Yesterday was Australia Day.

A couple of people wrote cracking posts reflecting on whether Senator Conroy’s proposed mandatory Internet filtering made them feel better about being Australian.

Kay Smoljak,   proprietor of Clever Starfish , is Not a proud Aussie . Sue Hutley, from the Australian Library and Information Association thinks about The internet and being Aussie – on Australia Day.

Both posts contain many pointers about what you can do. Some ideas:

• Join the Great Australian Blackout 25 – 29 January
• Read the Electronic Frontiers Association’s 10 things you can do to help
• Contact ALIA  (advocacy@alia.org.au) to make a contribution to ALIA’s submission to the Minister
• Make a submission to the Refused Classification materials review by 12 February 2010
• Download ACMA’s  Cybersmart guide for library staff

It’s Library Day in A Life Round 4, where a number of librarians document what their day was like. I did the first round on 29 July 2008, Meme: What’s a Librarian’s Day Like?.

I’ve spent last week trying to find time to complete a post called “Whatever Happened to ….Me?”, where I reflect on why things have gone so quiet on this blog.

The process reminded me of the blog post that I half wrote for Library Day in a Life Round 3 on 28 July 2009 – but didn’t publish because it seemed so banal. It was the day I resigned from my job at Murdoch University – and had a lot of to-ing and fro-ing and being a mum …dropping between writing/speaking commitments, motherly duties, meetings at the university, preparing for my new job, with some chicken husbandry thrown in.

Makes a good backdrop if I ever finish the other blog post that I have in the pipeline…

Here’s what I wrote then:

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28 July 2009

Again, I’m documenting an atypical day for librarydayinthelife (link)

Today I resigned from my job as Emerging Technology Specialist at Murdoch University.

It went something like this…

6:30am – Sound of duck quacking wakes me. Switch off iPhone alarm.

Via comments on Twitter and Friendfeed, discover that presentation in Washington DC that included a video clip of me (and based around my post about why learning about emerging technology is part of every librarian’s job) went well – and the audience actually liked it.

Via email discover that the final report of the Open Library Project – that I interned on at the University of Kansas in April – has finally been released.

7:00am – Check on chickens that we bought yesterday. They are still alive and happy in their enclosure in the garden.

Wake Mr6 gently, as he was off school all last week and hope that he is well enough to go in today. He is.

7:30am – Eat breakfast with children – “I don’t *care* if your uniform is not on and you have not packed your lunch – it’s breakfast time, you can do that afterward”.

8:00am Husband and boys leave.

8:15am Check work email. Respond to an email enquiry about accommodation for upcoming speaking trip to Darwin in October. Promise to send through requested bio and photo tomorrow – when I will be able to mention my new job

8:35am Phone Shire of Peppermint Grove to make sure I have right forms for accepting job.

8:49am Boss emails to say can’t meet at 11am, can we make it 11:30 – erk….will have to squeeze appointments because I want to tell her in person that I am resigning, not by phone or email…

8:55am Feed cat. Phone dentist about toothache. He suggests antibiotics and we book appointment for next week.

8:59am Discover cat has poo-ed in garage right behind my car. Curse cat while cleaning up mess.

9:00am Beautician for fortnightly de-forestration of my face. Curse my Mediterranean genes once  again.

9:30am Pop in to collect another employment form from home. Notice new egg in chicken cage.

10:00am Drop off forms at Shire of Peppermint Grove. Discover that superannuation fund has both a “Client number” and a “Member number”, and that I have only given one and need both.

11:00am Get to work. Feel nervous. Drop in on co-worker to let her know unofficially that I am resigning. She usually works in our joint-use academic/public library so understands my yearning to be back in public libraries, but we will both be sad to end our working relationship.

