Cilip of the tongue

There are many mixed feelings about CILIP (The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) in the realm of librarians and people who care about libraries, especially now when libraries across the country are under threat of closure.

However, I must pause to praise the recent CILIP Wales conference, held last week at the fabulous Metropole in Llandrindod Wells. I didn't go (some say I was banned..) but I did follow proceedings on Twitter and the conference was briefly trending at 4th in the UK - not bad for a bunch of Welsh librarians.

#cilipw11 for tweets from the conference.

Keep on Running

So well, I was please to receive an email last week from "the powers that be", informing my erstwhile colleagues and I that the Paige Turner blog has been identified as the longest running UK public library blog. How cool is that?

Of course, I couldn't let my identity slip, so I joined in with the laments - "if only we knew who the mysterious Paige was - we could let her know "

Anyway - this is 100% true, a real librarian has said so, in print and everything.

Watching...

Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle

"Have you read Harry Potter Stu?"
"No, because I am a 40 year old man"

As a child, Stewart Lee helped out in his school library. What a loss to the profession.

Reasons to be cheerful...1, 2, 3

1. Gowerton library is closed for refurbishment, reopening just before the school holidays start. Obviously the library being closed isn't cheer making, but it will be quite smashing when it's finished

2. 69 people visited this blog this week, even though I hadn't written on it since March. New disciples of the greatest library service in the western hemisphere or disappointed seekers of the "other PT"? (that's a rhetorical question)

3. Spy librarians are coming to Central Library!! Grab your garbadine mac because the chartership seekers of GCHQ in Cheltenham are on their way to see some best practice in public service librarianship

Stars of page and screen

I was in Swansea central library this afternoon and just had to take a picture of the staff dressed up in "Hollywood Glamour" to promote the DVD service (it is Oscar night you know!)

A regular contributor to this blog has commented before that a "disproportionately high percentage of both male & female SCL staff members are extremely attractive" and I must say, I have to agree!

Collective nouns

I can't find one for librarians. Suggestions in use include "a catalogue of librarians", " a stack of librarians" and "a shush of librarians"..

No matter.

Anyway - all Swansea libraries staff will be coming together next week for the 4th annual staff conference - the one day a year when we can all get together for training and development. This year the keynote speaker is none other than Sergio Dogliani of the Tower Hamlets Ideas Stores. In the tradition of Italians bringing excellent innovation to South Wales, we are hoping for a good day.

Recommended reading...

Look!

Recommended reading for delegates at the recent Internet Librarian International Conference 2007 was (I kid you not), this blog!!

Here's the proof - http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/ili-2007/masterclass/

That's the trouble with this blinking internerd thing - do I see a penny in royalties or conference fees?
I do not.
Am I bestowed with great honours by that organisation - what's it called, CLIP?
I am not.

Still the professional recognition, the pride, the warm rosy glow that someone somewhere reads this stuff.........

Cultural differences

I know a lot of librarians read this blog, but bear with me a few moments...

Imagine you're a customer. Yes, "customer", not "borrower" as they are small people who live behind the skirting boards. Not "user" - libraries are not heroin, nor even opiates for the masses. Not even "reader", as we all offer much more than that - don't we?

Anyway, for the sake of argument, you're a customer and you're looking for Elizabeth David's French Provincial Cooking.

You walk into a bookshop - you look around at the headings on the bookshelves - you notice that there is an area headed "cookery" or "food and drink", you think - ah, yes, that sounds right. On closer inspection, you notice that every couple of shelves is a smaller sign "barbecues", "soups", "A-z by country" Ah-ha!!!! a,b,c,d,e,f - French cookery.

You take the initiative - you read the titles and author's names on the spines of the books - OK sorry, getting a bit controversial there. But hey - you did it!

Now the alternative scenario - you walk into a traditional library. There are no signs above the shelves. On the end of each run of shelving, you notice an array of numbers (340-385, 610-649 etc.) You walk further and may notice a decrepid poster filled with a list of these numbers and what they mean, written in arcane language. (If you're a kid, your poster may have a jungle theme but the language will be the same).

