Bookshelf

Bookshelf
Originally uploaded by stujoart

I decided to start decorating my living room even though I haven't painted the walls yet. It is next..... I have left my bookshelf freestanding as it is deep and allows me to double stack the books - accessible from both sides and also to display some of my china and vases etc. It will also make it easier to get to the walls when I do paint, it is a very heavy piece of furniture! I found a few books I think I haven't read yet.

I received a few books to review for a law librarian journal this week, will keep me busy over the break.

Louis de Bernieres

I am reading books by the author Louis de Bernieres. I recently read Captain Corelli's Mandolin which I had picked up second hand ages ago and I loved it. At the moment I am reading The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman. I am finding this harder to get into but it is providing plenty of smiles and entertainment. Apparently my father has Señor Vivo and the Coca Lord in his collection, so that'll be my next read.

I was very suprised to learn that the author is English and not Latin American as I had imagined. In fact his new book is called Notwithstanding: English Village Stories. It will be interesting to see if that is as fun as the others.

I love the authors Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Laura Esqivel and Isabel Allende for the same reason. They write with the influence of the myths and culture of a place and time that seems to be very simple, earthy and full of 'characters'. I love the fact that I often can't tell what period of history the novel is set in and that often truth and fiction are blurred.

Card catalogues

What are your memories of card catalogues? I remember having the job of filing newly created cards as part of my work experience at Castle Hill Public Library (NSW, Australia) when I was about 16. I think of the old drawers fondly and the metal rods that you had to pull out to add or remove cards.

I have seen a few good uses made of the old card catalogue furniture (oooh how I'd love to find one in a junk shop) and some for the cards themselves, including this exhibition found via Librarian.net.

Banned Book Necklace

From Carolyn Forsman - Conversation Piece Jewelry. Found via LISNews - Librarian And Information Science News Very cute.

There are lots of lovely, unusual pieces of jewellery and other book related items for sale on Etsy. For the book lover or librarian in your life...

Books and art

From Articulate: Eye Candy the Librarian

Art and books. A union that makes, for me anyway, print books preferable over ebooks. Not only can they make a design statement in a room (eg: with spines colour coded) on shelves, they make a statement about the value placed on books and reading by the owner and in some way constitute a 'collection' of sorts. "A home without books is a body without soul." Marcus Tullius Cicero. That certainly rings true for me.

I have just finished Malinche by Laura Esquivel. I was originally attracted in a second hand store to its lovely cover. I liked the quality of the paper, the artwork and the colours of the cover. I had read her books before so also knew I would probably enjoy it at some level. As I was finishing the book in bed last night I realised the cover is actually a folded up codex (so called by the author) and designed by her brother I think. Some of the sections of the codex are used as illustrations throughout the book.

PM's of Australia

I came across this new website Australian Prime Ministers via Senator Kate Lundy's blog this week. I think it is great. Apart from learning who the first Australian PM was - the obligatory quiz question, I know hardly anything about our political history.

I had a laugh at the section titled The prime ministerial wife. Sort of puts them in place with the Prime Ministerial car and the Prime Ministerial brief! From Ada, Florence and Vera to Annita, Janette and Therese, how the times change.

Here is Elsie Curtin doing her bit at The Lodge!

The Book Thief

I have just returned from Fiji where I started on The Book Thief. Interestingly one of my travel mates had started the book and didn't like it. It has an unusual narrative style but I like it.

I am working on a post and maybe an article on 'embedded librarians'. I have been one for a while now and haven't come across many articles about this area of librarianship. It has it's own sets of challenges and probably varies from organisation to organisation and team to team.

The Boat

I have just finished The Boat by Nam Le - great book! I thoroughly enjoyed it and as I have spent a bit of time in bed recently and sitting around waiting for removalists it didn't take long to get through. The book is a series of short stories set in vastly different settings; including Australia, Vietnam and Iran. I am loving books set in or about Vietnam at the moment due to my recent visit and family connection over there. Recently also read When heaven and earth changed places which was very interesting. Set during the Vietnamese (American) War and provides insight into their culture and beliefs.



