Last week, after a lot of kind support from Greg Schwartz, I installed gizmo5 and contributed to the chatter on Uncontrolled Vocabulary, ( Uncontrolled Vocabulary #43 – All the librarians support us . )
UV is a weekly podcast about library topics. Anyone can phone in and be part of the panel.

Unfortunately some element of headset, PC,Talkshoe, gizmo, Windows and the great Intertube-under-the-sea meant that I created a horrible feedback and echo problem. I was muted for most of the talk. I could press a button to let Greg know that I wanted to contribute, then muted again. Was interesting, because it gave me time to think and meant I really had to have something to say when I spoke. I’m not sure that it is a Good Thing that thinking before I talk is novel 🙂

Some of my favourite items we talked about were the Cover letter meme , OCLC and Google to exchange data, link digitized books to WorldCat and the The New IT Librarian Application .

After the show had finished, Stephen Kellat, who does the LISTen podcast asked me to record an interview about Australian Library and Information Week. Being totally unqualified to do so, I said yes. The results are here,LISTen: The LISNews.org Podcast — Episode #23. Yes, I forgot to mention coming fourth at the Curtin Alumni LIW quiz night (oops), or the Biggest Morning Tea. Hey, if nothing else, I can casually talk about “that podcast that me and Karen Schneider did” – she was the other guest, asynchronously.

19 – 25 of May is Library and Information Week here in Australia.

What am I doing?

First off, I’ll be taking part in the Carnival of the InfoSciences #89 being hosted on librariesinteract.info . In case you are unsure about what a blog carnival is, according to Wikipedia:

A blog carnival is a type of blog event. It is similar to a magazine, in that it is dedicated to a particular topic, and is published on a regular schedule, often weekly or monthly. Each edition of a blog carnival is in the form of a blog article that contains permalinks links to other blog articles on the particular topic.

There are many variations, but typically, someone who wants to organize a carnival posts details of the theme or topic to their blog, and asks readers to submit relevant articles for inclusion in an upcoming edition. The host then collects links to these submissions, edits and annotates them (often in very creative ways), and publishes the resulting round-up to his or her blog.

The Carnival of the InfoSciences has moved to a different host blog each month for the last few years. The original idea is that blog authors submit their favourite post from their own blog. It’s a showcase of what has been interesting in the biblioblogosphere in the last month.

This month we have an Australian theme, so please, please, please let’s make it a good representation of Australian library bloggers. Cheat if you have to, and offer something that is over a month old. Offer something from your “Learning 2.0” blog – some of the most interesting observations I’ve seen have been from people just getting their toes wet. If you’ve seen a post you like on someone else’s blog, please nominate it.

You can email your submissions to blogadmin@librariesinteract.info and we’ll add them to the COI published on Sunday 26 May 2008 on lint.

I’ll be celebrating our library technicians at work, I hope, tomorrow on 20th May, National Library Technicians’ Day.

My kids are a bit too old for National Simultaneous Storytime, although they do love Arthur, which will be read around Austrlia at 11am on Wednesday 21 May.

On Wednesday I’ll also be joining Paul, Con, Mike, Stewart and Livia on what I am told will be the winning team at the Curtin Library School Alumni quiz night. I bet it’s one of the few quiz nights with a Benedictine Monk as the quizmaster.

I found these questions ( from Darren Rowse Problogger) that you should ask when you are considering whether to keep blogging. ( Should I give up blogging? 20 Questions to Ask Yourself )

While I don’t think I have any intention of stopping Librarians Matter, I’ve noticed my posts are slowing down as I enter my third year. I’ve been spending more time twittering, on new work projects, blogging elsewhere , getting slowly interested in videoblogging – and even trying to go walking at 6am to spend some one-on-one time with Mr10.

My friend Con (Ruminations) has been feeling in a pickle about whether to keep up with her blogging, Morgan (Exploded Library) has recently restarted his blog after a self-imposed hiatus and Fiona (blisspix) has decided to give up her more personal library related blog in favour of continuing a couple of others. I’ve noticed a huge drop in the number of new posts appearing in my aggregator from librar* blogs.

I find twitter is filling the community/comment space that was once filled reading and commenting on blogs. I like Hugh Macleod’s illustration of the phenomena, from back in 2007:

I also note with interest that Hugh actually deleted his twitter account on 10th April in a move that topped Techmeme – with the explanation:

It’s no big deal. I liked Twitter. But I found it too easy. I think my time would be better spent drawing cartoons and writing books..

The hiatus lasted exactly five days when he re-created his twitter account with the explanation:

“Short answer: Too many people I do business with are also on Twitter. Being off it was impossible. My bad. My Twitter page is here.:”

Anyhow, here are Darren’s Twenty Questions. I’ve tried answering those that I think are relevant. Problogger is concerned with making money from blogging. I’m not.

