Jogging Friday

Every Friday after work I go jogging round the river with my friend. As we jog, we chat about our week, the things that annoyed us, the things that we liked, and then about the direction our lives are going in, life balance, our partners, philosophy, current affairs, you name it! By the end of the hour we're feeling pretty good, de-stressed, and ready for the weekend. We've only missed a couple of Fridays in the last few years. I took this photo on our run today.

On kindness

So today I had to do something that I didn't want to do, something that made me uncomfortable. I had to phone two people and tell them that they didn't succeed in their job applications. I spent a bit of time working out how I would word it, based on how I would want to be let down - that is to say, gently. I wanted to be completely honest at the same time. Kindness and authenticity are traits that are really important to me, that I try to enact with all my interactions with people. The phone calls went well, considering.

Here's a quote from Dalia Lama XIV, who is in Australia at the moment -

"Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible."

Small library chaos

Today was a funny day at the library. It started out with me not being able to get in. The automatic sliding door had jambed and broken in the closed position, accompanied by a loud beeping alarm. I had three interviews lined up for a casual position, so this was not the start to the day I was looking for! The technician came within an hour and set out his tools and ladders all over the entrance. Lucky it's the mid year break with not too many students around. When he went into the ceiling he found some cable that had burn damage which caused a bit of panic and calls to the electricians, campus manager, building manager and so on. The sparkies arrived and spread out their equipment over the remaining free space on the floor. I got busy thinking about the location of the fire equipment, how to use the fire equipment, the fact that the burn damage was right over the only library exit... A fire can start so easily! But - false alarm, the cable was an old one that wasn't connected to anything and had been heat damaged by lights that had been removed long ago. The automatic door was quickly fixed, the vacuum got rid of all the dust and fluff that had fallen from the roof and the library was restored to normality about 5 minutes before the first interview of the day.

Making

Rarely a day goes by when I don't work on making something - usually it's a bit of knitting, or planning the next thing I want to sew. My queue of projects waiting to happen is enormous, and lives in Pinterest and Instagram. Today I had a making-marathon, and I finished a dress in a day! It's the first dress I've ever made, and I couldn't have done it without the help of my mum (who sews, quilts, prints, stitches, dyes and does everything, and has all the equipment for everything). I'm so happy with how it turned out. I learned so much from my mum about sewing techniques and skills today. Also, it was so nice to spend the whole day doing it - so often the fun and relaxing things (like reading!) get relegated to the end of the day when we're already tired, why is that...

When inspiration doesn't strike

On the weekends I try not to think about or do work or library stuff, so I was a bit stuck as to what to write about today. But as usual, reading other people's blogjune blogs has delivered the inspiration -  I'll write about what's going on with me right now, in list format (like Kate and Con did).

I'm reading - Kate Atkinson's A God in Ruins

I'm watching - A friend lent me The I.T. Crowd, which I'm just about to start

I'm cooking - raw food salty peanut chocolate slices (ok, that's not actually cooking), and lentil & pumpkin stew

I'm drinking - hot herbal tea

I'm thinking - about how to make extra money on the side to fund my hobbies

I'm taking - a day off work on Monday for some ME time

I'm missing - Japan - the food and the craft supplies

I'm enjoying - making stuff and wearing winter clothes

I'm making - another knitted jumper (a little bit each day) and sewing a winter dress (which should be finished tomorrow)

I'm planning - my extended trip to Sydney for NLS7 and holiday

I'm listening - to a CD called Night Cafe 

Futures

It will be a short post today as I'm completely exhausted after an all-day vendor roadshow, followed by a 7 km run with my bestie, and then a shopping marathon at the sales in the city.

The vendor roadshow was great, they had so many new things to show us and they are always thinking of the future. They are preparing for a world where BibFrame and linked data has replaced MARC cataloging, where library books are searchable through Google, and where circulation and everything else is in the cloud.

Are libraries as motivated to prepare the future as profit driven companies are? So far, I would say we haven't been, but I'm seeing more and more signs that we are thinking about it more seriously and more collectively than we have in the past.

Good night 😴

Photo storage

I got a message - would I like to install the Google Photos app? I almost always say yes to see what it's about so I did, and felt happy about its promise of free unlimited storage across all devices. My phone's doesn't have much space left, and every time I want something new, I have to choose what to get rid of, so the photo app seemed an easy and convenient solution.

Then I realised it's got this amazing capability to search. Type dogs and pictures of dogs will come up, even though they're not labelled or tagged in any way. That's not all - the app will actually sort your photos into albums of 'Things' and 'Places' without you doing a thing. The photos in my phone for 'Things' got sorted into the categories of beaches, cats, food, screenshots, and flowers, and for 'Places' it was Perth and Mexico. I haven't actually got any photos of Mexico on my phone so that was a bit random. Did I mention that it can make animated GIFs too?

