Day in the Life Project Round 7 26 July 2011

I am still an Academic Liaison Librarian here at University of Bedfordshire in Luton, UK.

I usually mutter about how does anyone have the time! I have done it though before and this week I thought I will go with it! Let's do today!

At the moment I am locked in combat with writing a few chapters of a book about Information Literacy. I woke up about 5.00 a.m. and was trying to make some sense of what the hell IL is all about....how sad is that!

Yesterday I spent most of the day chained to my laptop (see pic) except for the time when I went and moved a few bushes round in the garden! Guess which gave me the most satisfaction...(see pic).

I came to work by bus and had to read an important book for my research : sentences like "the focus of information literacy has largely been centred on instrumental or cognitive views of learning, which have historically been framed within a Cartesian approach to learning" and then there are epistomological concerns and I want to scream!

At work I find I have 85 e-mails again and it takes me til 11.20 to sort through them all!
Everyone is very quiet : perhaps they think I am grumpy because of all those e-mails.
Two more articles arrived from British Library electronically in my e-mail. What a huge improvement this service is but I have to read them now! "Millennial students' mental modes of search : implications for academic librarians and database developers" and "Towards Library 2.0 : the adoption of Web 2.0 technologies in public libraries". I'll save them for the bus on the way home...hope I dont sleep through my stop....
Found out about the Library 2.0 online megaconference planned for November. Must follow this up.

What does the rest of the week hold? Oh no I find I have a whole day on Friday teaching RefWorks. That's the first of the sessions we offer to M level students. Suppose they all come at once..... I dont go in for booking in advance : it went OK last time : "I always hope for the best" : reckon that should go on my tombstone.

I spy a book on my desk - that's unusual - it's a PhD thesis for cataloguing - how I admire anyone who has the staying power to go through all that. Think of the referencing...even with RefWorks.Can't face cataloguing it : there's a new version of Dewey around and that might complicate things.Talking of that reminds me of shelving books years ago with those huge long numbers after the decimal point - always wanted to get the Dewey revising committee to do a few days shelving...

Go to a leaving party for our University Head of Student Welfare : very moving as he has been here 18 years and will be much missed.Lovely jokes too but such a noisy room.

Preparing for session for 5 international students on a Writing course tomorrow. Only 5 : 3 Russians, 1 Finn and 1 Roumanian. It will be about social media : what a nice change from banging on about databases. Reckon I might learn as much from them and the way they are operating as they will from me.I'll do Facebook, Twitter, Delicious, Dropbox, Blogger, Netvibes, Evernote according to their interests.

Half an hour on the phone talking to my ex-colleagues at London South Bank University who have been through a management restructure and are being made redundant. I had that 4 years ago. I know how they feel. To say that they will feel very different about it in a month or two is no comfort.These restuctures are going to be conmmon in this economic environment.

Just found out about two great little videos from LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans from our E Services Librarian.They will really help our sessions on Friday. I hope that others are using our Just a Minute videos on other topics available here.

It's no good : time to go back to reading about Information Literacy. Let's see "........current information literacy frameworks based on these concepts are 'incompatible with emergent concepts of knowledge and epistemology for digital and online environments". Aaaaaargh! Time for tea.
The answer lies in the Naxos Library (only £13 a year I think I pay) so I can listen to all the stuff in their library. Just the thing when I am ordering or in this case reading tricky stuff.
Am trying Honegger's score for "Les Miserables."I like Honegger but this isnt the happiest music he has written!
Time to go home : read on the bus and then piano playing and maybe a bit of writing late on tonight but no mention sof epistomology or praxis or whatever it was!