Author Archives: suesbent

Saturday unplugged

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I enjoyed a perfect Saturday on my day off. It began early on a cold winter’s morning as the sun came up. Donning cycling gear, then extra layers for warmth, we set out into the chilly morning. A group of us cycled our regular route past paddocks blanketed with fog. We shared a BBQ breakfast to celebrate a friend’s 60th birthday.  By this time the sun was up but providing no warmth as we shivered and chatted grasping our warm drinks.

Later my husband bought some fishing gear at a local shop. We climbed aboard some big cruising motor boats in the display room dreaming of escape. Then we went for a coffee and a stroll along Mornington pier. People were enjoying the cold sunny day, fishing, learning scuba diving, walking their dogs, and looking at some dolphins swim by through the flat silvery waters of the bay.

fishing_for_salmonAfter lunch we went to a surf beach further down the Peninsula. While my husband fished for salmon, I took photos, wrote, read, and still tried in vain to soak some warmth from the cold sun. Only a few other people braved the beach and the sea was too calm for surfers. The quiet was intermittently punctuated by the roar of the waves as they broke directly onto the sand.

I walked to the rocky headland following some tiny plovers as they trotted along the wet sand looking for food morsels as the waves retreated. I thought about being unconnected from the internet. I thought about the freedom and liberty I take for granted as my birthright. My awareness of world events brought to my consciousness by the electronic media. It is depressing to hear about recent events in Iran and the sudden death of Michael Jackson, melting ice caps, the financial recession, swine flu, and more world events. Twitter effectively plugs us into the conversation, but how much can we bear?

from_the_headlandMy Saturday was peaceful, glorious, in the world, active, and so much more. Who needs drugs to get high when life is so good? And I wonder why anyone would voluntarily enslave themselves to ridiculous doctrines decreed by others. I guess that’s what the people of Iran are fighting for. I pondered these things as the fog crept slowly towards the land from the sea.

As the sun sank towards the west I noticed some sprays of water in the distance. I thought it was probably birds diving for fish. But as I continued to watch I realised it was a group of whales spouting water as they surfaced. They swam in our direction and passed by about one kilometre from the beach. Their huge dark bodies cresting out of the water and occasionally a large fin or a tale could be seen momentarily. If I had been at home with my eyes glued to a screen I would have missed this rare and awesome sight.

Later at home we cooked a curry for dinner – no fish. We watched Before the Game and then a game of AFL football on TV. This was an enjoyable and perfect way to spend a Saturday in winter away from work, computers, traffic, and worry.sun_setting

Blogging in 2009

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Many people still don’t understand the power of blogging. And many others who think they do, try to run before they can walk, in my opinion. So to begin with often you first need to explain what a blog is, and often “online journal” does not come close to describing what a blog can do for you. Even when you feel you have adequately explained it, you may still get glazed-over eyes staring blankly back at you. Because, really, who wants to read the ideas of some random stranger rambling on and on, and worse still promoting themselves shamelessly?

So first take baby steps before trying to run. I think you really need to read and listen to others first before launching yourself straight away into preaching to the masses. By reading varied blogs from many different sources it educates you and you learn many important steps in the process – some technical, some social, some literary, and much food for thought. This all helps you to develop as a blogger before you set yourself up and start adding your voice to the noise.

Having a list of favourite blog sites in your delicious account or favourites list on your pc is a clumsy way to manage this regular reading task. The backbone of blogging is the RSS delivery method, so the easy way to do this is to set up a blog (RSS) reader. Google Reader handles this beautifully. I can’t understand why so many people don’t get this part of the process because in my experience this has been the major means for my online learning and professional development.

In 2004 when I first set up a blog reader and started subscribing to blogs to read I had 28 feeds from different bloggers. I surveyed the Australian libraries at that time to see who was supplying news via RSS feeds and I found only two. Now you would be hard-pressed to find one that doesn’t use this means as part of their marketing and advertising program. I presented a how-to session to a group of local librarians so they could set up blog readers for themselves and hopefully launch themselves into an efficient and effective learning experience, like I had done.

Setting up the blog reader is The Tool for becoming a Master Surfer of the Web.

It allows you to tailor your information needs to suit yourself and effectively ignore the things you have no interest in. It allows you to listen first, then learn, then grow, then develop, so that finally you might be worthy of publishing your own ideas online and finding an audience for those ideas.

