Spent a couple of chunks of the weekend setting up a couple of new blogs with CW. My blog count is now 11 in two months. Counting the new two, that’s four active “real” blogs.

We’d muttered and mumbled about blogging the upcoming Click06 conference here is Perth. We were also muttering and mumbling with some other Ozlibloggers about a collaborative Australian libraryland blog.

We stopped muttering, bought some webhosting,got a domain name, installed some software, set up some templates, found a structure, decided a scope and we got ourselves two blogs ready for Australian Librarians to play in. Well, not quite ready…the RSS feeds aren’t up and there are a few “under construction” signs about.

librariesinteract.info is a collaborative blog to track what is happening in Australian libraries. We want to include things like events, ramblings, job postings, interesting pointers to web sites and “how to” posts. We want it to be more conversational and informal than any official organisation could set up.

Let’s Blog Click06 is set up so that a team of bloggers can track the September conference. Nothing to do with me being away on a family holiday during the conference!

It was great to work with CW. We follow the same kind of serpentine work path. We get to the goal, but she meanders in similar places where I would.

It’s also great to have someone who can make more time to work on the project than me. And doesn’t mind me saying “we need to do x, y, z, so how about you do x and y, I’ll get a phone number for z and you can do the other 10 steps involved”. I guess you could call that collaboration.

While I’m tied up finding a bandaid so Mr 3 can smell it and helping Mr 8 get his behaviour under control, I know someone somewhere is doing what we mapped out. It’s a good feeling.

I need to say a thank you to my Co-Pilot and M who looked on bemusedly while their houses were invaded and they lost their life companions in the blogosphere for the weekend. And supported us with advice and cups of tea.

Folk just don’t do enough blessing these days.

As I turned into my street tonight, I passed a young mum and her son carrying large suitcases in the rain. They’d just got off at the bus stop. I was going their way, so I offered them a lift.

Turned out they were going to a house a couple away from mine.

As they left the young mum said to me “That’s good karma for you. God bless you”.

It quite made my day in the way a simple “thank you” just wouldn’t have.

If your’e reading this, bless you.

I drove two very nice library practicum students to OurUniversity Sattelite Campus Library on Thursday. Both are finishing their graduate diplomas in library studies, which will qualify them to be ….LIBRARIANS….

C. had her mind on the “what job will I do when I get my bit of paper?”, “how will I get it that job?” and was asking questions around it. I found it enjoyable, because it made me think about my own path from there to here.

I tried to tell her that often, it’s “right place right time”…or making it so. Applying for “job I never thought I’d take in library sector that doesn’t interest me that is available NOW”…and seeing where it takes you. Proving to an employer that you turn up regularly to work on time, don’t offend your clients, can make your job interesting and are open to networking. Same as any job really.

So…where have I been…how did I find the job and why do I think they employed me? The only one I thought I wanted to do at library school and seemed to have the best skill set for (law librarian) was the one that made me unhappiest.

1. Library Officer at OldStateUniversity. Ad in student newspaper. I was a second year student, probably with another 3 years to go. Didn’t even get interviewed. Suspect academic record and name of colleges I’d attended helped. Rating on a good for me scale: 9/10 for putting me through uni and making library school a lot easier.

2.Law Librarian/Researcher at Small Private Law Firm. Ad on student noticeboard in library school. Firm wanted a cheap, unqualified student to replace contract librarian. I was cheap, unqualified and was planning to go back to studying law. Rating on a good for me scale: 10/10 for making me decide to never, ever be a lawyer, 10/10 for looking good on my CV and giving me great networking and useful skills, 3/10 for making me unhappy for 18 months.

3.Contract cataloguing all resources in state branch of Large International Accounting Firm.Ad in small print employment column in State newspaper. With inexperience I named an hourly rate that seemed like a fortune to me and very low to them. Running a special library had given me cataloguing skills that suited the job. Being a relatively recent graduate meant I hadn’t yet forgotton all my cataloguing. Rating on a good for me scale: 8/10 for getting me a job after extended holiday. 6/10 for interest.

4.Systems Librarian at Suburban Public Libraries Large ad in State newspaper. I still had “new graduate” gloss. My CV had a “familiar with” section where I listed any software that I’d been in the same room as in the last 5 years. No-one else really applied and their Good Person had just left and they needed somone NOW. Rating on a good for me scale: 9/10 because I “grew up” in that job, gained a really useful skill set, was mentored and allowed to stretch my wings, loved the work environment and could set my own direction for most of my day.