When I logged in to Google at work today, I checked my notification and there was one from Photos. The 'assistant' had created a slideshow of one of my categories that started playing on full screen. It's amazing, but I'm still undecided whether it's cool or scary. Once again I am trusting Google with so much of my private data. And it's only a matter of time before they work out how to sell the data we're providing with these photos. Would you trust them?

The world of academics

You know when you take research classes at uni and they ask you to look at a published research paper and find all the flaws in it? I'm pretty sure I did that activity in research subjects as part of my psychology degree, and again when I studied librarianship.

Anyway, today I found myself doing a very similar thing at work, for real. I've become a 'research librarian' and what that meant today was that I joined a committee of academics (all of them with PhDs) and we looked over and discussed research proposals from other academics, looking quite closely at the proposed design, methodology, research instruments and so on.

I didn't participate much in this meeting, and actually felt a bit overwhelmed by it all (it was my first meeting with them!), but it was so interesting to see the research process from this angle, and to start to become aware of the some of the many steps involved in getting research from conception to published.

After the meeting, one of the other participants asked what I thought of it. I replied honestly and said it was all a bit over my head at this stage! It was the right thing to say because we ended up having a really good chat and I ended up feeling ok about the fact that it will take time to settle in to this role, to find my place in the team, and see just what I can contribute.

Originality and ownership

Recently I am absolutely loving podcasts. At work we had a Mindfulness in May program running which involved listening to daily mindful meditations with the idea of increasing our enjoyment of the moment, and to slow down the whirring mind. These listenings were pleasant, easy and left me feeling quite happy. While searching for podcasts on mindfulness, I started coming across podcast topics that, if I'm honest, interested me a lot more. Podcasts on IDEAS.

My favourite at the moment is the NPR TED radio hour, and I guess I've listened to about 5 of their one-hour podcasts. The latest one was on originality and it wasn't about libraries in any way, except that everything that came up had applications for libraries.

For example. There is no such thing as an original idea. Humans are not capable of an original idea. But we are genius at finding a new perspective or remixing ideas (especially comedians!). Yet we have this idea of copyright and ownership of ideas. How does that make sense, when every new idea is just a remix or re-imagining of an old one? The ownership of ideas doesn't make sense, but the acknowledging of sources does.

The things that stifle originality and creativity are things like patents and paywalls. If we ever wanted to speed up the rate of scientific discovery, or development, just get rid of patents and database paywalls, so that anyone can access the technology and information, combine it with their own area of expertise, and create something crazy and new! This is beauty.

I also loved how they said if you want to have great ideas, switch from alcohol to coffee (and there's a great story behind that, but you'll have to listen to the podcast).

Next, I'm listening to a Radio National podcast titled Big Deals in the Knowledge Business: How Scholarly Publishing Divides Academia on Rear Vision. I know the history and the story well, but listening to it just brings it to life more than reading about it, without losing any of the depth.

Do you have a favourite podcast?

So, I learned how to use on OPML file with Feedly today. Thanks person who set that up!

The Monday Meme

I'll join in the #blogjune Monday meme - thanks for getting us started Bun-toting Librarian and of course to Con for coordinating.

List 5 things you’re looking forward to about #blogjune

1. I'm looking forward to doing things in a different way to previous years where I blogged quite randomly about 'library' stuff (this will be my third blogjune). This time around I'll be blogging with the theme of 'Today's Aha! Moment' or 'What I Learned Today', in relation to library life. My posts won't be lengthy, but they will be reflective. I'm pretty sure I learn something new everyday (especially work days!).

2. As the only librarian on my campus, I always enjoy connecting with library peeps in the wider world. Especially the variety of topics that people write about as part of blogjune, its always inspriring and sets me to dreaming of possibilities. June is a relatively quiet period at work with the students doing exams, so the timing is good for me to get reflective.

3. I'm looking forward to the challenge of writing every day. I seem to recall I didn't quite make it last year - hence the theme this year! This list is also turning out to be a challenge (FIVE things!)...

4. I'm looking forward to having my blog come to life again. Since I have a work blog (in Sharepoint), I haven't really been keeping up with this blog. Also, I've been spending every spare moment lately doing things that make me happy - reading, running, knitting and sewing clothes for myself. I'm feeling so content and settled at the moment, after so many years of travelling and changing jobs every couple of years. I've been in my current job for 3 years now and still happy!

5. Finally, I always enjoy reading everyone's blogs, whether they're writing about library related topics or not. And there seem to be some first timers who I'm looking forward to reading too - yay :) 

Oh, and what I learned today - from reading everyone's initial blogpost for blogjune, I realised again just how beautiful diversity amongst people is. Thanks for your stories - they're what make us human.

