Road to Emmaus

The Library Thing

2009-03-26T14:48:00.000-07:00

Hello blog! I return after a long absence!

Have joined The Library Thing and realise what an enormous time consumer this site could be!
Was fascinated to see that over three thousand other people had listed C S Lewis' Out of the Silent Planet! Will have to follow up this at home when I'm supposed to be feeding family or something!
http://www.librarything.com/home/LydiaSmith

Ken from You Tube - my favourite speech.

2008-04-16T18:21:00.001-07:00

Here's my go at embedding a You Tube clip.

This speech always gives me goosebumps. Watch carefully and you'll see a very young Christian Bale!

Library of Alexandria

2008-04-16T18:07:00.001-07:00

Two
Originally uploaded by (mO)²

. . . or this?

Eileann Donan Castle, Kintail

2008-04-16T18:05:00.001-07:00

Eileann Donan Castle, Kintail
Originally uploaded by travelal

Could this be the winning design for our new Library?

It would save decorating on those Harry Potter trivia nights!

Your Wish Shall Be Granted . . .

2008-04-16T17:48:00.000-07:00

After 13 years of working at this Library, coping with an old building, cramped space, bad lighting etc, we learned this morning that Council has approved a proposal for a large new Library!!!!

We still have a long way to go, but at least things are much more concrete now.

Meetings will now be held with staff to finalise guidelines for architectural plans.

What should a new Library have?

Busy Busy Busy

2008-04-02T17:33:00.000-07:00

A cyclists conference has taken over our town!

There are hundreds of visitors from all over Australia and they all want internet access
asap.

I wish town councillors and managers could see our library this morning. Two packed storytelling sessions, not enough chairs for people to sit and read, internet booked out
til 6pm, family history section full. It warms the cockles of the heart.

All this in a 19th cent building totally unfit for the purposes we call it to fulfil day after day.

Sigh . . . . new library . . . .

Wikis cont

2008-04-01T22:45:00.000-07:00

Forget what I was supposed to be doing!

Library applications for wikis -
HSC support site
Staff procedure manual
Customer book reviews

And I'm sure there's more.

I did notice on the Blogging Libraries wiki that hardly any of the blogs listed actually had people commenting regularly. Are they worth all the work of setting up and maintaining?

Week 5 - Wikis

2008-04-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Han Solo and Leia had three children? One of them went to the Dark Side?
Well, I'll be. . . . .
The things you can learn on a wiki.

I enjoyed the Princeton Book review wiki. Might have a go at a review.
I recently gave up about a quarter of the way through Ken Follett's
"World Without End". I finally couldn't take all the anachronistic language. It
vaguely annoyed me in "The Pillars of the Earth", but I must be more cranky these days.
I don't expect a book set in the 14th cent to be full of "Forsooth!" and "Prithee"s,
but I wince every time someone says something like "He made her feel really
sexy" or "I'll catch up with you later". I think use of language plays a big part
in creating and sustaining a believable historical world - don't you (whoever you
are!)?

You Tube stuff

2008-03-19T21:35:00.001-07:00

I'm impressed by the number of blogs which have You Tube clips embedded.

How do you do this???

RSS Feeds

2008-03-19T21:13:00.000-07:00

Hmmmm . . . not sure of the possibilities of using this at work. I'll check out other blogs and see what others think.

I subscribed to a couple of news and library sites and a couple of blogs that I visit on a regular basis. I'll be interested to see how much easier it is to use the RSS feed than just pop in to my normal sites.

Will post again when I've sussed out other Library 2.0 blogs

Flickr'ing Thoughts

2008-03-04T15:56:00.000-08:00

Enjoyed very much exploring Flickr and could see some applications for library
and church - but it does worry me that there may not be sufficient safeguards
to preserve safety and anonymity of children in particular.
I was a bit taken aback to find such a huge number of participants - all this
has been going on for years and I knew nothing of it!

Img 3056 Royal Crescent, Bath

2008-03-03T16:42:00.001-08:00

Img 3056 Royal Crescent, Bath
Originally uploaded by Bryan26

I was here two weeks ago!!!!

It was sunny as per photo, but very cold.

Bath is the prettiest town in England.

First Post . . .

2008-02-26T20:50:00.000-08:00

For anyone skimming the blogosphere for fun and excitement you are doomed to disappointment. This blog is part of a library training course and is therefore purely
of interest to other librarians with lots of time on their hands (is there such an animal?).
I don't quite know how I eneded up with a pink blog - but I'll stick with it for a while to
see if I grow accustomed to its face.
Questions:
Is the expanding power of the web an exciting and transforming new development, or is it
another way for articulate, educated, wealthy Western elites to maintain inequity?
Is it actually good for us to be able to have exactly what we want, when we want it?
I'm thinking of poor little Stephen Fry scarred for life by missing an episode of Dr Who.
Thank heavens for the Brave New World of Web 2.0 where he'll never have to miss anything
again! Or learn how to handle disappointment, I suppose.
Feeling very curmudgeonly this afternoon! No doubt the wonder of wikis will convert me
from a Techno Luddite quite shortly.