5. Community Infromation Librarian at funky seaside TinyCity Large ad in State newspaper. I’d always wanted to live in fsTC and I get my kicks from promoting community cohesiveness. I wasn’t the strongest applicant in any single area, but they told me they liked what I offered in all areas…and my boss at SPL had told them that I coped very well with b**chy staff. Rating on a good for me scale: 10/10 for learning new skills, loving the job itself, some of the colleagues, being at the centre of fsTC. 2/10 for staff environment and the 2 hour daily commute.

6.Systems Librarian at Suburban Public Libraries Large ad in State newspaper. Old work colleagues telling me job was availalbe. Ex-boss phoning me and asking me to apply. I already liked them and lived 5 minutes away, they liked me. It was my old job. Still had to have an interview (where I gushed over one of the interviewer’s pregnant tummy and then realised that I should straighten up and be proffessional). Rating on a good for me scale:10/10 for even more encouragement and opportunity for professional growth. 0/10 for not being something I could still do with a new baby and when I finally moved to fsTC.

7. Reference Librarian at OurUniversity Library Ad on WAIN listserv, the library listserv for our state. Submitted CV via email. Don’t really know why they employed me. I could work Sundays and funny hours and was relatively young? Rating on a good for me scale:10/10 for getting me back into the workforce, updating my skills, great work colleagues and letting me do a project that challenges me, but is nothing to do with the rest of my job.

you are checking your feeds at bloglines, enjoying each update of your favourite bloggers and unthinkingly you click on your own blog…and actually EXPECT THERE TO BE A NEW POST THERE.

Is this just my quirk or did other people do this at first?

Two recent presentions at WA academic libraries now have wikis with summaries of the papers:

WONDERFUL WIKI ONE:

Western Australian University Libraries Resource Access Group
Held at Murdoch University Library May 2006

Curtin University of Technology
Linda Sheedy, LIS Reserve Supervisor
E-Reserve – Library and Information Service – Curtin University of Technology

Edith Cowan University
Erin Smith, Library Technician Subscription Services
eReserve @ ECU Library

Murdoch University
Jean McKay, Manager, Liaison Services
Electronic Course Materials Service at Murdoch University Library

University of Western Australia
Jill Benn, Acting Humanities & Social Sciences Librarian
E-reserve at UWA Library – the CMO & EPO in the LRS: Building the Foundation Project

WONDERFUL WIKI TWO

Collaborative Action for Reference Competencies and Information Technology
Held at Murdoch University June 2006.

New Technologies and Libraries

Constance Wiebrands, Senior Librarian Curtin Business School & Sue Grey-Smith, Senior Librarian Research Services

Curtin Library & Information Service

Podcasting@your Library

Jaya Berk, Librarian Learning Services; Jody Atkinson, Librarian Resources & Access and Sonja Olsen, Librarian Learning Services
Curtin Library & Information Service

Interacting with Online Subject guides

Luke Padgett, Librarian, Learning Services
Curtin Library & Information Service

IRIS (Introductory Research and Information Skills): innovation through collaboration

Jenny Golding, Reference Librarian Humanities & Social Sciences Library
University of Western Australia

A Usability Test for an Evidence Based Solution

Agnes Noronha, Faculty Librarian Business & Law ECU; Maureen Couacaud, Subject Librarian Business & Law
Edith Cowan University Library

MULTA:Murdoch University Library Thinking Aloud

Kathryn Greenhill, Reference Librarian
Murdoch University Library

Hey…wanna see what happens to Amazon when accessed through an Innovative Interfaces OPAC?

Click here, If Amazon sucked like our old OPAC . Go on, I’ll wait.

If it can do this to a vibrant, dynamic site like Amazon, imagine how your collection could look if you didn’t have this type of OPAC interface.

This was created by David Walker, Web Development Librarian at Cal State San Marcos library, who has some really excellent projects in his blog, including:

• Shrew, a system that provides a fully customizable and extensible interface to the Innovative catalog system, as well as a an SRU and OpenSearch server.(see this record for Vikram Seth’s A suitable boy)
• RSS Creator, a system that leverages SFX and Metalib to create RSS feeds for any journal or newspaper indexed and abstracted in a library’s subscription databases.
  

I’m seriously impressed and just wish I had his skill set. Then I’d feel Really Useful.

I did not enjoy sewing the pack’s patchwork quilt in my previous life as a Girl Guide. It was inevitably dragged out when it rained or the pack leader just ran out of inspiration. Now there is a type of patchworking that seems a lot more fun.

Look on the sidebar of many blogs these days and it’s not just “my profile” and “last posts”. There are data harvested from many different sources, all linking “live” to other sources and changing as that source changes. I’m not just talking RSS feeds here.