Now in 2009, this week I have sorted my RSS feeds. I had 116 feeds. Of those 15 had not updated in the last 12 months or more and I deleted these. Another 12 had not updated in the last 6 months so I am watching those and may delete them too. I now have 94 feeds and these are organised into the categories of: Art, Books, Creativity, Design, Education, Football, French blogs, Friends, Humour, Jobs, Library, Marketing, News, Real Estate, Travel, Web Technology, and Zen.

After reading blogs first, then learning, in 2006 I felt I was ready to write online.  I wrote a blog titled Blog of a Footballer’s Mother chronicling my son’s experience as he worked towards AFL selection. This blog had a single focus and a necessary end point.

I began my personal blog Sues Bent in March of 2008 and it offers ideas that come to me in my work as a Librarian. I simultaneously write about my interest in French lifestyle and culture at French Accent. I am humble and hesitant about offering my contributions to the growing noise and garble online. I continually question the validity of the process and try not to publish if I have nothing worthwhile to say. I always use my own original ideas, text, and images and never steal from others online or otherwise. It is obvious when people do this and it immediately robs them of credibility and integrity. It is heaps more fun to be original anyway, so start creating your own images to illustrate your blog posts.my desk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

See my presentation on this topic here.

Life lessons

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Strange how life seems to take us two steps forwards then one step backwards. Why is this? I try to be philosophical and positive. Is it just life? Is it life lessons, challenges, and tests we must face in order to grow, understand, and become wise and enlightened?

I have made positive decisions and steps forward with my career choices. I was happy with my progress. I had bravely stepped out of my comfort zone, stepped into new environments, joined new teams, stepped-up in terms of delivery of information services, and learnt many new systems and work flows.

All was great. My service to all customers was outstanding I believe. So what happened? I was recommended. Now I find myself back where I was before. I am back in a school library, minding the desk, supervising teenagers, and trying not to get bored and fill my day somehow. I am not a teacher so my usefulness in this situation is limited. I long for the satisfaction of meeting the numerous questions posed by a demanding public in a busy community library. I want to get back to helping committed adult students in a diverse tertiary organisation. I was there and now I’m not again!

This step “backwards” or “sideward” is temporary and I hope I don’t lose the ground I had covered and was enjoying. Yawn….zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz. Huh?! Was that a bell?

In my quest to understand life’s little lessons, I read self-help books and go online to research. I read blogs from people who write about inspiration, creativity, freedom, and self-actualization. Zen Habits, Marianne Williamson’s Journal,  Unshelved, Someday Syndrome, Creative Liberty, The Happiness Project, and many blogs by people who love France.

Multicultural library

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One of the libraries I work in services a majority of International students from many countries. The library is a hive of multi-culture, where many languages are spoken, and English is not the native tongue. At any given time I can hear Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, French, Spanish, Greek, Sudanese, Arabic, Lebanese, Indian languages, and more.

Recently I was assisting a man to scan some documents. He obviously had sight problems and had the zoom-text software enabled on the pc. This made navigating the scanner software awkward, so I was doing it for him, minus the zoom-text. The pages being scanned were wrinkled with messy hand-written swirly text that looked like Arabic. He told me his name was Jahid and to label the electronic documents with that. I began to wonder what exactly I was helping him with. One page had several small mug-shot type photos of ethnic-looking men. Some typed English text revealed the name of Jahid of Afghan origin and was a Statutory Declaration about some incident in which he was involved. Of course, I did not read it all in depth but caught a few details as I scanned the documents for him.

Another interaction I had recently was with a Russian man named Igor who has no English language ability yet. He offered a photo of a book he was seeking about Avionics. He had all the relevant details including the ISBN which was helpful. I searched our catalogue and tried to tell him that we didn’t have the book but perhaps could get it for him. However this was too much for him to comprehend and all he could understand from me was “no”.

I really enjoy the multicultural environment of this library and appreciate the assistance we provide in helping these new Australians forge a new life for themselves and their families. I hope I am not naive. This library has a large language development collection and an active English language program.

I have recently read and enjoyed the book The Rugmaker of Mazar-e-Sharif by Najaf Mazari. It describes the experience of the Afghan man and his hard life in war-torn Afghanistan, then his escape to Australia, his time in a refugee camp and the beginnings of his new life in Australia. It is a story of struggle and hope. I wonder how many of the people I serve in the library have experienced similar or worse hardships. Most of them are incredibly polite, well-mannered, and thankful for any assistance. It is a contrast to the lack of courtesy and basic public niceties often missing from the behaviour of many Australians that I try hard to satisfy in the public libraries.

