Let's have none of this Season's Greetings stuff! This is my 100th post this year - just made it - not so much news this year - and next year will bring some surprises.
We're covered with snow again and not coping too well. My proposed trip yesterday aborted through car with flat battery!
This is just to wish everyone who reads this a very Happy Christmas and let's have a great 2011 (Twenty eleven, not Two thousand and eleven!).
Pics are of the Nativity with a Scottish flavour ; and St Albans Abbey this weekend.
After a holiday break in Scotland I am back but I feel like a sign on a water machine here :
"Not Fully Commissioned : Do Not Use"
I was amused by this because it is a good example of official language that is designed to be hard for the users! Could be added to Michael Stephens' collection of notices on his Tame the Web blog : here is an example.
This post is part of the 5th version of this little project "Library Day in the Life" wiki so that we can share what we do! I used to think : how has anyone the time to do this? Who cares anyway? In fact it can be an interesting little time capsule for others and ourselves!
Here goes : This morning began early : at 5.30 I began to think "how can I best contribute to the brainstorm sharing on use of presentation software that we are going to have at work at 10.00 today?" Maybe I should use my iPad for the first time to show how some of these little projects I have been trying have turned out? How well will it work in the wireless environment there? Let's forget yesterday's 3 hours bafflement with Camtasia Studio followed by trying to play the feet and left hand at the same time on the church organ in the evening...
6.00 and time to get up. No time for exercises or piano playing today - it's straight into trying to get a Photo Story movie working on PBWorks on my iPhone. Plenty of time to make the tea and still no image. Could do a full English and eat it before this would work... Time to get the bus to work. Still so keen ..no time today for Paul Wellman's 'Glory God and Gold' about the Spanish excesses in 16th century New Mexico! Reading latest updates on TweetDeck, favouriting the best for later scrutiny.. then deep little sleep..where am I? Is this the ride home...oh no it's the journey in!!!
8.30 Hiding the iPad on the desk - don't want to let on about it yet. Hear that there's a video conferencing and "Oh no there's no meeting - the presentation software sharing is next week!" What a relief so can forget the agonising over the merits of Jing, Photo Story, Camtasia, Movie Maker, Audacity etc. and how it all fits together. Let's relax and try out a little video I made on Jing in one of our blogs : loads beautifully - so easy. Let's try it on my iPhone ...aargh it's invisible. Tomorrow is my day off : Friday is the Mashup event in Huddersfield. We have to make our own badges - have to do something for this.... Let's return to yesterday's battle with Camtasia - that slide just didn't line up with my dulcet tones - 30 more minutes or dragging, cursing, poring over help pages - time for tea.
Let's put some photos on flickr - find out about possibility of storing a short video there. Will thisd help with the badge if I can get a QR code on the badge?
11.30-12.30 moving and shelving books as part of the rebuilding exercise overthe summer. 12.30 Lunch i9n the Business School building - more building work going on. Glad to see that the wall that was being constructed yesterday in front of the main door is only partial, creating a new slim-line ingress! Lamb Rogan Josh with rice - excellent. 1.00 My first Photo Story movie placed in flickr, and works with a QR code created in BeeTagg and read via I-nigma! It was a spoof "Art Show" made up of some photos I took last year, introduced by a certain John Farquhar-Robotham.
2.00 Create new little movie in Photo Story about University of Bedfordshire using photos taken today on iPhone, put on flickr create barcode and badge for Friday! Feel like a lie down. 3.50 Phone rings and have to meet earnest new researchers and give short tour of the library (hard hats not necessary). 4.20 Return to writing this. Decide not to mention the iPad - looking forward to playing with it tomorrow planning Scottish trip, Last-fm etc.
Sheila Webber has started a flickr group for Information Literacy. It will be interesting to see what kind of photos get deposited! I can remember doing Google searches for images for information literacy over the years and getting very little except conference pictures and occasionaly enthusiastic librarians.We do need good images to promote information literacy. I used to use the Beloit College image with the cut away head.
What we need are some imaginative images which we could use to illustrate information literacy e.g.the maze at Hampton Court? Some time ago there was a discussion on lis-infoliteracy from Mark Hepworth about images around which teaching IL could be based : mapping the information landscape ; cooking metaphor - what ingredients do you need? ; sporty readers where they have to describe their research habits in terms of a sport e.g/a fly fisher dips in ; information as part of the environment - can be polluted or degraded etc. I know that a number of presenters use large pictures to illustrate concepts in their Powerpoints, this could be the place to put the images. Perhaps we should have an annual prize.... Please dont look at me to populate the site over the next few weeks though!
"New technology : the threat to our corporate information" is a clever cartoon presentation on Slideshare which made me laugh. Yet it has some punch. If you haven't seen it, take a quick look.
While getting together a list of YouTube videos to help with my teaching I came across a gem called "What the heck is Boolean searching?" from Hunter Library, West Carolina University. Fancy seeing Boolean explained using peanut butter, strawberry or fig jelly sandwiches, delivered with a superb Southern drawl? And when she comes to searches using brackets (or parentheses) bananas come into the "equation" too... It's quite a cute idea (messy too). However, it IS memorable and Tony Buzan ("Use your head") in his memory techniques always recommended use of very strong images, tastes, or associations. This is particuarly strong for me as peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches are one of the most awful tastes I have ever had!
I enjoyed this one too (Librarian lays down the law) - I think we've all been there sometime and maybe I could use this as a trigger to talk about how books are shelved.
Thanks to Library Videos, the best of blog, I enjoyed this one. As Joe Uveges sings "you showed it to me, did it with me, smiled so happily when I could do it myself!". Now that's Information Literacy!
Anyone who has suffered my Powerpoint presentations will know that I am a Wild West fan! Last Saturday was my 60th Birthday Bash (I'm not really 60 til next Tuesday,15th) and 75 friends, family, librarians and musicians humoured me by coming to a Wild West party (3.00-10.00) in the Waterend Barn in St. Albans! With suitable Wild West food and square dancing from the Brookfield Band, everyone seemed to enjoy it...the costumes were amazing, and I got to wear that enormous Plains Indian headdress....(I always wanted to wear one on an enquiry desk and see whether anyone commented..) My teens were spent researching the Wild West, and it has been a joy to visit some of the sites (Tombstone, Arizona ; Fort Laramie, Wyoming and Monument Valley, Utah/Arizona). It was even better to be able to share my party with so many friends and colleagues and so for your amusement I am including a few photos in the next posts..