I was talking to someone last night about online book stores and thought it'd be interesting to compare a few. Often when you throw in postage it works out dearer than buying from a physical book shop. Especially because as soon as the online stores 'recommend' other titles I might like, I end up spending more than I planned, although I have the same problem when I browse the shelves in a shop (in non-fiction especially). So, I paid $24.95 for The Boat in a store.

Fishpond - AUS$19.82 free deliver over $50
Amazon US$10.20 + postage
The Book Depository £7.19 free delivery
Booktopia AUS$19.96 + postage

All much of a muchness I guess. The difference for me is in the delivery charge and not having to worry about exchange rates and conversions. Fishpond have regular free delivery offers so I take advantage of those. Would be interesting to look at the environmental aspects too - cost to environment of delivery via stores vs from online shops to clients.

Tango in Newtown

I am currently reading The Last Tango of Dolores Delgado by Marele Day. My mother got it out of the local library after reading her other book Lambs of God which I had been throwing out for some reason. She recommended Dolores Delgado to me as it is set in Sydney (Newtown, Kings Cross and Balmain mainly) and so I borrowed it from the library after Mum.

Dolores' death takes place at a Tango themed bar/restaurant in Newtown which I suspect is where I had my 21st Birthday party in 1989. The book was written in 1992 and includes a funny scene where the PI Claudia Valentine (who is investigating her friend Dolores death) is embarassed to use her new mobile phone in public. You can just imagine it being the size of a brick! There are frequent references to the gentrification that was occuring in the 1990's of inner city suburbs such as Balmain, Newtown and Coogee and the reaction to this by the locals.

There is also a part where Claudia is followed by a Barina, which was the first car I ever brought, in 1992. So many personal reference points and I am quite enjoying the story itself.

Our people

What is it with CEO's and other bosses calling their staff our people? I find it being used more and more, particularly by law firm CEO's and I think it sounds impersonal and condescending. Used most recently in the context of redundancies (ie: why we are not having them) .... "we are looking after our people" or "recognising the value of our people". What's wrong with our employees or staff or even better my colleagues? The head of my organisation also uses this term, it must be in the latest edition of PC management terminology (possibly replacing team member). I am not one of your people thank you.

I have just rediscovered BookCrossing and have decided to sign up and share my books. This fits in with my plan to spend less on books, for budgetary and tree saving/recycling reasons.

Favourite blogs

These are a few of my (non-work related) favourite things ... I mean blogs. In no particular order.

Encyclopaedia Britannica Blog

Awful Library Books

Glasgow School of Art Library and Learning Blog

Firm Spy

Scooter Swag

Nestled In

The Toy Society - like BookCrossing for toys

Then there is Facebook, Flickr, LibraryThing and other sites I can waste endless hours on......

Another media library going

How sad is this story found via LISNews from the New York Observer? The ABC (US) is closing it's library and getting rid of all of it's journals and print collection, oh and library staff. Don't worry they are "developing, with an outside research consultant, a state of the art research system tailored to our particular needs". As one comment says - Wikipedia saved as a favourite maybe? The president of ABC News calls the planned replacement for the library a more cyber-focused "Digital Research Facility".

Interesting to follow this one and see how the journalists cope with the new service and whether any of the library staff do 'stay on'. I am presuming journalists would have fairly good research skills and a handle on new technologies, but then again you think lawyers would also.....

Am loving the new Firm Spy blog (especially the accompanying pics)!! I think the law and accounting firms are using the threat of recession to get rid of staff they couldn't be bothered retraining or performance managing out. A few less support staff and associates isn't going to mean the difference between the survival or death of these large firms. Maybe the resulting stress on increasingly demotivated employees and bad press will make a difference though?

Reinvented books

More fun and creativity with books. I am so glad that people are finding ways to reuse and reinvent the old books that us librarians are forced to throw out because we need the space and the machine tells us no-one has borrowed them in 2 years.

I bought one of their journals at a market on the weekend for my father, an old Chaucer title. They incorporate some of the pages of text, title pages and book plates into the blank sheets of journal paper. Some even have library card sleeves in the front!! They also make bookmarks out of the left over spines. I loved the retro styled ones, including old children's books and games.

They are based in Sydney but sell online too. I really could have bought several of these, if Mum wasn't with me .....