11:30am Break news to Library Director, who only started last Monday. “I’m going to be Special Services Librarian and the Grove Library in Peppermint Grove”. They are building an amazing new library with fantastic environmentally sustainable design features and I will get to help design the new service there”. “Yes, it is permanent and just two days, so I can write my thesis and help Mr11 with his transition to High School, which may be tough for him”. Actually wasn’t quite so succinct and eloquent, but was what I meant…

12:00pm To Family Doctor for Pre-Employment Medical. Takes over an hour, but at least now I have antibiotics for my toothache and know that my heart feels like it is a normal size…

1:30pm Bad Mother does not have time to pack lunchbox for boys after school so buys each a chocolate muffin as she picks up her own lunch at the bakery.

2pm Drop in at house to dump heavy backpack. Find two crows jumping on the chicken’s cage and taunting the poor birds. Growl at them and threaten to throw things.

2:30pm Appointment back at work with Head of IT who pays half my salary. Tell him I am leaving and show him the website for  the Grove library.

2:50pm Walking out of head of IT’s office when husband phones. He has Mr6’s bad cold and keeps going to sleep whenever he sits down. Shall he pick up the kids on the way home? Tell him to go straight home.

3:00pm With both bosses now informed in person, email official pre-written  resignation letter via my iPhone from University carpark.

3:20pm Pick up Mr6. Accept Barbie-themed birthday party invitation.

3:30pm Pick up Mr11

3:35pm In car, get Mr11 to plan what homework he will do when, while he changes his clothes and eats muffin without removing seatbelt.

4:00pm Drop Mr11 at drama lesson

4:15pm Unpack Mr6’s bag and discover four or five notices that need either to be replied to or put into family calendar – and double checked against clashes with other events.

4:30pm Start making dinner

4:50pm Drive to pick up Mr11 from drama lesson

5:20pm Continue making dinner while husband sleeps feverishly on couch, Mr6 plays Lego Star Wars on the Wii and Mr11 does homework with help from me every so often.

5:45pm Dinner on table.

6:15 pm

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I’m not sure what I did in the evening. I would bet that it was Twittering, Blogging and some professional reading and writing…

This week’s “I work outside libraries, people listen to me and I think  libraries can be cool” comment is from Seth Godin‘s post today, The future of the library . I’m reproducing the whole lot:

What should libraries do to become relevant in the digital age?

They can’t survive as community-funded repositories for books that individuals don’t want to own (or for reference books we can’t afford to own.) More librarians are telling me (unhappily) that the number one thing they deliver to their patrons is free DVD rentals. That’s not a long-term strategy, nor is it particularly an uplifting use of our tax dollars.

Here’s my proposal: train people to take intellectual initiative.

Once again, the net turns things upside down. The information is free now. No need to pool tax money to buy reference books. What we need to spend the money on are leaders, sherpas and teachers who will push everyone from kids to seniors to get very aggressive in finding and using information and in connecting with and leading others.

It’s interesting to look at the post by Robin Cicchetti that inspired Seth’s post, 2010 . She muses about what will keep her school library “central and indispensible”.  Her answers are below in dot point, but it is worth reading her entire post where she elaborates :

1. Transform the “library” into a “learning commons.”
2. Stop paper training students. Push information out to students digitally and also teach them the critical skills of finding and evaluating it for themselves.
3. Be a leading voice in bringing new ideas to your community as a tool for evaluating current practice.
4. Advocate for the diversification of formats.
5. Treasure and promote curiosity and creativity in our students.

I love it when people outside libraries see us not as dinosaurs, but share ideas with which I heartily agree.

Today, Kathy Sierra (programmer, game developer and author of my favourite deceased blog, Creating Passionate Users) gave me a glimpse on Twitter:

Reminded again that libraries should be rebranded/repositioned as Centers for Kicking Ass. You leave w/ more ability than you came with.

She elaborated in her next tweet:

Kids want better graphics rez for games, but learning about trees, stars, clouds, bugs… it’s like upgrading the resolution of the WORLD

The thought was keeping already kick-ass librarian Kate Sheehan awake – what should we call ourselves in this case?

I loved Kathy Sierra’s answer:

@itsjustkate there’s always that character in the comic books… the one that mentors and/or supplies the new superheroes.

