View from the Hill

Friday quiz

Calling all researchers and info pros, here is a Friday challenge for you all.

The first person to post a comment to this blog post with the correct answer (and quoting your source) wins the prize at stake, in this case, a limited edition Sue Hill Recruitment mug.

Question:
Why is the 29th of August 1883 a significant date for our profession?

Is anyone up for the challenge?

- Jeremy Clarke

Books or no Books?

The Changing Landscape of the Information Profession was the topic of an SLA Europe panel discussion session I was asked to facilitate last week.  It has been ably reviewed in different blogs and discussion lists.

One question asked the panel whether they thought there will be any future for print books.  I chose to split this into two questions and ask for a show of hands from the audience.  The first was to ask if there was a future for business books.   The majority in the audience felt not.  Then we explored thoughts on the future for leisure reading.  This time over 50% of the audience felt there was a future.  The panel was split 50/50 and to quote Sara Batts 'I suspect that at some point in the future I will own an e-book reader; but unless one is invented that survives being dropped in the bath, I will be hanging on to my paper books too.'  I concurred with her which meant the majority panel view was positive for the future of books, at least for leisure.

Today I spotted an excellent animated film for the New Zealand Book Council - of Going West by Maurice Gee - a Film for NZ Book Council, Produced by Colenso BBDO, Animated by Andersen M Studio.  I had to watch it two or three times, each time seeing more depth and something new and it just reminded me of why I love to read.  I challenge you not to be drawn in.

Off now to borrow the book at our wonderfully refurbished John Harvard Library in Borough High Street, and probably one or two more to boot. 

... it's for you

I came across this story last night and was struck by the sentiment, as a community revives its book lending, while at the same time observing the mantra Renew-Reuse-Recycle.

Maybe there is a lesson here for all of use to think about what resources we have at our disposal, even those right under our noses.

Enjoy!

- Jeremy Clarke

John West to lighten fine load

An initiative I spotted about this time last year but lamented to advocate is the "Food for Fines" program running at the Webster County Library in the U.S. from November 30th to December 5th. During the week library goers can exchange non-perishables or canned food to bring down fines by a buck a pop (not including lost items I'm afraid). Now to me this doesn't look as if it's a new idea but a quick search didn't yield many UK based results. Please correct me if I'm wrong!

I think it's not only a good cause to provide those a little less fortunate with a meal over the colder, wanton months but I also think it can be leveraged as a PR tool for a library service, a way to get those with fines back into the library, as well as providing help towards a global issue.

If only my University was so forgiving. I had plenty of noodles to spare.

Does your local council get involved in such a drive? If you are involved do you think it's a good idea or a burden?

- Cameron Best

Beg, borrow and steal

Calling all researchers and info pros, here is a Friday challenge for you all.

As this is the week of the Public Library Authorities Conference I have a topical question for you and the first person to post a comment to this blog post with the correct answer (and quoting your source) wins the prize at stake, in this case, a limited edition Sue Hill Recruitment mug.

Question:
On the topic of public library lending in the year 2007/2008, put the following loan categories into order of most issues (most to least):

Language, Literature and Biography

Humanities

Sport, Travel and Leisure Interests

Is anyone up for the challenge?

- Jeremy Clarke

SCL says libraries are for everyone

Weren't they already? The Society of Chief Librarians has today announced that we, the library card-carrying public, can now use any of 4,000 libraries across England, Wales and Northern Ireland. This initiative aims to make local facilities available to everyone, to encourage visitors and to make the library the community centre. There are calls by government ministers for coffee shops to be opened in our libraries and even for a postal delivery service to be in operation. Already there are lively debates opening on this topic, one comment is about book-drops being installed similar to those at your local video store. I'd like to add that my favourite library, the brilliant Barbican library (particularly excellent for music) has a great drop off facility which saved me some late fees the other day!

What are your thoughts?

Networking in Brighton

On Monday Emma Illingworth and Sarah Ison gave me and three other information professionals a guided tour of the Aldrich Library at the University of Brighton. Emma and Sarah are both Assistant Information Advisers at the University of Brighton.

Although the four of us work in the information profession, we are all relatively new to the library world. We also work in different sectors and roles, so it was really interesting to visit an academic library, and have the opportunity to ask questions throughout the tour. Working in recruitment I see first-hand how varied roles in the information industry can be and how varied the same type of role can be across different sectors. This is why we like to encourage people to get out and make contacts with other information professionals. I think that we can certainly gain fresh ideas from seeing how our colleagues work in other sectors.

The tour was brilliant! We completely overwhelmed Emma and Sarah with questions, and we all seemed to get a lot from the experience. I was particularly impressed by their commitment to provide great customer service to their users. They are always striving to look at ways they can work better, to improve the users' experience, and make themselves more approachable to their users. I think all of us came away from this visit with something that we can bring to our own roles.

So I would suggest to get networking, as contacts in different sectors to yourself can be a very valuable source of information!

- Lizzie Russell

Slightly overdue...

When is the latest you've ever handed in a Library book? Days? Months?

Well, a lady took 70 years to take her book back after it going through WW2 with her on her piano stool! From taking out the book of piano music in 1939 till 2009 it would have cost her £2500 in fines but down to her conscience it was returned and the penalty fine was wiped out!

It's never too late to return your books, but 70 years?!

 - Tina McGarvey

A Night in the Museum

The London and South East Divisions of the Career Development Group put on a fantastic social event last night - a Night at the Museum. We were divided into groups of 4 and expected to find information about certain artefacts in the British Museum, having been given a map and some clues.

I am absolutely dreadful at these sort of tasks however, I was armed with a group of fabulous library and information professionals, who are experts at searching for information, so I was feeling very positive about our group's chances of success! We answered all our questions very quickly (with very little input from me thankfully) and our last challenge was to come up with a team name. No-one in our team could decide on one, so I made an executive decision to call ourselves "The Winners", as I was feeling very sure we would be the first team back. Sadly, it turned out that we were the fourth team back, and "the Winners" did not win anything!

What followed was a fabulous evening of networking in a nearby pub. A big thank you to the Career Development Group for organising another great event.

- Lizzie Russell

Librarian on the Fringe

In an interesting mailing I received from UKEIG today was an article about one of the shows being taken up to the Edinburgh festival.  Tracy Crisp, a librarian herself, has written a "witty, comic mystery" about a vegetarian librarian who has been framed for murder, and she hasn't even had time to feed the kids yet.

"She's not just quiet... she's dead" runs through August at The Space on the Mile @ Jury's Inn, Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

 - Katharine Liu