Bornagain Books

Finding journals online

My last legal research refresher session was titled 'how to find journals and journal articles online'. This is not an easy task these days and in the end I wound up summarising by encouraging attendees to try a few searches and if they don't locate the journal within 5 mins, to contact the library. The issues that we face during this transition from print to online journal access is that we subscribe to journals via multiple publisher platforms and the library catalogue, as well as offering links to articles via abstracting services such as Informit and Proquest. Access to titles changes regularly as publishers offer more content online and we add titles to our various subscriptions. Patrons want one service which offers search facilities across all journals we have access to, an A-Z list of titles, sortable by subject and full text searchable. I know there are some publishers offering this but the changeable nature of journals and content ownership means that even these are unlikely to offer the perfect solution.

One of the biggest problems with training patrons in the use of subscription databases, library catalogues and other systems is that they don't use them often enough to practice and remember what they learn. We try to focus more on ad-hoc skilling by helping a client search for something as they need it (the just in time v just in case debate again). Doing it this way may mean that clients miss out on updating their research skills and learning about new functionality and search tips via training.

It is a Catch 22 situation. Due to advances in technology and the uptake of social media in libraries, we can now offer automated, targeted alerts, using RSS feeds and mashups. By integrating these tools and federated, googleesque searching my organisation has developed an online library presence to deliver many of the traditional library services. However those same advances and technologies, used by the library and by externals such as publishers mean that without the right skills and with increasing time constraints, clients are still reliant on librarians to run searches, conduct research and to filter information and provide alerting services.

I think we are still a long way from becoming redundant.

On a lighter note - more pretty library/book art from here via Librarian in Black

Book handbag

This handbag appeals to me on so many different levels. From here.

1. It is made from a book
2. It is recycling existing materials
3. It is beautiful (I love the lining fabric)
4. It is unusual and quirky



I occassionally come across pictures of furniture made out of books and artworks or other handmade items made from books, pages or book bindings and covers. I love this concept and although I don't own any, I would love to. I fear it might open myself up to more ridicule from my friends (I am currently learning how to crochet granny squares, think craft is the new cool and own two cats, if that isn't enough). I also love the art and designs used for book covers these days and find myself attracted to books in shops by their design or artwork (and wine bottles by their label designs).

eGovernment Award

Excellence in e-Government Award finalists announced

It's pretty exciting that these innovations are happening in government.... Here are the 10 finalists:

CDATA Online (Australian Bureau of Statistics)

Pre-filling of Income Tax Returns (Australian Tax Office)

Tax Office eLibrary (Australian Tax Office) - Intranet application only

Child Support Estimator (Child Support Agency)

Parliamentary Document Management System (Department of Employment, Education and Workplace Relations) - Intranet application only

Visa Wizard and the Citizenship Wizard (Department of Immigration and Citizenship)

eVisitor (Department of Immigration and Citizenship)

AusPat (IP Australia)

Northern Queensland Wildfire Mitigation Project (Tablelands Regional Council)

youthcentral (Victorian Department of Planning and Community Development)

I have only come into contact with a few of these, but they are great examples of how to streamline processes using new technologies.

Reading, work and stuff

I have been reading about meditation recently, I have always loved the idea of being able to sit with an empty or focused mind. One of the books I am halfway through is called The Quiet (Paul Wilson). As usual with self help books, I read until it gets to the bit where you actually have to DO something, then I put it down and go back to reading fiction. This includes my copy of Getting Things Done! In this case the fiction is The red Queen by Margaret Drabble, picked up from the local second hand book seller for $5. I will endeavour to actually follow through with the meditation at some point.

I finished the last of my skilling sessions for the month today and will start planning April's next week

Case Research

I have been doing sessions on researching case law in Australia for our legal team this week.

These are the topics I am covering:

Finding cases by citation
Finding cases relating to a specific section of legislation
Finding cases by phrase, party or search terms
Case citators vs full text
Unreported, reported and authorised cases
International caselaw

I am demonstrating different searches using internal, subscription based and public access legal databases such as LexisNexisAU (CaseBase), LegalOnline (Firstpoint), Westlaw, TimeBase (Legislation with Case Link), AustLII and LawLink for Court sites.

