A blog post I can relate to

(Found via here). Here's a great blog post entitled 10 Easy Ways To Make Your Day Worse. Here's Josh Hanagarne list of 10:-

1. Hold onto that grudge

2. Blame someone else for your own shortcomings

3. Wonder why anyone wastes their time on you

4. Think of yourself as a lost cause

5. Tell a lie

6. Just kill some time

7. Think about how much you hate your job while you’re at work

8. Belittle someone

9. Tell yourself that you can’t make a difference

10. Slouch in every chair you sit in

I defy anyone not to have at least one of these during a day.

Three talks at HollyWood Librarian part 2

Presentations by Mike Allport from Southwark libraries and noisy library day. Then Rosella Black from Westminster libraries discussing how the lbrary has been used as a performance library because its an arts library. Finally Sara Wingate Gray, the Itinerant Poetry Library. Was interesting, but the Q & A was way to short as they talked too much.

Hollywood Librarian 2 at Stuart Hall, Part II

The day started in Hoxton at the Stuart Hall library. Assistant librarian Holly Callaghan introduced the event and discussed the vent and how it was the second in the series of events held here. She discussed Maura Seale's treatise on the portrayal of librarians entitled 'Old maids, and social rejects : Mass media representations and public perceptions of Librarians'. This describes how 5 types of librarians are identified within modern culture. These being:

1.The Old Maid Librarian.
2.The Policeman Librarian.
3.The Policeman Librarian.
4.The Inept Librarian.
5.The Hero/ine Librarian.

Then we watched Desk Set. Then a break for lunch.

New Books on my Amazon radar

A couple new geeky books I ordered from Amazon. First up is This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. The author says of the book:-

What is it like to be a librarian in a world of too much information? Constant change, exploding technology, shrinking budgets, growing numbers of the baffled...could there be a better spot than behind the librarians' desk to watch the digital age unfold? Check out the reviews on the Review page, and read the first chapter on Harper's Library Love Fest blog or download to the right.

A review of the book can be found here.

Another book I have ordered is Search Patterns by Peter Morville, who did the excellent Ambient Findability.

The author says of it:-

Search is among the most disruptive innovations of our time. It influences what we buy and where we go. It shapes how we learn and what we believe. This provocative and inspiring book explores design patterns that apply across the categories of web, e-commerce, enterprise, desktop, mobile, social, and real time search and discovery. Using colorful illustrations and examples, the authors bring modern information retrieval to life, covering such diverse topics as relevance ranking, faceted navigation, multi-touch, and mixed reality. Search Patterns challenges us to invent the future of discovery while serving as a practical guide to help us make search applications better today.

Reviews can be found here.

Good review of why people should support library 101

I was interested to read the article entitled Why I Support Library 101 (And so should you). Having previously mentioned library 101, it was good to see that the author had the following to say about the project:-

And as the video is one component of the overall Library 101 project, let us examine the essays section. Perhaps the term ‘essay’ is a misnomer for some of the submissions, but they do offer personal takes on the kinds of skills and paradigms that libraries should have now and in the future. Or, for a better description, a collection of entries by well respected online library professionals describing what they feel are the basics of the libraries of the present and the future. For myself, these entries act as a barometer of thought as common themes emerge (such as customer service and technology) as well as food for thought about my own place in my library, my system, and the greater library universe. The points contained within this section cultivate an inner dialogue, challenging the reader to accept or reject the premise and support their viewpoint. How exactly, pray tell, is this sort of self examination a bad thing? According to David in his post, Library 101 is intended to start these kinds of conversations.

.......I highly doubt that it was the intent of Michael and David to turn every librarian into a techno-jargon spewing 2.0 web savvy librarian. The appeal of the list is far more basic and primal, reaching out to the sense of curiosity that resides in us all. To me, the denial every item of the list and offering of no additions is to say that they is nothing new or interesting in the middle of the largest information explosion in the history of mankind. That’s inconceivable and unacceptable.

I really like the library 101, and will hopefully soon get a chance to read all the essays included on the site.

Book of interest........

(Found via here). I was interested to hear about the book called This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All. Rick Roche describes the book and author thus :-

While Johnson extols the virtues of the profession, she points out that it has some members that resist change, usually trying to preserve services and procedures that served well in the past. She also repeats the often heard cry that librarians fail to promote themselves well in our highly contentious world. Her praises, however, greatly overshadow her criticisms. She believes that most librarians knock themselves out serving their clients regardless of pay, institutional support, or appreciation from society at large.

The book is not due out until 10.02.10. Hears to the new year then.

[Just Tweet It] New Listing On: Librarians.....the only emails I know seem to get

Since David Rothman informed us of the librarian twitter feed, I went and joined. I am know getting constant updates of new joiners. I am actually quite enjoying adding new feeds to my bloglines. Its been good to discover these new blogs. I love serendipity.