Fourth plinth announcement

Walking back to the flats with a group of students yesterday, we talked a little about the Fourth Plinth project* - what I hadn't realised was that they'd just announced the 2011 and 2012 commissions just that morning!


Both the proposals I voted for ('Sikandar' and 'It’s Never Too Late And You Can’t Go Back') made the short list, but not the final cut, but the two chosen were probably my 3 and 4 of the final six. I am quite glad it wasn't th ATM/Organ, as someone who'd have to live with it long after the novelty would have worn off!

(*We were talking about One & Other, which was one of my all time favourite public art pieces.)

Experiments with textbooks

Today was something of an experiment, with a whole new way of handling Textbook Loan distribution, made possible by some changes to how registration is done. Instead of spending a whole day over the weekend checking out textbooks, we front-loaded the work, so by the time I headed off to the cinema last night the library was stacked with crates and boxes, full of 129 personalised bags of books (and loan phones) ready for each student to collect today.



As expected, the actual moment of handing over the bags was a little chaotic, but with some help from my colleagues we had the queue moving at a fair pace. I don't think anyone had to wait too long, and the only reason it took us 45 minutes to distribute several hundred books was because some groups of students had prior appointments to keep! (We'd set that up intentionally to break up the flow of people, and minimise waiting times.)

On the whole, I think the students got the 'work flow' - taking care of loaned books, phones, travel passes, and then optional purchased books: lots of business got taken care of, and it's a whole day of the orientation weekend freed up for the students - and me - to spend doing something more fun in London.

It also created plenty of opportunities to students to ask questions and start conversations informally with the whole team here, for them to be able to sit down and figure out the new phones, get connected to the wifi, and to coordinate with each other about what they were doing next - heading home, going out to dinner, and so on. A much gentler end to the first day than being in a lecture theatre and just being told 'OK - that's it - we're done'.

Obviously, it will take a few days for any problems to show themselves. So far, it's just that I managed to give one student one book for a class they're not taking, which was just a case of my eye slipping a line on a spreadsheet during the set-up. Fortunately the student was most forgiving, and at least it was an extra book, not a missing one.

I don't want to get too ahead of myself, especially without more feedback from students, but personally, I think I'd call the experiment at least a conditional success. (Any students reading this - feedback always welcome!)

Things I'd do differently if there's a next time:

• - something to confirm the original emails were received, be that a second email, notification in a prep session, or something else - a couple of people hadn't received that, which was less than ideal. Nothing that can't be solved, but something to improve on.
• - print out and include in the bags each students' complete textbook info (not just the loan list) for ease of reference for the student.
• - also, print a copy of my textbook masterlist, so I can answer queries on the fly without relying so much on memory.
  
• - include a demo phone pack in the demo book bag for the presentation (was in the plan, but the incoming flight's travel delays meant that didn't quite come together)
  
• - point out in the presentation a) the log-in info on the sheets and b) the student copy of the agreement. (also in the plan, but skipped in the attempt to shorten everything on the fly to mitigate the delayed start to the sessions. I can cover it in my sessions tomorrow, but the before-collection session would be better, I think.)
  

Small - or far away

The run up to the start of any semester is always a busy time, so I have a personal tradition to make plans for the evening before the semester starts, to make sure I take at least that much of a break. (This time I went to see Tron:Legacy in eyeball-saturating 3D - IMAX, which was significantly more impressive than regular 3D, and absolutely perfect for the film.)

Crossing the river - excuse the not-great photo - I discovered that the Shard's construction has now reached the stage where it's messing with my depth perspective in the dark! I know, in my head, that it's a very tall building quite far away, but it really looked for a moment as though someone had wrapped the spire of St John's, Waterloo in fairy-lights - the fairy lights being the lit windows all the way over in London Bridge. Blame the long day, but it did take me a moment to work out what I was seeing.

silver lining II

I've been working from home today (my house is currently being somewhat less waterproof than is generally considered desirable) which seems to have had the unexpected side effect of making me more visible/useful to my students.