1. What goals do I have for this blog? Are they being met? Am I getting closer to meeting them?
   1. GOALS: First off I wanted to just find out about blogging, then to connect with other library bloggers, and finally (as subscribers grew) to actually have something that made it worthwhile for my subscribers to keep reading my blog. BEING MET? I certainly know about blogging, I’ve connected with other library bloggers, but am finding it harder to find the time to have something original to say.
2. Am I Interested in the Topic?
   1. Still passionately interested.
3. Am I getting personal satisfaction from posting?
   1. When I do it – absolutely. (Bit like physical exercise)
4. How Many Posts Did I write in the Last Month?
   1. 9
5. Do I have time to keep the blog running?
   1. Not really. I’m consciously pulling back and making it a lower priority
6. Is anyone reading my blog?
   1. Judging by the number of subscribers and the comments, yes people are reading
7. Have I given it enough time?
   1. In the past, yes
8. Do I still see myself writing on this blog in 18 months time?
   1. Not as intensely and intricately as in the last year
9. Is the niche growing or dying?
   1. Growing
10. Is the blog earning anything?
11. Is the blog growing my profile and perceived expertise?
    1. Undoubtedly. Which is interesting, as there are many people, who are less findable that I am, who know a lot more.
12. Are there any other benefits from this blog?
    1. Yes. Many times comments or emails in response to a post have filled gaps in my knowledge. There have been a couple of posts where I was really proud to provide the site where other people could share knowledge with each other via the comments. I find that often when I am asked about something at work, I have blogged about it months before and have a coherent response prewritten.
13. Is the blog giving energy to or taking energy away from me?
    1. Taking energy
14. Is the Blog’s traffic and income growing or shrinking?
    1. Traffic is growing steadily.
15. Are readers engaging with the content?
    1. Yes. I’m still thrilled and excited when people make comments. The fact that most of them are intelligent and well thought out enriches the blog
16. If readers are commenting – what are they saying?
17. What are other bloggers writing about my blog ?
    1. I get about 3-4 incoming links from other blogs a week.
18. Do I have anything original and useful to say on my topic?
    1. Yes I do, but original, well-crafted and researched opinion / speculation pieces take a lot more time than I have at the moment, so I have too many posts where I re-package other peoples’ content
19. What else could I do with the time that I spend on this blog
    1. Connect with the family, exercise, use twitter even more 🙂
20. What would the impact be of me not blogging? (on readers and me)
    1. I’d feel totally out of the loop and like I wasn’t giving back to a community where so many people are sharing their thoughts, knowledge and experience. I’d stop looking at much of my real life experience to see whether it is potentially bloggable.

When I get tagged for memes, I sometimes do them and sometimes leave them – and hope that anyone I tag feels free to say “ummmm…. not my cup of tea”. But what I really hate is when I intend to do a meme, but just don’t seem to get around to it.

I was feeling kind of guilty because I told Cathy Jo over at Techno Tuesday that I’d join in on the High School Daze to Praise meme about three weeks ago, and still haven’t shared a review of a Young Adult novel that I think is a sure antidote to the daze of High School.

I’m going to cheat in the same way that Cathy Jo did, and mention two books that managed to snap me out of adolescent fog. They were The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate (two books in one volume) by Nancy Mitford and The Importance of Being Oscar: the wit and wisdom of Oscar Wilde set against his life and times by Mark Nicholls.

In my High School days, I was living in a small town with small town orthodoxy and small town mores – and boy did I need a dose of English upper class eccentricity and sexual fluidity to make me realise that there were other ways of being. I was enraptured by Lord Merlin in the Pursuit of Love – with his rainbow dyed doves- and with the rude, self centred matriarch Sonia who was totally transformed by her obsession with the “worldly” and “flamboyant” (oh nudge, oh wink) Cedric. And Oscar – well if he could challenge strict Victorian morals with the way he lived and focus on things beautiful and witty, then surely I could see out a few more years of High School and ignore the obsessions of other 15 year olds with getting stoned and/or pregnant and/or married immediately out of high school.

I feel less guilty about taking so long to respond to Cathy Jo now that Michael Stephens has taken around two months to write a post after I tagged him with the Passion Quilt Meme – the one where you take an image and add a caption expressing what you think is the most important thing for students under your care to learn. He’s added a twist – what you’d want for new librarians. It’s beginning to make its way through libraryland already…

Here’s a sample of the Library Passion Quilt patches. I think Dorothea’s one is closest to my heart so far.

Mine

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Michael’s

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Helene Blowers

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Amanda Etches-Johnson

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Jenica Rogers-Urbanek

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Cindi Trainor

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Jason Griffey

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Dorothea Salo

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