There is the “what I’m currently consuming” link to display what is playing on iTunes on the user’s PC. There is the “books in my personal library” link to Libary Thing. There’s the “search my site with google” search box. There’s the “Weather for my city” box. What’s going on here?

They are mashups. Take content from one site, refilter it a bit or a lot, combine it with content from another site, squish ’em all together and you got youself a mashup. The content is obtained via the site’s public interface or API.

To see how far you can go, check out the Mashup Dashboard at Programmable Web (Thanks CM for the pointer). Users submit their latest mashup and give a bit of background about how they done it good

When I visited the site, the second vaguely librariany site I browsed was the..Similarity Web . At the site, Similar Product Visualisation with AWS , one can search Amazon’s stock and then see a display via flash of similar items, going back two degrees. Book covers of similar items are arrayed like playing cards around the central item. Item details show in the right hand column when the cover is moused over. Not sure whether the link will stay, but here’s one I did for Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy. Press the “Visualize Web” button to see the cards being dealt out. (Be afraid OPAC, be very afraid…)

I’d love to learn about using mashups in a library context. Well, now I can learn by doing…. but just don’t have the time. Library vendor, Talis is running a competition called Mashing up the library , announced in their Shared Innovation blog. Entries close 18 August 2006. Or if one felt a bit more generalist, one could enter google’s new competition to create a gadget for google desktop. Entries close July 31st. Or why not create the uber-library-google-desktop-gadget and blitz both competitions?

A simple mashup site that allows users to have all their del.icio.us, Flickr, blogger etc items in one place, but doesn’t then rearrange them in mind-boggling ways, is suprglu. Worth checking out. Thanks CW for the pointer.

One of the side routes that I’ve filed under “explore when you have more time, maybe in your next life” is the Second Life Library. This is a library service set up in the multi-multi-user virtual world of Second Life, accessible free online.

In Enjoying Your First Life? Why Not Add a Second? Developing Library Services in Second Life at Serious Games Source some members of the Alliance Library System outline who they are:

Alliance Library System started the Second Life Library project in April 2006 in response to a shift in people of all ages from media consumers to media creators. They are all spending more time on the Internet and they want to create and contribute, not just consume. Alliance Library System (ALS), located in East Peoria, Illinois, is one of nine regional library systems in Illinois. ALS has 259 member libraries of all types (academic, special, school and public). We provide a variety of services for our members including continuing education, consulting, grant writing, and new technology initiatives.

Within the Second Life Library they have a library building, conduct online seminars, staff the library 2 hours per day, set up vendor database trials (real ones, like EBSCO) and have email reference. To me, a couple of benefits are – it’s meeting the users where they hang out and providing services there ; and it’s a place where vendors can show their wares to an interested world wide audience of librarians.

Alliance also run the OPAL (Online Programming for All Librarians) site, “an international collaborative effort by libraries of all types to provide web-based programs and training for library users and library staff members”.

Second Life library has it’s own blog (Second Life Library 2.0), and it’s well worth dipping into this or the actual site every so often when you need a fun break from work, that you can still call work.

This one’s for all those who think that blogging is just self indulgent blather. It’s just a quick post to see whether my feedburner feed (now on my sidebar as “subscribe”) is picked up properly by bloglines .

10 THINGS I DID TODAY
It’s the type of day that I have about once a month, but people think Stay At Home Mums have all day every day.
1. Scanned my teddy.
Work colleague reminded me in an email to bring in my teddy for Library’s Midwinter Lunch, which has a Play School theme. She used many bear smilies in her post. I scanned Coco just to show her what a real teddy looks like. My Co-Pilot has warned me that posting it here risks creating a “Scan your Ted” meme.
2. Watched Play School with my 3 year old
A rare treat, as usually we are a “One hour of TV between 5 and 6pm household”.
3.Folded 5 baskets of laundry
Only half a week’s worth.
4.Sewed up the 8 year old’s school jumper
5. Went to dance class at the gym
Thursday nights, 6:30 pm. Body jam class.
6.Watched “Vera Drake” on DVD while the 3 year old napped
How else would I get through 5 baskets of laundry without climbing walls?
7.Cleaned up a couple of day’s dishes from the kitchen, then cooked dahl, rice, poppadums, corn
8.Was hot water bottle for Nougat, the furless Cornish Rex cat all day
Yes, I did 2., 3, 4., and 6, 9. and 10. all with the cat stuffed up my jumper.
9. Listened to 8 year old’s reading, timed his timed reading passage, helped him stay on track while he did his homework
10.Made an appointment with a Real Estate Agent to appraise my dad’s house