Category: UK

UK Library Blogs update

I’m continuing to add to this list, as and when I can, and trawl through those already on the list to check for changes since the last visit / my mistakes in the collection of the initial list (my apologies to Neil Infield for accidentally renaming him to Ian!)

Also, I received an email telling me to look at FADE Library‘s great work on collecting UK health library blogs, which I will(with their kind permission) also add in to the overall list (and blog about in a later post) to try and make it as comprehensive as possible. Unfortunately, my email provider went squiffy and deleted the original email before I could reply, so I don’t know who to credit for alerting me to this massive piece of work by the FADE staff, and also means their own blog details were zapped! If this was you, please can you get back in touch so I can add your blog, and say thank you personally!

Edinburgh Festival of Libraries

Starting on Saturday 8th November, the Edinburgh Festival of Libraries will be running a week long programme of talks, walks, tours, presentations roadshows and behind-the-scenes peeks into some of the many different types of library services working in Edinburgh.

Lots of interesting things going on, but I’m kinda ruled out of any of the daytime events by working (I’ve maxed out my holiday allowance for the year, boo, hiss), which is a shame, because there’s plenty I’d have loved to be able to go to!

So, to make sure I still get to do *something*, I’ve emailed to book a place for the finale event on Friday 14th November:

Finale event – Future of the Book

Panel discussion “The Future of the Book”

Print books or e-books? Uplift or download? Writers and readers or interactive interchange? We are pleased to present a panel of informed people who will present and discuss a range of views on this topic.

The discussion will be chaired by Stuart Kelly, Literary Editor of Scotland on Sunday

Panel members include:

Donald Smith, Scottish Storytelling Centre

Francis Bickmore, Canongate Publishers

Hugh Andrews, Birlinn Publishers

Michelle Harper, OCLC

Join their discussion and get thinking about what part you will play in the future of the book. After the panel discussion, you are invited to continue the discussions on an informal basis and to enjoy a glass of wine, some light refreshments and some good company. This event is supported by OCLC and the National Library of Scotland

Scottish Book Trust, Sandeman House, Trunk’s Close, 55 High Street, EH1 1SR

7.00 pm onwards

Free – to book a place please contact 0131 623 4675 or email events@nls.uk

Just my sort of thing, yay!

More Facebook ad fun!

For entertainment, I sat and graded the ads I was getting for 15 mins again, refreshing them to see what would come up to replace what I’d marked as ‘irrelevant’.

The results, from their headlines:
Rachel Ray diet (twice), 1,000,000 people can’t be wrong (Pink Patch ad, this one is particularly repetitive, 8 times out of 12 this replaced an ad I’d removed by rating it irrelevant!), the Pink Patch diet (same as the other one, but different format…this company must have an impressive advertising budget), Floristry courses at Bournville College, the GI patch (yet another diet offer!), free Samsung Tocco, Poor history credit card (multiple), Call worldwide for a month (some sort of phone plan), free PS3 with T-Mobile, Home in Cyprus and Greece, Instant payday loan, free Samsung Soul, Jobs in Oxfordshire (twice), Want a PS3 for £10.92? (auction site ad), The best of Dagenham, A few drinks tonight? (don’t know what this advertised, had website link but I didn’t go), birthday flowers, Bad credit history is ok, Non fault accident? (Ohhh, I could ‘claim today with Jim and Jane’!), Teeth whitening gel sale, Portugal, Sapin, Tenerife (travel company), Are you owed £2,000? (mis-sold loan payment insurance), Ibiza people meet (Ibiza social network).

So, what I’ve worked out from this is that Facebooks ignores any feedback on the ads it displays for you, and they’re mainly in a few distinct categories:

  • Weightloss / diet / cosmetic
  • Mobile phone offers
  • Loan / credit offers
  • Poorly targeted location-specific ads (Dagenham, Bournville, Oxfordshire, Ibiza)

It’s like being constantly subjected to mini-spam emails, lurking in the edge of your vision! I suppose it’s the price you pay to have a free service, but I wonder if they’ll ever offer a ad-free version, for a small fee?

And I still think Facebook’s trying to tell me something,in a not-so-subtle way….

There’s a lack of UK blawgers?

Well, apparently, according to the recent Times article.

The only problem is, Alex Wade doesn’t seem to have bothered actually doing any proper research. They’ve decided that only staff at law firms are likely to blog, or have any knowledge of the law, thereby ruling out advocates / barristers, academic law professionals, support staff / librarians, students…. There are lots of law blogs out there, by all sorts of people working in the law, all it takes to find them is a few minutes!

I randomly selected one of the blawgs listed in the article, and a quick look at some of Geeklawyers blawgroll lists the following:

And link-hopping from these can find you even more UK blawgs, and the blawgs of anonymous law students and those in pupillage…so why didn’t the Times journalist actually spend the time to do that? Also, as discussed here, some of the blogs linked to aren’t even current. And the final, splendid point  –  the fact that almost none of the links work, as there have been spaces inserted into them…go proof readers! Or, should that be ‘link-checkers’?