I sent out an email this morning, to let people know that I'd be out of the office, which actually generated a good number of student research enquiries - far more than I'd usually get on a Friday in the library, which tends to be quite quiet at this point in the semester.

When I'm visible in the London Centre, I'm only visible to other people in the same space - online - no boundaries. I suspect at least one or two of the enquiries I answered today came from students who are travelling this weekend, and history would suggest they wouldn't have thought to email me without the prompt.

The vast majority of the resources I was locating for people were online-access, and many of the books were via ILL, which means they wouldn't be available until next week even if I'd been working out of the office, so I think that was a net win (plus, my house isn't fixed, but we're a stp closer, at least!)

* Photo by HTYYL, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

I remember

silver lining

I was late in to work this morning, thanks to signal failure at Cannon Street, but having walked through my local park to get to my alternate route on a bright, clear, frosty morning, and then crossing Hungerford Bridge, with the Thames sparkling and all London spread out around me, it's hard to be too grouchy. There's nothing like the view across the Thames to remind me just how much I love London.

* Photo by sparkynufc_86, used under Creative Commons, with thanks (because I was hurrying, so didn't stop to take photos myself this morning!).

Automatic hush

While I am kind of pleased to discover that this noise traffic light actually exists, albeit only in the US, I'm less pleased to discover that this is the Librarian I-Phone app. That's the dominant thing that's associated with what we do? Still?

Your city

I spotted this phonebox while I was walking into Stratford earlier today, which caught my eye because of the tagline 'run your city'. I'm not a runner, and I won't be signing up for their contest, but I still kind of love the idea - getting people to hit the streets and expand 'their' London. The whole idea of 'London is your gameboard' is one I can appreciate.

I know they're a running company, but it still bugs me a little that they categorise walking as 'cheating', because walking London is one of the ways that I feel that London is my city - or at least some parts of it are. That's almost my functional definition of which areas I consider 'mine' - areas that I can walk confidently from memory. Areas that I know well enough to notice what's changed, know what's new, how to get around without having to stick to a narrow known route - those feel like my city.

I do approve of people setting up games to encourage people to explore their cities, though - I never wrote it up, but I did a Photo Scavenger Hunt a couple of weekends back around Hackney, which was great fun, and has added a little more area to the parts of London I count as my own.

Two unrelated things:

Thing #1 - our building's been 'under wraps' for a couple of months now, as they were cleaning its historic stone outsides. The LUP Library has two walls made almost entirely from windows, so having them swathed in scaffolding and white waterproof sheeting has made quite an impact on it's appearance.

They're finally unwrapping us, which is a slow process - we're into week two of the careful dismantling at the moment. There are two desks through in the stock room with a view out across the street - set in the two lit 1st floor windows of this photo, in fact. I don't think anyone used them during the whole summer program, or for the first few weeks of semester, but I can't help but notice that at least one of them's been in use most of the last week, since the wrapping came off. What a difference a view makes! Makes me wonder if there might be any way of re-arranging our furniture to make more use of the windows in the main room ...

Thing #2 My App Inventor invitation came through, which was a moment of geek-joy :D

It took me a little while to get set up, compared to my partner's plug 'n play experience, but once I'd finally downloaded the relevant drivers for my handset it really is as simple as it's made out to be.

I've only had time to work through two of the tutorials, but thus far everything makes sense. I'm thinking about some actually-useful-to-me tools I'd like to make - I just love the idea of being able to roll my own.

* Android photo by Svet, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

digital delights

I've had a dedicated e-reader for a few months now, and I love it. (It's not a Kindle or a Sony, rather, it's another brand, which Waterstones used to sell, but doesn't seem to any more.) It's fantastic to have a ton of books at my fingertips, all in something lighter than your average magazine, let alone paperback.

For most of those months I've been meaning to write up a proper review, and link in a bunch of the conversations about ebooks and pbooks, and DRM and format wars and ... I'm never actually going to have the time to do that, so instead you get this set of scrapbook notes, if for no other reason than to clear the decks so I won't feel constrained if something else comes up in the future on a related topic.

