Wohoo......200 posts in one year

Ok, this is a rather 'none' post. But this is number 200 for the year. Who said bloggings dead

Congrats to Phil Bradley and David Pattern

Well, I expect most people will now Phil Bradley is now CILIP Vice-President Election for 2011. I'm really glad Phil won. He takes his work seriously, is always helpful (he answered a question for my masters dissertation) and he always says what he thinks (in a good way). Anyhow, I hope there's no conflict with his new role and his role with Voices for the Library?
Also, congrats to David Pattern who is IWR Information Professional of the Year (found via here). I've meet Dave a few times at the Library Mash ups, especially the Mash Oop North in 2009, in Huddersfield in which he waived me paying (so I certainly owe him a pint for that).
Both well done on the good news.

5 UK Library stories of 2009

Following on from from lisnews Ten Stories That Shaped 2009, I thought I would do my 5 UK stories.

1. Cilip 2.0. This was a discussion started by Brian Kelly & Phil Bradley which looked at Cilip Bob McKee failure to take on board some of the web 2.0 technologies within CILIP. The power of the network caused Cilip to rethink there policy and have an open forum on the event in April and produce a draft paper on the subject.

2. Woodsiegirl meme on 'why i became a librarian. I like blogging because sometime one persons post can spiral into a bigger discussion (see above). Well blogger Woodsie girl discussed why she became a librarian. A few others started adding there reasons why and the wikiman made a wiki for others to enter and discuss the subject on. This was actually pretty life affirming and a great idea.

3. Many had heard that Wirral maybe closing many libraries in that area. Thankfully all 11 were saved. Many local people voiced there concern on the closures, making politicans back down (for the moment).

4. Most stupid idea of the year? Culture minister Margaret Hodge's suggestion that libraries should link up with internet bookseller Amazon. Um, people go to libraries so they don't have to pay and store it. A library and a bookseller are two divergent markets and its not possible for one to be the other without major changes in the organisation (read money).

5. UK mashup still going strong. It was good to see many librarians meet this year for two mashups in Huddersfield and Birmingham. I went to the Huddersfield one and was really great to see a profession working to help our users experience (and learn something to).

Anyhow, thats my top 5? Anybody have any others?

Middlemash is open

As mentioned previously, there is a Library mash up event being held at Birmingham University on the 30th of November,2009. You can book via this link, at £15.00 (plus vat).

Middlemash......the data move's to Birmingham

Following on from the success of the library mash ups in London and Huddersfield, it seems there will now be one in Birmingham on the 30th of November. Unfortunately I'll doubt I will be going.

Some interesting Mash up idea from mash oop north

Mash oop north has released 30 ideas (if you ignore my initial idea) submitted by delegates on its web page. Their are some great idea's here and well worth looking at here.

Mash oop north............lightning talks

After lunch, the lightning talks started, which were 5-10 minute talks on what could and/ or maybe done at other institutions.

First up was Owen Stephens discussing interactive fiction and information literacy. He pointed us in the direction of this site as an example.

Next up was Tanya Williamson, who discussed Edward.R.Tufte. Tufte she described as an 'artist, economist and statistician'. Tufte also had a thing against, confusion and clutter are failures of design, not attributes of information.' He also had a treaty against PowerPoint (not a bad thing then?)

Next up was Paul Stainthorp and Joss Winn discussed Scriblio. Both looked at the plug-ins for word-press, and how you can create your own database and tags. Both looked at how you could individualise the users experience, which remind me of Nicholas Negroponte Idea of the Daily me and Ranganathan idea :-

These laws are:

1. Books are for use.
2. Every reader his [or her] book.
3. Every book its reader.
4. Save the time of the User.
5. The library is a growing organism.

There were more talks, but these are the one's I have notes for.

Anyway, thats it for my write up of the Mash oop north.

Mash oop north......lunch and other points of interest

Apart from listening to talks in the morning, I was also interested in what else I would learn. Firstly I used twitter a hell of a lot, and could see its advantages in this environment (ie an unconference). I also used the the mashlib hashtag. I was pointed in the direction of many exciting things (see here).