Thoughts on books and culture in small towns

It was interesting to see the Culture Minister of France point out the link between books and culture, as part of a story on limiting Amazon's ability to ship books for free to buyers, as reported by SBS news yesterday (Anti-Amazon bill adopted by French parliament).

"France is proud of a network of bookstores it says is "unique in the world" and crucial for culture to reach small towns."

The very real fear is that with Amazon selling books at a much lower price than the local bookstores, that the local bookstores will be wiped out.

The 'books in small towns' comment caused me to reflect on a passage in a novel that I'm reading at the moment - Babara Kingsolver's Flight Behaviour, where a child's father berates him for enjoying reading a book because he is terrified that his son will be bullied at school for it. They live in a poor and remote Appalachian town in Tennessee. Books there are regarded as full of dangerous ideas, challenging the word of God, and distractions for people who should be working.

Which leads me to thinking about the divides - cultural and digital. It is so important to have libraries in remote regions and small towns for all of the reasons that have been written about before, but especially to bring culture. Just having the internet is not enough in my opinion. It is uncurated and I don't think anyone would say that the most popular sites on the internet are the pinnacle of human culture. It is more important than ever to have curated collections provided for free by our national institutions (libraries, galleries, museums), because the internet should never replace books, art and real life artifacts.

The SBS article also included another quote by the French minister to the effect that if they allow Amazon market dominance in France with it's free shipping, and dodgy policies (e.g. selling some books at a loss) then it won't be long before the independent booksellers all shut up shop and Amazon will be the only choice. And we really shouldn't be surprised when Amazon suddenly stop selling books at a loss and start charging what they will. I hope the Australian government institutes similar laws, even if it does mean paying slightly more for books now.

The School of Life

I was shopping in the city sales (again!) today and browsing around Pigeonhole I came across a series of books by The School of Life titled Toolkit for Life, volume 1. I recognised them from when I catalogued them at the Library vendor where I work on a casual basis, and I remember thinking at the time - these look good, will have to add them to my 'to read' list. The books have titles like How to Deal with Adversity, How to be Alone, and How to Connect with Nature. They sound like self help books, but they are actually philosophy, and seem very well written.

So when I got home I looked them up and found that The School of Life was more than just a series of books, it was a whole organisation with various divisions - a classroom, therapy, business consultancy, shop, library, and blog, with offices around the world.

The About Us page of their website explains that the organisation is "devoted to developing emotional intelligence through the help of culture". They will "direct you towards a variety of ideas from the humanities - from philosophy to literature, psychology to the visual arts - ideas that will exercise, stimulate and expand your mind". Sounds wonderful, and what an interesting idea for an organisation!

I work for a company which has a set of organisational values, one of which is happiness. It has always seemed to me that this value is a tricky one to work with - try telling an unhappy person to cheer up and see what kind of reaction you get! And sometimes the means to happiness that are suggested seem so cliched and meaningless because we've heard them so many times - be kind to others, eat well, enjoy nature etc., etc... I like the idea that The School of Life has come up with - aiming for emotional intelligence rather than happiness, and getting there through culture rather than cliches. 

I think I'll borrow the set of their books from the library and see where they take me! 

Winter solstice

Today I'm working through Shay Howe's online guide to HTML and CSS. This tutorial explains things in much more depth (I'm having lots of ah! moments) and it uses an external text editor. I feel like I've taken off the training wheels! I'm in the middle of another build-your-own-website project, but this time I know what to do, so it's revision and consolidation. 

Also tomorrow is the winter solstice! I'm not a fan of winter, I feel the cold too much, so I'm always happy when the shortest day of the year has passed, and I can start dreaming of spring.

Not a library post

I'm stuck for something to write about today. My partner just showed me this Japanese website about the World Cup. They're rating the beauty of female football fans, which is pretty typical of the male-dominated Japanese media. I'm continually astounded at what they can get away with and that was the thing that depressed me about my time in Japan - the one dimensional depiction of women in the media, the obsession with beauty (or more often 'cuteness') and the rigidity of gender roles. #thatisall

Sunny winter and small steps

The ocean at Sorrento today

Today was the most gorgeous winter day. I went for a 5k run with my friend along the coast and soaked up some winter sunshine, then we had breakfast at Voyagers Cafe in Sorrento. Followed that up with the weekly shop at the farmers markets and then lunch in the city and some window shopping. When we got home, the balcony was still bathed in light so I brewed some tea and started a new book. Ahhh Sundays :)

Tonight I'm back into learning html and css. I'm so into this right now! So far I have done a bunch of introductory tutorials and projects on Codecademy and Dash and now I'm looking for something that explains everything in a bit more detail. I came across learn.shayhowe.com and it seems to be at the right level for where I'm at right now, and has projects that are not done within the tutorial, but rather in real text editors (I'm using TextWrangler on my Mac). Finally I understand what the other tutorials were talking about with external CSS files! Small steps...

