Today I may be attending just two bootcamps and two keynotes, or I may be attending papers – I am unsure.

Keynotes are:

Karen Calhoun, OCLC, USA The emergent library: new lands, new eyes and Thomas Tague, Thomson Reuters, USANext up? The linked content economy .

The workshops would be these:

Video: Negotiating the Online and Mobile Space Facilitators: Simon Goodrich and Al Cossar, Portable Film Festival, Melbourne, Victoria  and Semantic Web APIs Facilitator: Thomas (Tom) Tague, OpenCalais, USA.

I don’t fancy trying to do a video workshop if the wifi is as flakey as it was today – or if it sucks up my entire quota of 250MB for $33 … VALA has worked hard this afternoon to get the wifi upgraded, so hopefully it will improve.

Here is my CoverItLive session for today, which will go live around 9am Australian Eastern Standard Time.

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.