- I think I spotted a couple of e-readers being used by students over the summer, and at least 1, and an ipad amongst the current cohort. Several smartphones being used as readers as well.

- I had a play with some of the ebook aps available for my smartphone, and no. Not unless I had absolutely no other choice of reading material. The screen's just too small for any sensible amount of text. (Clearly folks who use their smartphones as readers feel differently, and more power to them!)

- neat to read about ND doing ebook studies, although I read this and all I can think is 'surely that's a study into tablet computers, not ebooks?'

- I had a play with an ipad at the weekend, and, yes, it's pretty impressive, but my first impression was surprise at just how heavy it was, and maybe they had the contrast settings way up, but that's one bright backlit screen. It certainly seemed much closer to a laptop than an ebook reader to me.

- One of the things I love about my reader is the e-ink screen. I can read in bright sunlight, and I can read in low light without giving myself a headache from the screen light. I prefer it to reading on screen by some margin - enough that I've taken to pulling across pdfs and long reports that I need to read for work, just to break up my screen time.

- I really thought the 'flicker' of the e-ink refresh on a page turn would drive me nuts - that was one of my real concerns before I got the reader - but I've realsed recently that I just don't notice it at all, any more than I notice the 'break' in my reading when I turn the page of a pbook.

- It's not ebooks vs pbooks, it's ebooks AND pbooks, at least if you're a word addict like I am.

* Photo by schmidjon, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

it's alive!

The new semester has arrived; classes start Tuesday, and yesterday was the first serious load-test for the new library management system - textbook check out - 748 books to 130 students, and I think things went pretty smoothly. There were a couple of moments where my assistant was scanning barcodes faster than the system could process them, but the whole system was much more robust than it's predecessor, we didn't run into any data-conversion problems, and the whole process was faster.

I had scheduled longer slots for each batch of students, knowing that because we had books for the new core course, we'd be checking out about 260 more items than last semester, and seeing closer to 100% of the students (plus, I had to re-introduce some paperwork), but I think we could have got away with 30 minute blocks instead of 45 after all. Not a bad problem to have, really - having short breaks between groups meant that there was no chance for long lines to build up, and that I and my assistant got moments of downtime to grab a snack or a drink, which made the whole thing less exhausting than it can be.

I've just checked, and the overnight tweak that was to make sure all the due-dates for the textbooks match up with the end of semester has worked, so I think we're off to a reasonably solid start to the semester, at least as far as the LMS is concerned. Hurray!

There are still some loose ends to tie up, and feedback from students may lead us to undiscovered problems, but having the library records converted and accurate, the OPAC set up, the stock check done and processed, and the staff interface ready and working in time for the start of semester is a pretty good goal to hit!

Switching LMS was never going to be a small job, and we started about 6 weeks later than planned, so the last couple of weeks have been really intensive, and I'm really glad that it's a bank holiday tomorrow, to rest and recover so I can dive into the first week of classes with recharged batteries. (I know it's carnival weekend, but I must admit that the closest I'm going to get to the festivities is a cup of Notting Hill tea from YumChaa)

* Textbook photo by Marquette La, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

Zoo nation

Work continues apace with the move to the new LMS & catalogue, overlapping with the usual preparations for the start of a new semester, which has rather meant I've been all work and no play recently. I did take a break last night, though, to go up to London Zoo, who are running a series of special late night openings in August.

The queue forming when we arrived was a bit daunting, and some areas of the zoo were really crowded - the lions and tigers were super-popular - but it was fantastic to be able to explore in the twilight.

Some animals were sleeping, but others were maybe more active than they would be mid-day, so that balances out, although my camera really didn't like the active animals in the low light, so - very few photos to share.

It's been many, many years since I last went to London Zoo - I think I was a school trip! - and a lot has changed. The move towards more open enclosures is great, both for the animals and the visitors - the exotic bird and the monkey walk-throughs were two real highlights for me. It was fantastic to be so close to the animals, and to see them without bars - spotting the bright flashes of tiny birds in flight through the greenery and watching monkeys playing through the branches is pretty magical.

