few in Ireland. I feel I'm missing the point on this one. Here's a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon:

Tied to the 90’s

Harpagornis ~away~

A young library assistant (well she’s the youngest in the department) was walking around in her own little world, not seeing the reality of her profession, not particularly knowing where she was going and not really that bothered about it to be perfectly honest. That is until she found a wise group of Cambridge librarians who led her down a new path, one that led to enlightenment as to the ways of the world, one that opened up new possibilities and one where she was not alone in her journey. It made her realise that appearances, age and even gender can be misleading. She may have been at the right age to latch onto all the new technology as it came in: CD’s, the internet, DVD’s, mp3’s, chip and pin, digital radio and HDTV, but it doesn’t mean that she welcomed it. She misses the old Commodore 64, rewinding VHS tapes, recording the Sunday chart show onto cassette (timing it just right so she misses the waffle but not the start of the song), CD players where you can only listen to one album at a time and TV’s with dials instead of controllers (she even remembers a black and white TV). She was the last one to get a mobile in her group of friends, vowing to only use it in emergencies (we all know how that one ends), and she still hasn’t bought a new one, she was the last one on facebook and Twitter and the last to discover the joys of eBay and Amazon. jurvetson

This is a cautionary tale about someone who got complacent, who stopped exploring because they felt they knew all they needed to know and who, in doing so, became naive, stubborn and buried their head in the shifting sands of technology. In this age where we’re all literally connected, supposedly sociable over online networks and where we can speak to and see anyone, anywhere and at any time using webcams, she felt the growing dissension, realising that talking to people over the internet, whether it be posting on peoples’ walls on facebook, Twittering to the ether or via online forums, isn’t any substitute for face-to-face contact. She misses not being able to contact someone and having to live with that uncertainty, she misses answering the phone without knowing who it is and she even misses using phone boxes. Mostly, she misses trust. The internet has made everyone paranoid about privacy, we can check up on people whenever we like as we all have mobile phones, facebook pages and email addresses and everyone is going overboard (pun intended) about the piracy of music, TV and films.

Despite this new path, this cynicism about technology has remained; her overactive imagination has painted a dark picture of a dystopian future where gadgets, the web and robots have taken over everything. The fact that she cannot remember how she survived without computers, the internet and mobile phones only makes it worse. Whatever anyone thinks, she is old enough to remember that time. Nevertheless, that has now been tempered by her following in the wake of that wise group of librarians. She may have at least heard of if not used most of the things she discovered while on her Cam23 journey, but she had never realised their potential before. She has experienced how having a page where she can see lots of websites at once can prevent procrastination. She is enjoying sending and reading the twittering in the ether. She has started to see the benefits of having access to a whole library of beautiful images at your fingertips (it appeals to her sense of beauty, love of humanity’s quirks and her hoarding instinct). The best thing about this path? The journey hasn’t finished yet and it never will.

Tom Rydquist

Why does it always rain on me?

I'm getting really behind on my blog posts and it's getting me down; I don't like playing catch up. My work is like a steady shower at the moment. You know the type, the insidious drizzle that doesn't seem to be that heavy, but then you find yourself soaked through. It gets down your neck, moisturises the skin so it's baby soft, which is nice, and then leaves you looking like a drowned rat. I'm only mentioning this for two reasons, so I can use that particular Travis song as the title and also because my workload will compound on the time I can spend on my analysis of Slideshare and Delicious.

for every action

I can see how it would be useful, in a similar way to why Flickr is useful, but I would only use it for ideas as, unless I find something that perfectly encapsulates what I want to say, I would create my own Powerpoint. It would be so tempting to just use one, so from experience I would try to avoid using Slideshare. However we could put all our library presentations on there for convenience's sake. I found this funny and interesting presentation about "taking library services outside the library walls" which is something our library is going to try.

Library on Location: taking library services outside the library walls

View more presentations from Deborah Fitchett.

Wow, it worked! Clever.