Judging by their “read” poster, I think this mission is one that the Kalamazoo Public Library has already taken on board, kpl-read-poster-3:

Kick-Ass Superhero Mentors? I think I can live with that vision.

Remember last year’s  Thriller video from the National Library of Australia’s Christmas Party (Michael Jackson Library Video Mashups )? I’ve played it in a couple of presentations this year about libraries using media.  I have asked the audience “what do you think of when you think of the National Library of Australia?” both before and after I play it.

Now I can add Volume Two – this year’s Can Can’t Dancers . It includes all those features that make a library what it is – boys being girls, cartwheels, superman poses on book trolleys, bookthrowing, office chair choreography and even the splits.

Thankfully (?) this appears *not* to be part of a meme, so I can’t link to other videos of similar shennanigans in libraries like I did last year… Enjoy….

I had a couple of comments on my last post, 22 things I am going to do now that the library Kindle has arrived. , that I’m addressing here. I didn’t cover those points in my other post as it was getting too long.

Jim asked “why get the Kindle and not another ebook reader?”.

My main reason is that many ebooks are not available to Australians, but Amazon has advertised that they will have a larger range.

I presumed  the lack of ebook range was to do with Australia’s restrictions on parallel imports, so no other publisher can sell any version of a work if an Australian publisher is already selling a version of it in our market. If the Australian rights holder did not publish an ebook version, then we could not buy one produced elsewhere.  However ebooks are implied not to be covered by parallel importation regulations in the Minister’s press release a fortnight ago announcing that they were not changing the parallel importation provisions,( Regulatory regime for books to remain unchanged).

I found it impossible to find many good, recent fiction ebooks available to Australians when I tried to buy some in July. I tried to buy from several sites Sarah Waters’ The Little Stranger as an ebook to read on my iPhone. Although I used Paypal – and at one shop I used store-specific vouchers bought with my Paypal account – I was unable to complete my purchase and download. For all stores I received a message that the credit card was Australian and I was prevented by law from downloading that work. Fellow Australian librarian, Kate Davis, reports that she has only had success with downloading some items for her Sony ebook reader if she uses vouchers that a friend has purchased in the US then sent to her.

I have discovered that many of the most requested items in our libraries are still not available to Australia from Amazon’s Kindle store, but the range is better than what was previously available.

In my ebook session for the public, I aim to point them toward the Mobileread E-book reader matrix that compares all the ebook readers on the market. I want to tell them that the Kindle is not the only alternative, and particularly compare using the Kindle to getting ebooks on the iPhone and straight to the computer.

An  unexpected discovery since I’ve been using the Kindle is how easy it is to add works to it from the Kindle store. I think this would be an advantage for people who were unsure about technology but through disability, for example, wanted some of the features of an ebook reader. To get books onto my iPhone, I download them to my computer, open them in the Stanza computer ap and then transfer them to my iPhone – many steps that require more tech knowledge than needed to buy for the Kindle from Amazon.  For the Kindle I find the title by searching the store, click on it and it is delivered via wireless.  Looking at the E-book reader matrix, it seems that most ebook readers sold in Australia need their contents transferred via computer.

I agree that the Nook looks great – but again it’s not planned to be marketed in Australia any time soon. We are not buying the Kindle because we think it is the best ebook reader possible, but to help our community learn how to connect to content available to them via ebooks – and it’s a tool that is easily available now.

missioncreep, in what is possibly an automated spam promotion for one of the sites mentioned in the comments, suggests several useful sites to get free content.

Again, free content for ebook readers is something I want to promote in my session about ebooks for the public. I only realised a couple of months ago that Kindles allowed content from outside Amazon. My cynicism about Digital Rights Management made me presume that it would only read Amazon’s proprietary .azw formats. This is partly true, as other file formats need conversion via email, but it will read DOC, HTML, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP and PDF . It will also read non-DRM files in other formats.