OK - you say - I get it, there's some sort of coded system in play here! But, I'm an intelligent human so I can work it out. Right, let's see:

000 - computers, information and general works (nope)
100 - philosophy and psychology (nope)
200 - religion (well Delia's a bit fanatical about eggs but...nope)
300 - social sciences (don't think so)
400 - language (non!)
500 - science (erm, no)
600 - technology (nope)
700 - arts and recreation (ah-ha! The culinary arts! Recreational activity - sounds good, just finish checking)
800 - Literature (nah!)
900 - History and geography (no - hee-hee! I've cracked it, now, off to find the 700 section!)

time passes.

slowly.

Give up.

Go home or ask the code master.

Of course 641.5944!! "Utilising the sciences to harness the natural world and it's resources for the benefit of mankind" = Cookery! Silly me.

By the way - helpful tip, when you do get to it, if you do get to it, hope there's not too may books on French cookery, because chances are, you won't be able to identify the book you want behind all the spine labels.

There ends today's anti-Dewey rant.

You heard it here first..

Well "technically" I suppose it was second, but I did give an inkling didn't I??

What am I talking about? Read all about it here

Good news isn't it? Apart from the "B word". I'm going to start a one woman anti bookworm crusade, but being a good librarian (fnarrr) I am going to document instances of occurence first.

That's 2 - in 2 days.

Please join me on my "bookworm" hunt and stamp out the worm!

Blast from the past

Interesting to see this post over at Information Overlord from an ex-staff member of Swansea libraries.

Google is not your friend

says a colleague of mine (although I suspect he nicked it from somewhere)

Well Mr H, you are wrong! Google is my friend. How else do you explain a recent visitor being directed to this site after a Google search for "inspirational librarians"??

What I meant to say...

of course, was that the highlight of the conference by far was the fabulous presentation of Mr Peter Gaw "Building new libraries in Wales" which was greeted with tumultuous applause by the hall.

Rather reminiscent of Magaret Thatcher's infamous neverending standing ovation at a Tory conference "back in the day". Not that Mr Gaw is a "child of Thatcher" of course. He's much older than than he looks.

Peter Gaw will be leaving Swansea Libraries soon to take up a position as head of Nottinghamshire Libraries. I'm sure that staff there will soon be able to chant their mission statement at will too.

Yes, definitely the highlight of the conference.

The Italian job

I was reporting undercover last week at the Welsh Libraries (archives and museums) conference at Llandrindod Wells. Usual good cheer in the bar and a pretty positive set of presentations, but many colleagues were left dispirited by the debate on"the future of the profession" at the end of the conference, and the absence of more than a couple of people under 30 at the event.

Highlight for me was Sergio Dogliani's presentation on the Tower Hamlets "ideas store" concept. Often, I hear about these non-traditionally named library solutions for the 21st century, and there's lots of excitement about yoga classes and spanish courses BUT... no mention of books.

However, the idea store concept is centred on books - and that makes me happy.

He really was a very nice man too, a very nice man indeed.

Lowlight was the mention of the dreaded "sexy" word in relation to librarians. At least it wasn't in conjunction with the dreaded "funky".

Let's have ... "a heated debate"

Interesting discussion over at Annoyed Librarian's blog about the nature of librarians. According to one poster, Librarians:

"are not Scholars, do not appreciate technical skills, are intimidated by scholars, have low self esteem, have no business/organizational skills, are nurturers, do not generally have high IQs, do not have good social skills, think inside of the box, are inefficient, are limited to linear thinking, do not value innovation, are reactive, make mountains out of mole hills, are introverted, are underachievers, focus easily on detail without seeing beyond, never question authority, avoid confrontation at all costs, do not value history, are clueless, complain alot about lack of money instead of addressing their inefficiency, are mindlessly bound to outmoded modalities of dealing with information, never look at the world around them, design systems that serve librarians and not the public, have difficulty making decisions, fear and resist change, don't think well on their feet"

Have no intention of being Dooced , or starting "the great Dewey debate" but I think it makes a few interesting points about the profession (although certainly not true across the board) so I am interested in your comments.

One point to note though, I am most defintitely NOT Annoyed librarian, although I am very jealous of her profile statement.