Slideshare Rock Star

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According to Slideshare I am a “Slideshare Rock Star” because the slideshow I created and uploaded last year is very very popular. How to create a wiki has had 8913 views and is a favourite of 17 people and has been embedded 13 times. It has been downloaded 167 times and has been added to 2 groups. I used pbwiki version 1 as the wiki creation tool, then later created a second slideshow using pbwiki 2.

How To Create A Wiki

Kevin Bacon versus the Lone Cowboy

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I recently watched a program on TV called How Kevin Bacon Cured Cancer. It was a really interesting documentary that followed some scientists and mathematicians as they tried to discover the mathematical theory and structure that supports networks. Kevin Bacon was of course the person who was the example used in the popular theory known as Six Degrees of Separation.

These networks apply to brain functions, cells, computer systems, viruses, the spread of disease, air traffic flight paths, and social networks like Facebook and Twitter, and many other systems or networks.

The concept of “hubs” enabled them to provide a richer and more comprehensive structure to the mathematical theory. Kevin Bacon would be the original celebrity “hub”. Heathrow Airport is a major hub in the air traffic systems. What makes a “hub” I wonder? When you think about people in social networks it can be due to popularity. In Facebook the number of “friends” you have is an indicator of this. But how many are manufactured and how many are genuine? Barrack Obama on Twitter would be a major hub in that system and a genuine one at that.

At the other extreme of this is what I have called “the lone cowboy”: the loner; the person who doesn’t want or need lots of people to validate your own identity in this world. It is someone who wants to opt-out of society and doesn’t want to be a part of the social network. This link in the network might be like a little regional airport, the less-used brain cells, or the person who lives a solitary existence.

I hope the mathematical theory does not conclude that the points with a small number of links are not any less needed or significant than the popular hubs in the network. My own tendencies move toward the less busy parts of the network.

What next?

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26-07-08_1132What next? What book will I read next? How do you get your hands on that next good read? Perhaps you have a stack waiting on your bedside table. But is there anything inspiring there that will capture your interest and attention?

Here are some ideas for when you may be short of something to read.

You can always look at the best-seller lists in the weekend newspapers, but often these will remain stagnant for weeks on end. Harry Potter dominated the top 10 sellers for so long it was ridiculous. Now the Twilight series by Stephanie Meyer are slow to be toppled from the top.

Your local bookshop will regularly publish catalogues that could whet your appetite.

Amazon is a good website to go to because you can sign in to get personalised recommendations. Your search results are retained and further recommendations are made to you based on your lists.

Library Thing is a great social networking website for readers. You can catalogue your own library of books at home or use it as a place to list your favourite reads and based on this you can easily link to other books with the same tags or other readers with similar reading tastes. Go to their Zeitgeist to find a huge array of links and lists. You can also search by tags, for example, you might like to search for “France and travel”. This is my first point of call for finding new reading material for myself. Click here to find out what a Zeitgeist is, if you don’t already know.

Wikipedia has a list of best-selling books which may remind you of that classic you have always wanted to read.

WhatshouldIreadnext is a cute little website that attempts to answer this question for you. You have to register and then list books you have read and based on this list it will find other titles that may interest you. It is rather limited in its power and depth.

Read everything by your favourite author? “Who else writes like…?” by Roy and Jeanne Huse is a book commonly found in local libraries that can help you identify an author who writes in a similar style as your favourite author.

Who writes like from Coffs Harbour City Library offers links to websites to help you find authors.

Goodreading magazine is a great monthly magazine for Australian readers that offers reviews, excerpts, interviews and more great information.

Or you could go to your local library and ask a Librarian. They tend to be rather well-read and know current trends in reading and are more than happy to help you find a good book to read.

Another option is to join a local book club. This also prompts you to read books that you might not otherwise read.