This sesion has been popular and I have received good feedback which is nice. I don't think clients realise how great it is to get positive feedback (or any at all in fact, positive or otherwise)!! I have been using NetMeeting software and teleconference facilities to offer these classes to those in our offices around Australia, it is working well.

The end of lawyers?

I just got my hands on the new book by Richard Susskind. It looks like an interesting read, but I will have to skim through it and pass it on to the legal peoples. It would be interesting to hear their thoughts on the book, but I doubt they will have time to enter into a conversation about law and technology.

Reading

Since the title of my blog infers that I like reading, I thought it time I posted about what has been on my bedside table recently. I have just finished Dirt Music by Tim Winton. Winton is one of those authors I long felt I should read but never felt driven to, until now. Due to self imposed budgetary constraints this year I am tackling my pile of purchased and not yet read books. I remember learning about Tim Winton when living in London and seeing Cloudstreet, the play promoted. I wanted to go because it was Australian, but didn't for some reason......

As I started reading Dirt Music I felt as though I couldn't associate with the characters and was put off by the Australianisms and my unfamiliarity with towns like White Point. I found half way through, that I thought about the story during the day and looked forward to my next chance to read. There was something memorable about the characters and especially the relationship between Fox and Georgie that rang true. I often cringe at the Crocodile Dundee like characters and this book was no exception. I guess I have to accept that they exist and effectively represent both the harshness and the earthy humour of Australia. I will read Cloudstreet at some point and see if it helps me decide if I am a Winton fan or not.

Another book recently completed was my Grandmother (Minnie)'s copy of a biography of Mary Reibey. I believe she was a real person, an early pioneering woman who came to Sydney as a convict but soon rose to be one of the wealthiest, through trade and property. It was a bit of a historical romance and the author used quite a bit of artistic license to recreate Mary's character, life and relationships. I loved reading about the early days in Sydney's settlement, which appeared to be historically correct. She is on our $20 note, I wouldn't have known that - thanks wikipedia.....

I also read and wrote a review of The Jihad Seminar by Hanifa Deen for the Australian law Librarian earlier this year.

Executive renumeration Australia

I noted recently that Barack Obama was considering legislative action against company directors who are still taking huge executive salaries even while the government is bailing the business world out of trouble and employees are losing their jobs. I was wondering if Australia would follow and it appears that Kevin Rudd and Lindsay Tanner are considering something similar. Public opinion on this topic is pretty clear at the moment with the news that Sol Trujillo will leave Telstra and Australia $40million (untaxed), richer, as if he needed the money.

Mallensons Stephen Jaques has released Executive Remuneration: Guidelines and Developments - 19 February 2009.

Jureeka

I came across this at the RIPS Law Librarian blog and I love the concept. Eureka for Jureeka?

It's a new Firefox add-on that "transforms legal citations in web pages into hyperlinks that point to online source material."

How many times have I come to the end of an assignment or paper and dreaded the task of creating footnotes for everything I have referenced within the paper? It would be great for online publishers and authors, depending on the ability of the system to find the best source to link to. If you could select sources such as legislation on ComLaw, onlne commentary from LexisNexis, book references to Google Books or cases on Austlii it may actually work? If not and it is completely random, searching acoss the www for anything with that citation, it could be a dangerous tool.

This is actually how I imagined wikis to work, before I used one. I thought that every word in a wiki article that corresponded with an article title would automatically become a hyperlink. I didn't realise that you had to identify works as hyperlinks.

I'll give it a go when I get a chance at home using firefox.....

Executive salaries

How great is this?

President Obama wants to cap executive salaries at $500,000 for companies who take a bail out.

"We don't disparage wealth. We don't begrudge anybody for achieving success. And we believe that success should be rewarded," Obama said. "But what gets people upset — and rightfully so — are executives being rewarded for failure, especially when those rewards are subsidized by U.S. taxpayers."

Anyway you look at it, it just doesn't make sense paying an individual such outrageous salaries, regardless of the results they achieve. How can anyone in their right mind morally accept millions of dollars a year to run an organisation, especially in light of government bail outs and redundancies? If politicians are earning only hundreds of thousands to run our countries what is so special about corporations that they have to pay executives millions or billions?

