Screaming Part 2: Stressed Librarians

After searching for suitable AV material for Information Literacy Lessons, I came across this invaluable piece of advice for library folk who need a good scream. I'm just about to go do the costings for this project, which I think should have top expenditure priority in any library. Picture hopefully coming soon ...

Disaster Recovery Plans

Looming Elections

Knowing that the minions of my employer are now regular readers of this blog, it behoves me to point out that I am not responsible for the following video - I merely draw attention to it in the interests of information dissemination.

Whilst the media and anyone on the planet will tell you, incumbent government looks set for defeat, and the likely election winners - not that there's any choice - are if nothing else introducing a little humour into the campaign.

This is good for the average Joe and Jane Citizen (or Bruce and Sheila, to put it into the Aussie Context); if we have to sit through a campaign with a forgone conclusion, let's at least enjoy it. After all, it's all done with tax-payer money that could have been much more wisely spent on say hospitals, transport infrastructure, school libraries ...



In the interests of "fairness", international or interstate blog readers, or those who may have just emerged from decade in a coma, may wish to view the video of the actual premier making an actual apology. It's current available at You Tube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXUy9qr9nXs although it may be removed after the elections on 26th March 2011.

Disclaimer: No, I didn't get paid for anything, or by anybody, for any reason, related to this video.

And today I did shelving ...

No, not as in "put the books on the shelves" ... as in "unpack the metal frames, brackets and shelves, get a screwdriver (and a big mallet) and assemble them". And THEN put the books on the shelves.

The final result looks great, but it's still not something I'd like to have to do every day - or even every month, year, gig, lifetime ...

So we went from this (left hand side pictures) to that (right hand side pictures).












The colour/color change can be credited to either an innate artistic flare, or to photographic incompetance. You choose ...

76 Trombones in the Grand Parade?

The Street Parade for Blacktown City Festival was inspirational, in many unimagined ways. As each of the 'floats' and groups went past, an overwhelming desire to sign up with the Scouts was quickly followed by wanting to learn the bagpipes, join the Emergency Service volunteer brigades, take up gymnastics, and - I swear this was true albeit only for a few fleeting moments - learn Punjabi.

Mind you, I don't know why each and every vehicle with claxton and/or sirens had to give full voice only when at the closest possible distance from my ears. And why every human tank had to make sure they were walking at inverse warp speed in front of me. Or maybe it only seemed that way? Nah. There must have been a huge meeting somewhere last night, where my photo was distributed and an orchestrated complex set of maneuvers was planned and executed with great precision. Those of you who are thinking that it's just the nicco withdrawal talking better not let me hear you.

Highlight of the day was most probably having a 'chat' with our state Premier (sort of like the US equivalent of governor, but with less visible security). Particularly since I was able to provide my personal gratitude for his kind donation to our school library last year. Mind you, he did seem a little lost for words when I casually dropped the fact that the library budget was once again completely depleted, and less than half way through the year ...

The mysterious case of the missing librarian ...

... or, where the heck have I been for the last month. That's an easy question to answer, although possibly not quite as easy to justify. In the never-ending battle to stay abreast with cyber-developments, I signed up with Facebook, uploaded pictures, commented on other stuff, and spent about 3 hours a day 'engaging'. [For those who haven't undertaken the Youth of Today's Social Networking Experience, read 'playing games'.]

After only 27 days, I can report that yes, it's addictive; yes, it sucks the life out of life; no, it has virtually no educational value; and no, it doesn't come anywhere near real-life 'socialisation'. Take for instance the Friends facility. Here you can ask people to be your friend, or they can ask you. But then you get little messages that say things like "6 of your friends hate you". Yeah, OK, maybe it isn't all that far removed from real life. Sort of makes you feel like George Bernard Shaw ... "he doesn't have any enemies, but his friends don't like him much".

There were many things that I didn't understand. For example, in the dedicated advertisement portion of each web page were 3 or 4 ads - with an extra little thougthful link to "more ads". I couldn't imagine why anyone would click on that link, except by accident. But sheesh! What would I know? I'm a Baby Boomer in a Gen Y world. Apparently.

On the other hand, I did find out a number of things about myself that I hadn't known before joining Facebook. I absolutely suck at games where getting money relies on the generosity of people you don't know, and who don't appreciate the gravity of the situtation. But wait! That IS just like real life. At least as far as financing the operations of a library.

Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. I just want to reach Level 50 in Heroes and Villains before I log out for the final time. And I'mwaiting for a power pack for Dragons. Oh, and I have to find out why the daily income in Metropolis has fallen to $12/day ...

More cheap ideas: Library Seating

Now here's another great idea from the MAKEZINE blog. Not only do you get more furniture for no additional cost, but you recycle without having to go through the tortures of wondering whether or not traditional recycling consumes more energy and materials than just creating new materials.

There seems to be many great ideas out there in cyberspace for re-birthing old library junk (including culls and weeds) for other purposes.


If you've got a spare moment or 30, check out the Instructables website. There's also information on the Inverted Book Shelf (see right), which would be a great gag for libraries on the next April Fool's Day. Mind you, to do this to a whole library is just asking for a whole lot of extra work, if not something a tad more serious in the disciplinary area.

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Shoestring Budget Library Renovations

Having wasted the last few nights trying to get images to upload in some sort of visually acceptable layout, I've moved them to the WLW website.

The 'table' area has been replaced with the large tables that used to house the computers; the defunct computer area has become The Briefing Room (now trying to source a humungous flat-screen TV for nix - wish me luck!); the photocopier has been relocated to the back of the library; and all the tatty old signs have been removed.

See also: http://warriorlibrarian.com/LIBRARY/shoestring.html for more pix.

Some of the daggier bits have been covered up with bookstore/publisher promotional posters - which had an interesting and unexpected outcome. Today a library user wanted to borrow the book shown on the poster in front of the main entrance. OK, I lied ... I said the book was on order and hadn't arrived yet. It will indeed be on order by COB tomorrow.

Be careful what you ask for?

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Predictive Humor

It's almost scary! Almost seven years ago, I wrote the infamous satirical list of Thin Books for Busy Librarians - which included "Successful Introduction of Beowulf to Reluctant Readers". Sitting on the shelves of my library now are two books that are achieving just that; one a graphic novel and the other a 'picture book' version. Mind you, the reasonably recent release of the movie of the book didn't hurt, either.

Today I attended one of the most worthwhile Professional Development activities I've been to in literally decades - Kevin Hennah's Visual merchandising and space management for libraries. Not only were the ideas brilliant, but also achievable, budget wise. But the scary bit was the fact that I wrote another satirical piece ages ago (as in years, not geological epochs), on how to tart up a daggy library with sticky tape and library glue.

Fortunately, today's event wasn't a presentation about tacking up your basic bits of paper, with tragic layout, onto already cluttered walls and noticeboards. In a strange sort of a way that was a bit of a shame, really - that's one of my areas of speciality.

Words cannot describe how a very impressive change can be achieved, with the expenditure of only a few hundred dollars. Actually that's not quite true. Words could describe it ... but its been a long day, and I haven't had my afternoon Power Coma yet. [Power "naps" are for whimps.]