The Lowland, Libraries & Learning

"Some of her students don't go to the library. They don't turn to a dog-eared dictionary to look up a word. In a way they don't have to attend her course. Her laptop contains a lifetime of learning, along with what she will not live to learn. Summaries of philosophical arguments in online encyclopaedias, explanations of modes of thinking that took her years to comprehend. Links to chapters in books she'd once had to hunt down and photocopy, or request from other libraries. Lengthy articles, reviews, assertions, refutations, it's all there."
(page 276)

Today I finished reading The Lowland by Jhumpa Lahiri, which I borrowed from the lovely City of Perth library. I enjoyed it. It was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013, but seemed to get quite mixed reviews from the public. I wanted to share this quote from the book. Just to give it some context - the character speaking is an academic and the book follows her life (as well as other characters') from when she was a young girl to when she was a grandmother. She is commenting on how much time she had to spend with books, in the library, in order to learn, how much effort and commitment she had to put in, and comparing it to the present where everything is online and available all the time. Why bother going to class to learn when it can be quicker, less effort and more targeted learning online?

Now that people don't have to fight to get access to information, does deep learning suffer? Do we just look for quick answers as we need them, or are we still engaging with information with a critical and enquiring manner? I'm of the generation that didn't have the internet when I first studied at university. I virtually lived in the library during my studies, and learnt how to find journal articles in the stacks. I read an enormous amount, and made notes. I handed my essays in on paper and they came back covered in red comments. I learnt how to learn and that has stood me in good stead for life-long learning. I don't expect I will ever go back to study at university because there is so much I can teach myself by using resources on the net.

Like the character in the book, I don't see the changes as a bad thing. I see them as a good thing - BUT. I'm so glad I grew up without the internet, in an era when everything was slower. I'm glad that in order to learn back then you really had to make an effort because you couldn't just Google the answer. Lecturers had time to give detailed feedback and insisted on high standards. People didn't seem to be as 'busy' then. Now there's so much information, everyone always seems 'busy', and academics seem to be complaining that students aren't learning academic integrity.

Actually, this blog post has gotten off track. What I really wanted to say was how great it is that we can learn so much, so conveniently (and so cheaply!) by taking advantage of technology and public libraries. And, that I liked the book.

Kano and code

Just read Kathryn Greenhill's #blogjune post for today and as a result, checked out the Kano website. Apart from being the coolest website I've seen this year, it also looks like a totally cool product. It's a kit that contains a computer that you build yourself (even kids can build and use it) and then you can code games and stuff on it. I want one. It costs US$129 (+ $23 shipping) and is available from July.

Street Art and Customising Tumblr Themes

Another couple of days of coding and I've been using Dash tutorials to build my own Tumblr blog theme. This was a pretty big project for me! Here are some of the things I learnt how to do...

• Make a classy header
• Use 'blocks' to build a Tumblr template
• Add Like and Reblog buttons to Tumblr posts
• Add pages to a blog site
• Assign each post its own permalink
• Make it all look pretty with CSS

I'm still playing with the tools I've learnt how to use, so my Tumblr site is not live yet. The image in picture above is a photo I took of some street art. Recently the lovely FORM Gallery organised street artists from around the world to come and liven up the city walls. They produced some amazing (and massive!) work - you're sure to see some if you wander around Perth. If you visit the Tea For Tu cafe on William Street in Northbridge, and go up the stairs until you (bizarrely) come out at the ground level cafe alfresco, sit yourself down in a comfy sofa and you'll see it. The sleeping one. 

Coding again

I'm being unfaithful to Codecademy today and am trying out Dash. Like Codecademy, it rushes straight into fun projects, and hardly spends any time explaining. So they basically give you a template and let you customise it, like I've done here. I undertook two projects today. One was to design a personal homepage, and the other was a blog. Here's some of the things I learnt along the way. How to...

• change an image's size, shape and border
• use an image for a web page background
• make an email input button
• use Javascript to make an interactive 'Like' button
• make a design that is responsive to mobile formats
• make a navigation bar (and a transparent one at that!)
• use CSS to style and position everything
• and more.

I'm having way too much fun with all this!

Goal completed

I'm happy. I've just finished my first goal in Codecademy - I've learnt the building blocks of web development with HTML and CSS and it took about 7 hours over 3 weeks. It wasn't easy but it was definitely do-able, for anybody. I feel like I've learnt a lot, and now I need to practice. Or rest.