Connecting Librarian

I am so excited.  Just as well, because I was very sad about not being in the thick of things at Computers in Libraries this year, after the awesome experience I had there last year.  Its great to be already reading all of the blogging reports coming out of this year’s conference. Thanks all!  Keep ‘em coming!

The reason I am so excited is that the mailman has just delivered my book!  Well its not just my book, I am just one of 19 contributors, but still excited anyway.  I’m a published author!  In a book, not only a journal!  Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 ‘addresses the impact of the adoption of these (Web 2.0) technologies on information literacy teaching’.

I wrote Chapter 5 - “Information Literacy, Web 2.0 and public libraries: an exploration”.  Most of the content came out of my study tour last year and coincidentally from what I learnt at last year’s Computers in Libraries conference.  For Australian readers, Judy O’Connell from Hey Jude authored Chapter 4 - “School Library 2.0: new skill, new knowledge, new futures”.  I am honoured to be in such great company in this book, with not only Judy, but 17 other great library experts.

I was surprised and delighted to also discover that it is a hardback edition.   I really like the cool cover (although this image does not do it justice) and the detailed information (including the list of contributors) on the back.  Thanks to the editors Peter Godwin and Jo Parker for inviting me to be involved.

Peter and Jo are following up the book with a blog - Information Literacy meets Library 2.0 where both the editors and the contributors will be able to continue to update the contents.  Also hope to do some related podcasts.  Come check it out!  I’ll just go back to exploring the crisp white pages of my book!

Early last week I was flown to Sydney to conduct the first day of a 2 day Masterclass - Revolutionising Library Management for the Ark Group. My topic was Web 2.0 in Libraries and my thanks go to our hosts and our committed, enthusiastic and knowledgeable group of participants for an informative day for me and hopefully for them too.  My slides, if you are interested, are on the presentations page of this blog and also on Slideshare.

The 2nd day, for which I opted to stay, was on Digitisation and was presented by Mal Booth from the Australian War Memorial. I was interested in this day for several reasons, one being digitisation work at my library (local history) and another being knowing the great work that the Australian War Memorial (AWM) has done - especially their virtual resources and services.  (check out his slides from the session at Slideshare)

As digitisation is not my area of expertise, I found most of what I learned was well explained by Mal’s slides - I encourage you to check them out if this topic is of interest to you.  However, I did take in the following points:

- The Australian War Memorial is constantly hearing from users that they want the content, not just the catalogue record and opening hours.   They are useless when the user is not in Canberra.

- It is extremely important to create a collection development policy for your digital collections.  For the same reasons that we have one for print, AV etc.

-  Mal’s recommended software for digitisation is Photoshop.  But if that’s cost prohibitive, then Photoshop Elements or the free open source software Gimp.

- Digitisation projects can use sponsors as a funding source - AWM does.

- When choosing a file format and standard for digitisation, three important things to consider are is it migratable? does it use an open source standard? and will it last?  May seem obvious, but not always the case.  File format and standards are continuing to develop.

Just some small points that grabbed my attention and that is saying something as Mal is an engaging speaker. He was able to make, what could be considered dry content, an interesting experience.