Category: UK

Don’t go on holiday!

I tell ya, it takes at least a week to catch up on the week you were away…and now I’m off to Dublin this afternoon until Sunday, so I can only imagine how long it’ll take me to catch up again when I get back!

One useful thing I have done while on holibobs though is play with Yahoo Pipes, to create a feed of feeds. After being a total doofus and needing the help of the lovely law.librarians group to fix things (how come they could easily explain what a video didn’t?) I’ve had a stab at making some usefulness from the UK Librarian Bloggers wiki, starting with (hopefully) a feed of all the academic library blog feeds on there.

If I’m lucky, you should be able to do something with it, like subscribe to it. Although I haven’t got as far as actually testing that theory myself.
Hopefully, you’ll find it here :

http://pipes.yahoo.com/jennie/ukacademiclibraryblogs

And even more hopefully, it’ll be useful to someone! Let me know if it works, and if it’s useful. If it is, I’ll start creating more…public libraries, special libraries, Scottish, English, Welsh etc…

Help locating a librarian from the 1990s

I had contact via this blog, asking for help finding a librarian that someone used to work with in the early 1990s.

I’ve posted the text of the email below – if anybody knows her, or of her, get in touch with me and I’ll pass the info on (I’ve withheld his email), or pass his info on to her. Since, as he says, we’re fairly well networked, I’m hoping somebody will see this and get in touch.

Also off to post on the CILIP Communities board – I have a vague idea that CILIP has a register of members, but I’m not sure about that. And if she’s married and changed name, or left the profession, there’s not much hope of finding her, but here’s hoping!

Dear Jennie,
This may be a slightly odd email; but I am trying to trace a friend who when I met her was working her BA in librarian(ship?) at Birmingham Polytechnic (now the University of Central England) and subsequently worked as a Librarian at Blakenhurst prison in the Midlands. Her name is Valerie Evans and she worked at the prison during 1993/’94, but I am told she subsequently left.
I was wondering if:
The library communinity is fairly well networked in the UK and whether someone might know her or indeed work with her now.
Alternately:
Whether she works in some affiliated library/IT service somewhere in the UK.
If by some staggering coincidence/chance you might happen to know of her, I would be delighted. If not, could you give me some pointers as to where I possibly look for her if she still works as a librarian. My email address is xxxx@xxxx
I am in New Zealand at present and trying to find her is as you can imagine a difficult task. I would be very happy to hear from you. You will find a photo of her attached
Kindest Regards
Neil Allister

To join or not to join?

I have a terrible, dirty secret. One that will make some librarians gasp in despair, and others maybe will feel relieved that they’re not alone.

You see, I’m not actually a member, or user of public libraries.

There, I said it!

In fact, the only time I’ve been a member of a public library was at Uni, when I joined the local public library…and never used it. As a child, my Mum was a librarian in the local branch, and she just borrowed out books for me on her ticket, so we never got around to getting me a readers ticket. In secondary school, I used the school library, and sometimes the local library, with Mum still borrowing books on my behalf.

Now, as an adult, what I do is go to the local charity shops, buy a pile of whatever books from there that take my fancy at £1 each, read them, then give them back for resale. This means I give to charity twice over, once with the sale to me, and again with the donation back to them to resell. Also, I’ll have an occasional shop at Amazon, buying enough of the £3 paperbacks to get free shipping, reading them, then again, giving them to the charity shops. I very rarely keep any of the books I buy, due to both space issues, and a knowledge that it’ll be many years before I’ve forgotten enough of the contents to be able to read them again without thinking “I know what happens next”.

I don’t have any dependants, my money is entirely my own to spend as I see fit, so I don’t feel that spending £15 to £20 a month or so on books is extortionate, although I realise there could be many people who would think spending that much on books regularly is insane.

As someone who isn’t addicted to a particular author, reads fast but hates deadlines (ie return dates), tends to choose books to pick up based initially on their spine art, and is constantly fighting a book hoarding instinct, is there really any reason for me to use public libraries?

What could persuade me to switch from my buying and sending to charity habit, to joining and using a public library? Purely in relation to books – I’m aware public libraries have a lot more than just books in them, but I have my own computer and internet access, and don’t want to join any sort of groups, so it would have to be the books that would tempt me in.

Am I a bad librarian for not being a member or user of my local library?

Updating the UK Library Bloggers wiki

In response to my original post about needing help to double check entries and add last visit dates for the UK Library BLoggers wiki, the lovely Jo and Christine have kindly volunteered to help out, yay!!!

So, over the next wee while, we’ll be revisiting all the blogs already on there, and checking the original quick synopsis is accurate, and adding in a date of last visit.

In my meanderings last night I found that already, in the month since I’d first visited, one blog had shut down and moved to another address with a new focus, and a new university departmental blog had started…it’s all go with us library bloggers!

So thanks again to Christine and Jo for giving their spare time to help with this task!