L2 unconference #1

If you don' close libraries for a day a week like they did in the old days ( and some still do), how can you get the use of a lovely big space like Thomastown library for a one-day conference?
This one started curiously paper-wise for a meeting on technology and games. The get-to know-you warm-up was making paper planes. Well, my group made a plane. The distance winners were the group that screwed up their paper in a ball and threw it. And here I must raise the question : Why, when my group with only one male in it was asked to choose a 'pilot', did about half the members immediately look at him and one actually pointed? He didn't seem displeased to accept. And why, when all dozen or so pilots came to the front to throw their paper flying creations, were only one or two female in a conference with a gender balance of probably just over half male?

It's called an unconference partly 'cos there's no set program. There's a whiteboard with a grid, and four events with invited presenters. WE're all gathered around the edge of quite a large meeting room, no furniture in the miggle, and several giant pads of post-it note are laid in the center, and we're all invited to write in a topic we would like to have dicussed, with the proviso that if we put in a topic we have to be prepared to lead the discussion if its chosen. So far so good.
Then the sheets are stuck up on the windows, the facilitator reads each suggested topic out to an audience most of whom have lost interest while waiting, and we're asked to choose which topics might fit together i themes for discussion. Few contributed to this. Most could'nt see the sheets, some couldn't hear the facilitator on her portable speaker.

For me, all taht was show-democracy that didn't work an took too long. Why not canvass opinions electronically in the weeks prior the the event? People like e who don't check blogs and register really late gon't get a say. So what?

Games in libraries

First session I went to was led by a guy from Charlotte-Mecklenburg library (CMPLS) in the USA. (More later. Stop for spellcheck. My boss is readin this

in subsequent posts I'll tell what happened in the ones I went to

#5 Flickr

This was an exercise in learning from my son (16 1/2). I got confused with the steps to enable this blog on Flickr until he showed me how to create tabs in Explorer - so simple but I didn't know. So I could keep the instructions on one screen while I followed the steps on another. He was very patient. So far it's all steps and little fun. I'll have to find time to go back and make more posts to enjoy it.

BigAl

State Library of Victoria : North-Westerly View IX

North-Westerly View IX
Originally uploaded by サンドラ

I like this photo because it gives an opposing vision to the corner of a library sticking out of the footpath opposite Melbourne Central station. Don't get me wrong - I love that sculpture because it sends a powerful message we should never forget. The Pompeii exhibition next year wil reinforce that.
But this one shows the State Library's new dome standing proudly in its place among the commercial hub of thge city. The view of the suburbs reminds us of the number of people potentially touched y the library. And the sunset and open sky makes me think of endless possibilities.
Big Al

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

39 steps cont'd

So, the lady at the copier knows exactly what type of copy she needs but hasn't quite the English to explain it, and two library staff twice her tiny height who are assuming that because of her age and her accent she does not know what the new copier can do. My colleague is so used to training that she treats everyone as a trainee (she used the phrase "Good girl" to a sixteen year-old who agreed that, yes, she did know her PIN number), And I'm the new staff member who finally sees that, although I don't know the new machine, if we take it slowly and listen the lady will show us what she wants.

The lady got her copy, eventually. She politely thanked me when I was very little help. There's a few things you could draw from this encounter, but for now it's enough to say that going through the checklist of our assumptions might be just as important as going through the instruction in the user manual.

39 steps

Ours is one of many public libraries which have installed copying and printing activated by membership card in the same way as unis and many schools. So instead of putting coins directly in the photocopier box you scan your card and deposit coins in a separate box on the wall, then scan your card agin at the copier/printer, select your print job, and print.

It's not quite 39 steps but there's more than the three steps the training advertised. WE're all carfully taking the public through their paces learning the new system. Many people patiently learn it, accepting that it takes twice as long to make a photocopy for no extra advantage to them, and that they must type in a 14 digit membership number to obtain a hard-copy print from the web. Some people, mostly elderly males, walk out angrily saying ' This is too complicated'

My colleague, a very efficient circulation supervisor, and I wer helping an elderlt Chines lady to make a coloulr copy with the new system. She had used it once before, but our minds were so much in the groove (there's an outdated metaphor. What's the CD update - in the pits? Flasgdrive - in the circuit? MP3 - in the download?) of training people in copy cards that it tok a while to see that the lady did not want help with that, but with how to use the copier touch screen to make a copy that was in colour, reducing a double-page A3 sized spread to A4.

Closing bell's gone. To be continued