Our library already uses Delicious for our own use, for free websites outside our library databases and for students. I like my own bookmarks within my web browser at work and at home, but it is a good way of sharing your favourite websites with people and you can create different lists for different groups, themes and customised ones for certain people. You can also describe each website which is nifty. I didn't know that you can keep tabs on how many people are using and saving the sites though. I don't think I'd use Delicious outside the workplace as the websites I use I tend to remember anyway so unless I have an attack of amnesia, I don't need it. However one of my colleagues has just spent a lot of time organising a Delicious list of all the relevant free websites that are available which has been incredible useful. Well done and here is their blog.

Mahut lost, sometimes I hate tennis...

Thank you Indiana Stan

The Beautiful Occupation

AELTC

No, not librarianship, though I do find books beautiful, especially after looking at bookporn’s Flickr photo gallery. And yes I do know the Travis song I’ve used to title this blog is about the Iraq war, but it works and is surprisingly apt (all you can do is “stand there watching it happening”, there should’ve been an intervention, especially to save Isner who looked like he was about to drop, and someone should’ve called the United Nations about cruelty to tennis players). I’m now going to use and abuse this blog to talk about one of the great loves of my life, tennis. I have never been prouder to be a tennis fan after watching last night’s match between the Frenchman Nicolas Mahut and the American John Isner. Unluckily I had to come to it late, but I watched it until the end, which was about 21:30, when Mahut unwisely but understandably brought it to a halt due to poor light and Isner against all comprehension wanted to carry on. By the end he couldn’t even hold his towel and was carrying it in his mouth, he picked up a banana and then though it’d be too much effort to eat it and he looked delirious with exhaustion standing statuesque yet still serving impeccably and somehow returning the ball as well. It is certain that the winner will go no further in the competition as they will have been playing for 3 days, over 10 hours and run the equivalent of a marathon which takes months to recover from. I’m rooting for Mahut by the way as, and I’m going to come across as smug by saying this, I pointed him out as one to watch in 2007 when he got beaten in the final at Queen’s by Andy Roddick; he’s been injured since then so he couldn’t capitalise on that promise. As for John Isner, he won the warm-up event to this and did well at Queen’s. By the way, Mahut had to qualify for Wimbledon and has had to play two marathon five-setters before this and it is still only a first round match.

H. Blair

If you ever talk to anyone who truly follows tennis, you’ll find that they can be just as passionate about the beautiful game as football fans, and what’s more, they’re great advocates for the sport. As a comment from my previous blog post said, thank you LucyLike23, “Now, after reading your post, I want to watch tennis - though it is not usually my cup of tea.” So I’m now going to try and convert everyone.

I can’t remember when I fell in love with tennis, but it was doubtless due to Tim Henman and definitely Wimbledon. It was probably that year he almost got to the final, but because of that damn rain delay... least Goran Ivanisevic won that year. I love tennis because the match and the winner’s lead can hang by a thread; one net cord, one wrong line judgement, the weather, one literal slip, one mental slip... anything can affect the match. A match can turn as quick as you can click your fingers, that’s why you never want to leave it. Whereas with, football say, you can go and get a drink and not miss anything; the roar of the crowd or the commentators will alert you if anything’s happening.