I also did not go and to the mash up in the proceeding rooms, in which case I could have learnt more. I was also not very forward on my networking either. Though I was glad I spoke with Dave Pattern to say thanks for the day

I did enjoy the plentiful supply of food though. I also lived off coffee for the day.

I also forgot to mention that were some pre lighning talks based on Mike Reed's 'Runaround'. These area's included the Semantic Web, Information Literacy, Mobile devices, social networking and discussed by some of the experts there. Everytime runaround was said, you had to move and go to another area (if you wished).

Mash oop north......Mike Ellis talk

Mike Ellis was next up.  He was discussing Scraping, scripting, hacking. Mike looked at how we could scrape data via Yahoo pipes, Google Docs, Dapper, YQL, HTTRACK, Regex (which Mike said was very powerful), Mail Merge (I kid you not), Html tidy, Open Calais (which is better than Regex Mike said) and many more. It was all pretty quick, and I found it hard to keep up with (read I'm not too hot on this). Owen Stephens gives a lot better overview of it here though.

Mash oop north......the come down (south)

After finally getting to Huddersfield I was struck how nice it was. Being stuck in London, i'm always struck by how flat it is. Huddersfield is a town in a valley with greenery. I got to the university in fairly good time and found Huddersfield University quite nice. As in the previous mash up at Birkbeck, Wi-Fi was a problem, but nothing major, as technology was not the main principle of the event but meeting like minded people.

David Pattern, who deserve a big round of applause for sorting this out opened proceedings. He discussed how different badges on peope would work and how the day would proceed. We then proceeded through the day.

On our way to the Mash Oop north

After Setting my alarm for the unearthily hour of 4.30am (that time does exist), I finally got my train from Kings Cross (though I did go to Euston by accident first). I'm really looking forward to this mash up, but coffee is mainly on my mind at the moment. The programme looks especially exciting. I am especially looking forward to the lightning talks, specifically though this one:-

2:30pm - Chris Langham

Drawbacks of using stock recommemdations (i.e borrowers who borrowed this item also borrowed these) in an academic library context.

I've always been interested in whether serendiptous searching. Having written about librarything previously it really is a pet love of mine.

I've started twitter for the conference and set up a Flickr account for the event to. I will keep you updated over the day how it goes. I need caffeine now.

Preparation for the Mash oop north......

Well as I prepare for going o Huddersfield to the Mash oop north. All my gadgetry is prepared. My Computer (check). Camera (check). External Hard-drive (check). Ipod (check). I've got the tickets, i've got to get up at 4.30 am on tuesday. Wohoo. I'm hoping their is Wi-fi on the train to, so i can blog on the way.

Using Twitter at academic conferences

(Found via ilibrarian). I was pointed to How People Are Using Twitter During Conferences in which the report says:-

“Microblogging at conferences seems to be an additional way of discussing presented topics and exchanging additional information. It is not limited to the face-to-face audience or the location of the conference. Microblogging rather allows virtually anyone to actively participate in the thematic debates. Our research shows that several conference speakers and attendees are using Twitter for various purposes. Communicating and sharing resources seem to be one of the most interesting and relevant ways in which one microblogs.”

I'm not a fan of twitter. I see the advantages, but find the noise to perplexing, but when I went to the Mash up at Birkbeck, I was surprised at how many people twittered at the conference. As the Oop north mash up is soon, I can see i'll ne twittering there myself.

Messing around with Yahoo Pipes

I have occasionally talked about Yahoo Pipes since the Mash UP in October I went to. I've been reading Tony Loton's Book and looking at other mash up. I have now tried creating my own (but really using the source code from here, and taking out the Connotea,Delicous and flickr tags and just putting my own blog in. Wasn't quite successful, but I did get this running.

Mashed Library UK 2009 tickets released

Mashed Library UK 2009 tickets have gone on sale. I've put in my request, I just hope I don't have to pay and Senate House do.