Maybe the Australian government could follow his example.

I found this story on the Simple Justice blog and the comments made me smile, especially this one.

If the ostentatious show of wealth was a badge of honor before, the threadbare suit will be the indicia of fiscally-sensitive importance over the next few years.

I really hope so......

Catching up

I finally found time to do a bit of catch up on my current awareness reading via RSS Feeds today. This is what I found:

CCH has released a White Paper called Professionals and web 2.0. It provides the results of a survey of Asia Pacific professionals including legal and accounting and their use of web 2.0 technologies.

A list of 250 Top Australian Blogs. I am looking forward to visiting some of them at home over the next few weeks....

The RBA has reduced the interest rate to 3.25% - yeah and the government has announced a further stimulus package and most of us get $950 - yeah again!!

Scooting Librarian?

scooting about in the library By jessamyn on scooter


This blog post title caught my attention, being a scooterer and a librarian. The scooter in question is not the type I ride though, alas (I wish they would come up with different names for kids scooters, Vespa type scooters and mobility scooters). So, it looks like a great idea, I love libraries that offer 'shopping baskets' to patrons and this is another way of making a trip to the library less physically taxing.

Anyway maybe I could start up a mobile Librarian service 'Scooting Librarian' bringing resources and research assistance to you.

Legal Research blog

I came across this new blog written about legal research in Australian (yeah)! This is how the author (Lauren) describes it

Legal Research Rescue (LRR) is a place for legal research tips and tricks for junior (and not-so-junior) lawyers, law graduates and law students

I subscribed straight away and recommend it for librarians to use as a resource when conducting legal research training or doing research themselves. She has also created a delicious account for legal research sites and articles.

Donkey library in Ethiopia

I love these stories.... Libraries in developing countries, bringing books to those who need them the most. Especially when there are donkeys involved. Story from the BBC UK.

For EBCEF's project manager in Awassa, Mezrasha Kibret, books are the key to everything.

"If we are interested in changing the world," he says, "then we have to read."

Nepalese children's first encounters with computers

From the BBC Be not afraid: Nepalese children's first encounters with computers

What a great story and another example of the power of eLibraries.

2009 diary

My diary
Originally uploaded by jobloggs

I made this cover for my work issue diary tonight.

Lawyers and Web 2.0

I have noticed a particular aversion or apathy to new technologies amongst the legal staff where I work. My, the library and the organisation's attempts to introduce web 2.0 tools and education have invoked comments such as - "blogs, wikis, RSS: I have no idea what they are, maybe some of you younger ones do" chuckle chuckle.... Until these tools are seen as being more widely accepted by the legal community, the lawyers here won't invest time and energy to investigate them and the possible benefits. Let's face it, they are busy and are bound to be more so this year with the fallout from the economic downturn. Unless there is a valid reason for them to become involved, there is no impetus, especially in government/public sectors. A few Australian law firms are introducing RSS Feeds, blogs and wikis, though mainly for internal use, as they have a commercial reason to 'keep up with the Jones's' and to engage with their clients. These initiatives are often driven by the IT or Library/Information areas within the firm rather than by the Partners.

I am currently tracking several US Legal Blogs or Blawgs and their numbers are increasing, in stark contrast to the lack of blawging going on here in Australia. There are US blogs on different practice areas as well as general discussion on court decisions, proposed legislation, judicial appointments and other topics of interest to practitioners. Lawyers in the US are also embracing the use of Twitter to communicate with colleagues and to debate and discuss legal issues. This blog entry from Real Lawyers Have Blogs summarises my thoughts on why lawyers have been slow on the uptake of web 2.0 technology.

Digital Darwinism?

Older lawyers running law firms fight change.

Lawyers in general feel they are above the fray - 'others may be harnessing innovative technology, but we're dealing with the law. Facebook, Twitter, Blogs, LinkedIn? We're proud to say we're a non user.'

Courts have not adopted ways to cite free case law and blogs as secondary sources.

Businesses in the legal industry who do not understand Web 2.0 and social media support with advertising moneys hard copy legal periodicals.

Though legal blogs are flourishing, there may not be the quality of legal content online we see from the general publishing industry.