I’ve been writing this blog post in my head ever since I woke up before 6am this morning; unfortunately I haven’t had time to write anything down so I’ve forgotten most of the assuredly great stuff I came up with. For once, hyperbole, superlatives and clichés can’t sum up that record-breaking historic match last night. It’s like watching Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson or Torvill and Dean (and John Inverdale was right; Mahut and Isner will be forever linked), you can’t believe what you’re seeing but it is really happening. It’s unprecedented, unbelievable and entirely unexpected (the first time, and this is the first time and the only time; we’ll never see the likes of this again). You just can’t believe your eyes or ears and to paraphrase Johnny Depp Captain Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean, “Not impossible, but improbable.” Everyone I talk to about it just shakes their head in disbelief. I’m not going to even try and describe the indescribable. In what other sport can you see players carrying on into practically total darkness (like the 2008 final), matches spanning three days (without rain delays) and a match go on for 10 hours? And it’s still going on! It could only be tennis and only at Wimbledon. Wimbledon has treated us to some awe-inspiring events over the last few years, and I truly mean awe-inspiring as it has left me in admiration of the players. First there was the Nadal and Federer final in 2008. I was on holiday at the time and I started watching it from the beginning in the afternoon and it was still going, obviously, late into the evening. Me and my entire family were having a meal out in a restaurant and I kept racing over to look at the TV screen in the bar. After a while, the staff just let me take my food and eat it there and after my family had finished, they came and joined me. Then there was last year’s final, which I mentioned in my previous post, I can’t think about it without tears coming to my eyes. Roddick was two sets and a break up, usually an unassailable lead, and he still lost.

Getty

If you’re in any doubt how historic, important and significant the Mahut and Isner match is, it will almost definitely change the rules of tennis, at least at Wimbledon if not the entire sport. For me, I don’t think they should change it, just as you shouldn’t change the rules due to one singular event; this will never happen again, it’s an anomaly and a beautiful one at that. McEnroe is wrong, they should finish the match where they started it, on one of the most outside of outside courts, court 18, and not Centre Court in front of the Queen. I've invented a new term; there's break point, game point, set point, match point and championship point, now there's save point (for when you hold serve). In this match, every time Isner or Mahut held serve, it felt like they'd won. Every time they took a few points off the other's serve it was momentous. Every time they got a break point it felt like a championship point; Mahut saved three match points as throughout the last set he was serving to stay in the match. The statistics are incredible as they have literally broken all the records in tennis, not just Wimbledon, apart from the ones for the quickest, obviously. The one that gets me is the last set, already, is longer than the longest match ever and it is 3 normal matches in one. Even the scoreboard couldn't keep up and gave up the ghost at 47 all; humanity beats technology yet again. As Federer said, perfectly as he seems to do in everything, it was all "too much."

Oh and we won some football match too, which was also amazing, but for entirely different reasons. Why, with all our world-class players who are some of the most famous in the world, do we still scrape through by the skin of our teeth, runners up to a country who calls it soccer? The USA deserved to come top by the way; they should’ve won the match they played against us. Least the cheating French are out of the World Cup. I loved it when James Corden replaced France with Ireland in his TV show line-up. Mahut could teach his countrymen a thing or two about national pride, sportsmanship and determination. Both Isner and Mahut could teach football players a thing or two actually, about stamina, teamwork and being a sportsman. That's why I love tennis for the drama, the game and most of all for the characters.

AELTC

The war of attrition starts again at 15:30, will you be watching?

Here comes the sun

Thank you Icky Pic for the above photo, long may the sun continue (at least for Wimbledon). At last something really easy. I haven't had any reason to use Flickr before, except for the pictures that are integrated into Google Earth which is an awesome feature of an awesome application; it enabled me to follow where my brother had been on one of his holidays, so I knew what and where he was talking about. However I will certainly be using Flickr more in future because there is a veritable goldmine of wonderful photos on there. I immediately added RSS feeds of Sir Cam's and bookporn's photo galleries onto my iGoogle page (no screen capture as I'm on the wrong computer). I've also added Google Analytics to my blog, not much yet but it's only been one day. I particularly love bookporn's latest absolutely beautiful photo of a dilapidated building with decaying books, which I can't add to this blog either due to copyright issues. Check it out for yourself, it's titled "Last Folio." I'm always frustrated looking for photos via Google Images and with the tag option on Flickr, searches should be much more interesting and hopefully relevant, should being the operative word whenever tagging is involved... I've no need to create my own account though as I already have a shared gallery my brother set up. Me and my family use it to show each other what we have been up to, for holiday picture slideshows (often over Skype) and just to show off our prowess with a camera. Here's one of the gems:


That was taken at the Barcelona Open this year. It was the only opportunity I had of a photo with Rafael Nadal as he did vamos; he never even turned up to the tournament, but I've forgiven him. The gallery's particularly useful as my eldest brother lives in Barcelona and he's always off somewhere, so we can keep track as to what he's been up to. However as an image bank, there is nothing quite like Flickr. Here is an awesome photo I found, which is very apt at the moment:

Thank you Kol Tregaske who caught Andy Roddick out practising on one of the Wimbledon courts the day before he won in such stunning, strong and supreme fashion last night. I want him to win this year as I can't think of last year's final without tears coming to my eyes. Come on Roddick!