I want to let users know about sites like Project Gutenburg, which has been going since 1971 and has audiobooks as well as ebooks.  I want to point them to sites like AddALL ebooks that allow you to search 30 different sites for ebook titles. If I have time, I am going to get hold of as many different versions of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice that I can find and use that as an example of how the same content can be repackaged in as many places as possible.

Our small public library is in an area where many library users are likely to get for Christmas  some hot newfangled gadget – like a Kindle ebook reader. My aim is for the community to think “library” when they think ebooks. I want to give our community hands-on contact with an ebook reader and advertise the library as a place that knows about reading in all forms and can make recommendations about content.

1.Slip on the clear silicone cover and plastic film screen protectors I ordered at the same time. I browsed over 500 covers on the store to find something that would protect it while making the device look slightly drab and less desirable.

2. Get used to living in the future. Today I paid $3 and download from the Kindle Store the complete works of Shakespeare (197 works).

3. Contain my amusement that 90% of people who have picked it up attempted to select menu items using their fingers as though it was a touch screen.

4. Read Jude O’Connell’s excellent guide to using the International Kindle in Australia, Kindle-ing a discussion about learning . It includes differences between what we get and what is in the US version, sources for ebooks, tech tips on downloading and information about where to find the best “how to” guides.

5. Browse wikipedia on the Kindle, but not anywhere else on the web because it is not allowed on the Australian edition.

6. Use the dinky, non-intuitive text enlargement button to try out the Text-to-Speech option.

7. Look at what other libraries are doing with their Kindles like River Forest Public Library ,NCSU library, Boxford Library .

8. Check out the Facebook group for organizations and libraries lending Kindles where there are many links to ebook programs in libraries.

9. Plan a session for the public about ebook readers at the start of December –  giving them lots of chance to play with the Kindle and learn how to read books on the iPhone or a computer, and where to download free ebooks.

10. Write a press release for local media about the ebook session. Make it clear that although ebooks will change things for libraries, we still have a central role for our communities.

11. Aim to circulate the Kindle for two hour loans inside the library for the first six months or so – but be flexible if there is low or higher demand.

12. Try to work out where to put the barcode when I have covered all surfaces with a silicone cover. Choose between asking staff to flip up the cover a bit at the front or cutting a rectangle in the back to get to the barcode.

13. Work out how to catalogue the Kindle. Some libraries have Kindle as a location and have a separate entry for each work. Others catalogue the Kindle as a work. Steal records from other libraries.

14. Assign a Dewey number of 028 to it when the cataloguing module demands a Dewey.

15. Try to download children’s books from the Kindle store, and discover that there are no Captain Underpants, no Harry Potter, no Emily Rodda. Discover a lot of worthy kiddie ethics books like “Sharing is good for you and me”. Go with “New moon” and “Video Rose and Mark Spark” from Jacqueline Wilson.

16. Try to download adult books from the Kindle store. Discover no “Elegance of the Hedgehog, no “The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society”, no “Lost Symbol”. Settle for “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”, “And another thing…:, the “Scarpetta Factor”, “The complete works of Jane Austen”,  “The complete works of Charles Dickens”.

17. Throw in the 7 book omnibus “Green your home all in one for dummies”.

18. Create a one page user guide showing what the buttons do. Put it and the Kindle in the hands of a staff member who has no idea what it is but is a very good sport and watch what she does. Add to the user guide instructions about how to get back to the start of each book, so that they are not left “open” mid-way.

19. Set up a new loan policy for our system, 2 hour loans, just for the Kindle so that it can be borrowed in the building. Try to work out how to use our LMS so users can reserve it without creating confusion for staff. Fail miserably and, since there is not yet a central place online to share staff information, print out booking sheet to go next to the kindle in our drawer.

20. When I have purchased all the works I want, deregister the library Amazon account from the Kindle . The purchased  content will stay there, but the only way someone can use the library line of credit to buy new works is if they re-register the account.

21. Give staff as much training as they want in the week before we start lending it out (mid-December).

22. Wonder what I have forgotten and what I will have to tweak…