Tag Archives: library

Mindful ebooks

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I borrowed the ebook Mindful Movements by Thich Nhat Hanh through  my local public library and downloaded it onto my iPod using the Library Anywhere app and the Bluefire app. I have a 21 day loan and then the gorgeously illustrated ebook will disappear from my iPod. All FREE. No fines for overdues. No cables. Just via wireless internet access directly onto my iPod.

OK so I did have to be a library member with a password, and register with the ebook supplier, and have an itunes account. But other than that…it proved to be seamless.

Contact Glenelg Libraries  for more information.

BureacraSpeak

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Do you speak BureacraSpeak? Sad to say I am learning this unique language. It is tight, legalistic, compartmentalised, and full of jargon. I have had my fill of strategic plans, policies, procedures, guidelines, standards and proposals. It is a barren and arid landscape with no soul. I am amazed that anything gets accomplished at all in this environment.

Oh to return to literature that is creative, expansive, poetic, and inspirational. The reality bending ideas of Richard Bach. The colourful, detailed illustrations of beauty and lifestyle by Frances Mayes. Tales and photos from France and Italy. Stories about music, art, language and culture. Intelligent and thought provoking writing that fills your soul with possibilities. Words that celebrate the reality and beauty of life. And words that teach us how be happy.

Who would have thought that in order to maintain a library of words that fill these common and shared  literary needs, it must be done using the structure of words that are dry, meaningless and overwhelming in  their weight, seriousness and number?

Extreme Libraries

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Mt Gambier Library entrance

Mount Gambier Library in South Australia is a new shiny purpose built, state of the art, no expense spared library. It opens on 17th December 2009. I was fortunate to visit this week to attend a library seminar held there. The new building is completed but the beautiful new timber shelves were bare, silently waiting for the new stock to arrive. Contractors and technicians were finishing the main desk, installing the security gates at the entry, and other little last minute jobs. The technology is state of the art with numerous flat screen TVs, fully implemented RFID, a light bright work room with all the tools of the trade and space to spread out, meeting rooms with smart boards, mini cinema areas, a cafe, and the most amazing cave that is the children’s area.

Mt Gambier Library

The seminar was titled Best Sellers. Paul Brown from Manukau Libraries in New Zealand presented an interesting, useful and thought-provoking session on Reader Advisory services in libraries. He reminds us that this is indeed the core business of public libraries and I applaud him for this focus.

By contrast, just 78 kilometres away, I visited the Digby Library as part of the outreach services maintained by the Glenelg Libraries in Victoria. This tiny old dusty collection of yellowed books is held in an old Mechanics Institute building. We replaced the small stock of new library books and materials for the local farming community. Outside in the dusty carpark we struggled to get a signal to connect to the internet to make the data upload/download. Meanwhile the sun beat down, sweat dripped from our foreheads, and the horses and goats looked with bored indifference.

Digby library

This outreach service goes to small community centres in Heywood and Casterton, a Bush Nursing Hospital in Merino, a local shop in Dartmoor, and the Mechanics Institute Hall in Digby.

Two libraries close together geographically, but as extremely apart from each other as is possible in our society.

Smelling the roses

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Yellow, purple, white, red and orange flowers are in full blossom in my garden. The perfume from the flowers on the orange tree and grapefruit tree fill the air with a citrus fragrance. I have picked the first roses of the season and their perfume fills my kitchen.

 

Since my recent change of direction I have not had a minute to spare. I have been totally occupied and feel fresh, rejuvenated and creative once again. I have so many ideas coming at me that it’s hard to keep up and to know which track to take.

 

I have practiced playing the piano, designed a new website, been to the movies, eaten out with friends and family on several occasions, shopped, walked, cycled a 60 kilometre route through the nearby hills, cleaned the house and my study, enjoyed a lively discussion at Book Club, listened to music and practiced yoga. And this is just week one of my new life. I am also thinking about the next stage of my oil painting of tree ferns. I have been stuck after the initial laying on of paint, but now I feel free to attack the next stage.

 

I have also worked in the local public library. What a great relief it is for me to once again be working in a positive, professional, and truly valued service to the community. To be able to help people find the information they seek and to see their immediate joy when we succeed in helping them. It is a pleasure and a privilege.

 

One elderly lady wanted pictures and diagrams of Couta boats so that she could restore a model of a Couta boat that she had inherited. We have, in the collection, a fantastic book that answered her question specifically.

 

This public library has Wii’s for the junior electronic games folk in our community. I have little experience with Wii’s, so after switching them on, I left it to the 6 year olds to work it out. And of course they did. One excited boy proudly told me he had reached Level 4!

Leap and the net will appear

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I sat in the boat out on the bay soaking up the sunshine while my husband fished. No nets required but the bucket was soon full of Whiting for dinner.

I had leapt from my job hoping the net would appear. One can only stay in a job for so long when the feelings of being under-utilised, under valued and unproductive become burdens too great to carry. So I leapt without a safety net. And like magic the net has appeared and I begin work in a new job the very day after I finish the current one.

Returning to public library work feels like a gift to me. It is work that is busy, interesting, satisfying and of real and immediate benefit to the community. I love it. I can continue to follow my interest in technology, website design, art and architecture whilst also helping others follow their own interests.

Inspirational videos

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Like me, you would have seen some fantastic videos online.

 

Common Craft make simple and effective how-to videos telling us about web applications “in plain English”. Like this one: Social Networking in Plain English

 

Professor Michael Wesch conveys messages about how technology has impacted the way we learn and use our time. Here is one example of his clever efforts: A Vision of Students Today

 

The TED Talks offer top quality presentations by some interesting and influential people on a wide variety of topics. This talk by Sir Ken Robinson is great: Do schools kill creativity?

 

And there are a million other amusing and inspirational creations by some very talented people. Watch the Worlds by Robbie Dingo is awesome.

 

Providing links to these from either the school’s library website or library catalogue for the benefit of the teachers is not the best way to share these due to security firewalls and bandwidth. YouTube is blocked for the students as are many Web 2.0 applications. For the teachers it can sometimes take so long to start a video on YouTube that the lesson plan is totally impeded.

 

A solution is to use an online file converter to convert the YouTube URL to a FLV file. This file can then be saved to the hard drive, and with a free FLV player downloaded, these files open and play automatically. Access points are then added to the library catalogue that includes all the relevant bibliographic information such as author. This is what I’ve been working on this week and we now have a little collection of “inspirational videos”.

 

Copyright and intellectual property is always considered. This kind of format shifting could be a breach of copyright. The loophole for the school environment is that these resources are used for education. Since these issues are apparent it makes for timely discussions.

 

The combination of easy to use multimedia creation tools with awareness of intellectual property, has resulted in people now creating more of their own original work than ever before. YouTube provides assured publication and popularity is reflected by the number of views, usually through electronic distribution networks of online friends. Move over corporations. Frozen Grand Central Station by Improv Everywhere

 

What a fantastic and fun world we live in! How great for coming generations to have this freedom of expression! Our inner creativity is finally being called upon and appreciated. Pink Floyd’s Brick in the Wall is certainly a thing of the past, thankfully.