Interesting articles from CILIP

I was just browsing through Impact, the Career Development Group's journal, as well as the CILIP Gazette and discovered some interesting and even useful articles. The Impact journal was all about celebrating achievements and I found myself drawn to some of the career profiles, in particular Carol Barker's. However the most interesting article was titled "Confidence: The Key to Career Success?" by Ray Harper. It really struck a chord with me as, like a lot of people, I do have confidence issues, though I have grown very adept at covering them up, to the point of overcompensating. I have read many pieces about confidence, in professional as well as personal contexts, but the reason why this made such an impression was because it made me realise that despite my lack of self-confidence, I carry on regardless. I did as the article states, in the interview for my current job, have the confidence "to shout about [my] strengths and showcase [my] skills" even though as the article professes it "demands boldness and self-belief." This made me feel really positive, especially as I didn't have any previous library experience when I got the job... I am also good at mastering "new computer applications and adapting to different systems". It goes on to mention how proactive we must be in evolving with new technologies (very apt in relation to the Cam23 programme), in learning from mistakes, and in making the case for our libraries and information services by becoming advocates for our profession. Unfortunately, the latest issue isn't available on the website yet. If you haven't read the article yet, I can wholeheartedly recommend it, so seek it out.

The Gazette also contains some interesting articles such as an excellent report on the conference about 24-hour opening, a MyCareer profile detailing the catch 22: you have graduated but you cannot get a job because you have no experience, and an article about live-tweeting during meetings and conferences...

For those of you worried about Calvin and Hobbes:

I know it's not Cam23 related, but it's the cutest thing...

To twitter or not to twitter

I've been hoping there's a way round this one, but I can't see how to get out of it seeing as though I can't complete Cam23 without it, so I've created my own personal Twitter account. I've got an addictive personality (I've recently got obsessed with Glee; I spent practically my whole day off yesterday watching it), so that's why I've been actively avoiding Twitter for so long. I'm the same about any new technology: Napster, myspace, facebook... Take mobile phones as an example; I'm still using my first phone, the Nokia 3310 which I got in 2002.

I have been using the Judge Library's Twitter account, but only to post about work information such as new books and things, that's why I haven't felt the need to make my own account. I knew it would happen, that I'd get into it too fast too soon; I started off innocently selecting people to follow, along with the obligatory ones like Stephen Fry, I added John Cusack, DisneyPixar and Peter Serafinowicz. I've just found Miranda Hart too, I adore her TV series and she's always good fun on panel shows, in interviews and as a guest on the likes of the Strictly Come Dancing backstage gossip show It Takes Two. She was awesome by the way. I'm going to stop now before I get in too deep, I've replied to a couple of tweets so I'm being obedient.

I agree with the essay about categorising and tagging as I'm against pigeonholing of any kind. I'm not even sure how useful the subject classifications are in library cataloguing to be honest, I don't use them when searching as they're so subjective, no pun intended. Although I do put them in when cataloguing of course. Therefore I agree with Shirky's comments about how biased it all is. I especially like this quote from the essay: "The essence of a book isn't the ideas it contains. The essence of a book is "book." Thinking that library catalogs exist to organize concepts confuses the container for the thing contained." Jeez, I hate the American way of spelling. To combat the limits of tagging and categorising, I've labelled this post with as many things as possible and deliberately added references to this post to make it as full as possible. I've also dutifully added more tags to my previous posts and I've just found that there is a 200 character limit; it's being pesky about it...

