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