It's been a really long week, so we didn't stick around too late for the bars and silent nightclub, but it looked like a lot of folks were having a really good time there, on top of exploring the zoo proper.

Next week's the last late, so if you think it sounds good, book your tickets ASAP!


* Photo by me

A day in the life of a librarian - round 5

(The collected Days make for some interesting reading)

I'm a solo librarian in an academic library. All my students are on their summer holiday at the moment, and the library is closed, but that doesn't mean that it's going to be a quiet day!

Check email on the 3 accounts I monitor. Forward a handful of messages to colleagues, reply to the most urgent of mine, and batch together the rest by project to tackle later, or - as it turns out - tomorrow.

Clarify quotes with potential shelving and furniture suppliers, and pass them on to the rest of the people working on plans to maybe move our library within our building.

Measure up existing library furniture, and start making scale plans for some of the possible layouts that have been discussed.

Phone calls with boss, updates on the library move plans.

Pop out to pick up lunch, and caffeine supplies for the next few days. Collect armful of incoming book orders from my mailbox on the way back in.

One of our faculty members pops in for a chat about how resourcing is coming together for a new course - show him the relevant new arrivals, make some suggestions for titles that would fill the need he describes, and then order the two most likely looking ones. (Frustratingly, there's a brand new book that might be relevant but might be too technical - we can't tell from contents page, and none of our partner libraries have a copy yet. I'll call around local bookshops tomorrow to see if anyone has a copy he or I can go and page through before we order it, as it's a fairly expensive HB)

Check in on progress of another faculty member's course reader - she's finished up her part, so the ball's back in my court to double check the permissions, and send it out for a proof copy.

Call our main book supplier to try and find out why I've got an invoice, but no books - miss our rep both times I call, so - onto tomorrow's to do list with that.

More email and phone calls with suppliers and colleagues about the library move plans - forwarding quotes and requesting clarifications, and trying to make sure everyone involved has the information I've collected, ahead of our meeting later in the week.

Data cleanup - we're in the middle of transitioning to a new LMS, and the test transfer of our data threw up a number of anomalies that need me to investigate and make judgement calls. Today's area for focus was duplicate patron barcodes, and miss-matched bib and item sets. Picky and detailed, but satisfying. Really looking forward to going live on the new system.

Add 9 new dvds to the catalogue - the one thing I'm not looking forward to on the new system is media cataloguing, so I pulled these to the top of my 'to enter' pile to make sure they'll be included in the record transfer!

Stop - at half past leaving time - to look around, see what needs doing and to think about priorities. Make a few notes, and put together tomorrow's to-do list, so I can get off to a clean start tomorrow morning.

Go though reception on the way out of the building to discover a late delivery has arrived, containing those missing books, so I took a quick detour on my route home to drop into the book shop and leave a message for our rep to let her know that all is well after all.

* Photo by robjwells, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

London Lives

London Lives looks like such a new fantastic resource! We don't have any history courses running at the moment that focus on this particular period in the UK, but the assembled biographies tagged with 'transportation' provide some fascinating individual sketches for the British Empire history class, and I hope the site comes in useful for historical context in some of the other classes, too.

* Photo by wirewiping, used under Creative Commons, with thanks.

More museums and galleries

I am, admittedly, quite a fan of wandering around museums and galleries, but even for me, four different London locations in eight days is more than I can usually manage unless I'm on holiday. They were a very inspiring eight days, though, London Architecture, the National Gallery, the Summer Exhibition at the RA on Saturday, and the Science Museum's late on Wednesday, where they launched their new 'Who am I' galleries with a fine, if somewhat warm, evening event.

I am a fan of museums in general, but especially a fan of the various Lates - I don't think I've been disappointed by one yet, and I think they're well worth scheduling around. There's a different feel to them, and any time a museum has a queue round the block to get in, you know they're doing something right. Especially if they have staff roaming the queue distributing maps, event guides, and lollies!