I've been having fun commenting on everyone's blogs. It can take the smallest of things to make me feel the urge to comment, from a picture of a Miyazaki film, to beautiful photos; all it takes is a common interest. I'm loving libgeek's Terry Pratchett titled blog, Ange's Grease-themed blog title and Helen's frequent references to popular culture (told you I'd get my own back).

All this new technology has made me long for the more innocent times when we didn't rely on all our computers and they were just for fun. Anyone remember the Commodore 64?

Finally, ultimately, at last, after all, in the end...

...My work's shared Google calendar is on my iGoogle page, which means I only have to have iGoogle up instead of having to flit between Google calendar and my iGoogle page. Except, it doesn't show all the different tabs we've added, just the meetings and events. So all of the timetabling, annual leave, interlibrary loans and such like don't show up on the iGoogle page. So I still have to log out and log in to see those. But I'm so glad it's done, here's a picture of it:


It was annoying that I had to set up my own Google calendar to do it though as I use my Outlook calendar for reminders and the shared calendar for everything else, so I had no need of another calendar. Right, that's enough free Google advertising. I'm a post-it girl really; for all my computer skills I'm decidedly low-tech. I'm not sure how useful Doodle will be for me, but I will certainly use it if and when I need it. It seems very easy to use, not one of these internet-based applications that like to make things more complicated than they actually are; simplicity is key. I prefer to organise these things more casually over email, especially as I usually need to liaise with the people I'm meeting to sort out when and where it's going to be anyway. Here is today's Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, it's so funny because it's so familiar:

Mindboggling iGoogle

I used iGoogle for the first time yesterday, if only to check the weather. Incidently, it's fine all week, though we might get rained on on Sunday. Whoever said the British were preoccupied with the weather was absolutely right, or them saying that may have made us that way. Anyway, such musings are sending me off on one of my regular tangents. I'm trying to remember to load iGoogle first thing in the morning, getting into a habit is always hard and then it kicks in and it's like you never lived your life any other way. The problem is, my work has a shared Google calendar which is set up with our work email address, this is for our timetables, meetings and so we know where everyone is, but my iGoogle page is set up under my own email address, so I can't have both up at the same time. After a while it seems to log out of whichever one I'm not logged in on if you see what I mean, or if I try to add something to the calendar or change something on my iGoogle page, I won't be able to as I'm logged in on the other account. I have the calendar open all the time as it's very useful, and the quick links on the iGoogle page, such as COPAC and the Cam23 RSS feed, are also very useful and it'll kind of defeat the object of them if I have to sign in again. Also, after the initial eager adding of stuff, changing the theme and customising my page, I kind of got bored, in the same way I got bored joining groups, adding applications and finding friends on facebook. However I am annoyed my hamster seems to have escaped, either that or the application has failed to load. So I'm not sure how often I'll actually use it, though it is nice to start the day with the weather forecast, an inspirational literary quote and a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon. Here's today's:

Writing to reach you

First lines are always the hardest, right? I hope this gets easier as it goes along. For someone who is scared of the blank page, this is quite an undertaking. I have a facebook and a myspace page, so I have done similar things before, but this is... different. Plus I used the standard template for those. For facebook or myspace you never know if anyone is actually going to read it, you're sending words out into the ether. But with this, it's for something and you know a cast of your peers are ready and waiting in the wings to comment.

So, the 23 things programme. I suppose I joined because I like to take advantage of every opportunity that comes my way; I'm on the Springboard course and have done several other of the Cambridge University courses. I'm always on the hunt for new skills and chances to progress. However I also want to integrate myself into the wider community, amongst other Cambridge librarians. I have only been in the job, and the profession, a year and a few months, but I feel I have sufficiently found my feet now (after a few wobbles) and finally feel grounded enough to look up and around at the broader landscape. As metaphors go, I'm not sure how well that works, I hope you understand what I'm on about. That's a great way to end a post I reckon.

Oh and yes, I am a big Travis fan.