The Aussie Fire Beast

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One tiny spark from a cigarette butt thrown thoughtlessly from a car into drought-dried mulch, whipped by the winds from the Northerly furnace and in seconds the scrub is alight. The orange fire demon springs from the ground, licks then devours grass, shrubs, trees, fences, houses, cars. It grows, building smoke towers into the sky; brown and grey bulbous silos of smoke move like a Godzilla come to life. People flee or stay, trying to damp down the edges of the inferno. Fire-fighters arrive with all their gear, naively confident with well rehearsed drills. Helicopters circle, with TV crews filming the chaos, while others drop water from above. Frantic efforts follow the fire beast, trying to tame it and bring it to the ground.

I was holed up at home staying inside trying to shelter from the 45°C heat outside. I was concentrating, sorting through some papers, when finally the sounds of the sirens and helicopters registered in my awareness. I thought, “They sound close!” I immediately opened the blinds and looked at the ridge nearby – no sign of smoke. So I went to the front room and was stunned to see the familiar sight of an Aussie bushfire in full flight. Black, grey and brown towers of smoke billowed up into the blue sky. The orange flames leapt from treetops. Trees exploded. Three helicopters circled and hovered. Sirens announced the arrival of fire engines from all directions.

From my previous experience with the Ash Wednesday bushfires in 1983 I knew the first thing I had to do was change my clothes from the long loose cotton summer dress and bare feet to boots and full coverings. If you don’t change your clothes at the beginning there may not be another chance. Fighting fires in a cream office skirt and wedge-heeled sandals is not very practical (as I did in 1983). And we see too often refugees from these bushfires left with only the clothes they stand in.

I then phoned my husband to let him know. I organised buckets, hoses, mops, towels, and put the ladder to the roof. I climbed up to get a better view of the fire and cleaned out the recently fallen dead leaves from the gutters. It was a surreal moment as I relived the identical situation from 1983 when I stood on a different metal roof in another location with smoke billowing overhead, helicopters chopping through the smoke, and tress exploding. Luckily for me and my family on both occasions the fire past us by, but being in the ember fall means that you need to be on guard for spot fires and wind changes.

This recent fire happened one week before the massive and tragic fires that occurred on Saturday 7th February 2009. It was a day that reached over 46°C and the authorities had warned everyone and were on high alert. Unfortunately the fires erupted on many fronts across the states of Victoria and New South Wales. There were none near us on this day, but our son was attending a wedding at a winery in the Yarra Valley. He phoned us as the fire approached. They were surrounded by raging fires. He spent a worrying evening stranded inside the winery while helicopters water-bombed the building and surroundings. They were eventually allowed to travel home after the fires had passed.

Not all were lucky on that evening. The death toll sadly reaches towards 200. Yesterday the count was 173 with many still not found. Never before have so many people lost their lives in Australian bushfires. The speed and ferocity of these fire monsters seem to defy all plans of escape.

I heard a man on the radio today describe how the fire passed over their town: literally travelled over the town above them in the sky and landed further along to wreak its havoc. He said the sound of the fireball roaring overheard was extraordinary. His town was untouched. While meanwhile the townships of Marysville and Kinglake are completely devastated and nothing remains.

More information please

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Three questions in one day had me at a loss recently:

1.    “I am looking for a particular book about the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I can’t remember the title and I don’t know the author. It was mentioned on a TV show I was watching recently but I can’t remember what show it was. Can you find it for me?”

2.    “I want to read a book I saw mentioned in a newspaper a while ago. I don’t know the title or the author. It is written by a roadie of a big rock band but I can’t remember which band.”

3.    “I want a book about living with a spinal cord injury with Australian content. I don’t have access to the internet at home and I won’t use it here at the library!”

Now I will do my best to try to help these people: I will do subject searches of the library catalogue; I will search probable TV show websites and newspaper resources; I will search Amazon and Google. I will think laterally trying to come up with some way to find what these people are looking for.

Of course I found many books about Sydney Harbour Bridge but not the one sought by this particular individual. I found many books written by roadies of rock bands but not the one the man wanted. I found many relevant and detailed websites pertinent to Australians living with spinal injury and these listed books that may have been of use, but since this person flatly refused to look at the internet this avenue of information was not an option.

It really does help to have a title or an author to begin the search. In each of these cases I sent the person away to perhaps find more information to help with the search. I felt like a failure. I continued to think and search long after they had gone trying to find the elusive book they sought. But it is really a lost cause without a little more information.

It is amazing how often someone will come in asking for a particular book saying “I don’t know the title or the author but it has a blue cover.” Or something similar. More often than not, through questions asked in the ensuing conversation, I can discover the book they mean and find it easily.