A gentleman and a scholar

I hear a lot of bagging of the twopointopian movement, but I have to say while I share some of the concerns about it being no more than the latest library fad. If not for having gone through it and set up RSS feeds I wouldn't have recieved notification through read Alert of Neil Gaiman speaking at the State Library Today. Yes you read that right. NEIL GAIMAN. Well it was a no brainer the chance to go and listen to and meet one of my favourite living authors. The Library where I work was gracious enough to allow me to take the day off, so I was booked and ready. Did it live up to my expectations? Hell yes!

I got a seat 3rd row from the front, just right of the podium. And apart from a delayed start apparently due to a taxi driver who seemed to think the Library had moved closer to Flinder's St, all went swimmingly. For the first 20 min. Neil after giving a quick preamble on the genesis and setting of his upcoming book; The Graveyard Book. Read from ch.3. Which when announced garnered a cheer from a bunch of hardcore fans up the back. (btw it was standing room only.) Neil has got a great reading voice, which if you've heard him read the audiobook for his picture book; The day I swapped my Dad for 2 goldfish, you'd already know. He obviously enjoyed it (as did we all) and commented wryly afterwards that reading something aloud that you've wriiten, for the first time is revealing of akward sentences which looked good on paper. (sounded Ok to me), the reading was punctuated by frequent laughter from the audience. Then for the next half an hour it was a Q & A session. Questions ranged from; When's The Graveyard Book coming out? Oct probably just in time for Halloween. Past works, and their influences, the craft and practice of writing itself, He commented that his past career as a journalist was great training for being able to sit down anywhere and write. What's it like working with Terry Pratchett and Gene Wolfe? Terry Pratchet was fun and it was at a time when they were both just starting out. Neil regards Gene Wolfe as one of the greatest living Sci-Fi writers, and he says it kept him on his toes. And a great question was asked as to whether him youngest daughter Maddie would be following in his footsteps as a writer. Neil's answer was that she is the only one of his children who has expressed a desire to write, although he felt she would be a different writer from him as she herself likes writing about different things to him. Neil, obviously a proud Dad, told how she had won a statewide writing competition, and he brought the house down when he relayed that when Maddie was to go to the presentation, she decided to take him, so that he might get to meet some real writers. Half an hour of Q&A's might have sounded a lot, but it went really fast. Finally there was the book signing where row by row we were able to go up and meet Neil and he would sign our books. Given the volume of people there was an embargo on photogtaphs with Neil, although this did not prevent anyone taking shots of him on stage as he spoke and signed. Most of us were so engrosed in listening to him speak we forgot we even had cameras phone or otherwise. I know I did. It was obvious that Neil was pleased to meet his fans and took the time to speak and chat with each one. Some had made him little gifts, and others were obviously frequent attendees. Again due to the lage number of people there was a limit of 3 items per person. For myself I took my copy of Sandman vol 1,and after telling Neil what a great pleasure it was to have been there I did ask him one question. What does he have against beetroot? (see ch. 3 of the Graveyard Book when its out) Now they say there are no stupid questions only stupid answers and his answer was both proof that it wasn't a stupid question and it also disprooved it in that it wasn't a stupid answer.

P.S. Lastly I also have to say the Library Staff there did a fantastic job of handling the logistics of the event, and were obviously enjoying it as well. It was a life moment I'll not soon forget.

P.P.S. Check out

http://www.insideadog.com.au/downloads/gaiman.html

where on his last visit to the State Library Neil talks about Anansi Boys. Hopefully they'll have this talk up in due course too

P.P.P.S. Check out Neil Gaiman's own site and really popular blogs at

http://www.neilgaiman.com/

My You Tube won't come back

Gripe Time recently I found You Tube was telling me I either had my Java Script turned off or needed to up date, They wern't but I updated anyway, and even reinstalled IE7 in the end. Where it worked for a short time thereby enabling me to eventually catch the latest Doctor Who Christmas Special. FANTASTIC! Later one click of the refresh button and yet again it stubbornly refused to display, even doing all the bits from before didn't help but I found if I embed them I can do so, so that's why you'll see various ones displayed here. enjoy

Torchwood played by Sock Puppets Brilliant!



Latest from Its Just some Random Guy

A Grain a Day

Catching up on my RSS feeds, I came across this cool game which asks you to test your word knowledge and for every one you get right they donate 20 grains of rice to the UN food program. It might not sound like much but its cumulative so by the time I'd got to level 48 out of 50 I'd racked up 6,000 grains. Have fun, increase your vocabulary and help feed the hungry how good is that!

If you want to try it out for yourself http://freerice.com/index.php

The end. I think not! aka week 9 #23

Well here we are at the end, and I must confess, having some familarity with many of the topics and the web in general. I was unsure that it could be of benefit, although hopeful for all that.

To quote Paul comepletely out of context 'Hope did not dissapoint' Several years ago when teaching basic computer and web skills to patrons. I often used an illustration that the web is like a micrososm of a major city where you can find almost anything. To extend the analogy as a frequent stroller in that city, I tended to stick to the same well worn paths, after all don't most fairy tales warn you 'keep to the path, don't stray' Well if Libraries 2.0 taught did anything, it took me off the path, and showed me some different ones, which I intend to revisit. and helped me see others which I had known a little, come to know a lot better. Some of them as I've mentioned in earlier posts can be applied to tasks within the Library, some I can also use in other areas of my life beyond the sphere of Library work, and some were just plain fun.

I'm almost surprised to say. I think I'll miss this exercise. I would hope it is continued and extended beyond #23 at some point, and if not, well I guess its not a bad thing for me to start getting of the well worn path and go exploring. Who knows where I'll end up.

How do you shelve an ebook? aka week 9 #22

First off I like the concept of ebooks, and indeed quickly added the link to my favourites so that I can return to them later. I also find, and this extends to audiobooks in general. Its a great way to take in a book I might not have the time or inclination to read, and if like me you're looking at a daily commute to work taking anything from 40 to 90 minutes. Then it makes a welcome change from radio too.

Indeed they are catching on with the wider public, more and more, they are no longer the sole province of 'print challenged' readers. One of our patrons extolled their virtues, in that she can fit the equivalent of 16 audiobooks onto her ipod, and if you're going on holidays and space and luggage is at a premium then its a fantastic way to stock up on holiday reading.

One slight problem is that due to copyright restrictions, you're often limited to either classics or obscure special interest works, and thats fine up to a point, after all you get what you pay for. This also extends to another form of ebook I've come across on CD-Rom , which hasn't really taken off to the same extent. Which is books stored as text and simply read on screen. I own more than one, which have anything from 18 to 1800 titles stored on CD, one has the grandiose title of 'Library of the Future' I sincerely doubt it.

Which brings me to my final point. For all of their pro's ebooks will never replace print. Why? Books are supremely practical, all you need is enough light to read by, no batteries to replace, no need to plug in, no headphones or speakers needed, nothing to download or upload, no need to rewind if you miss something, no parts to breakdown or be affected by adverse conditions. And frankly nothing beats the pleasure of curling up with a good book beside an open fire and a glass of red at hand (Just don't spill it) And if you still want the pleasure of an ebook try reading aloud. Its fun for one, and can be even more so for two.

The Invasion of the Podcasts aka week 9 #21

Looking at the Podcast directories its quickly apparent that they are by far most heavily used with 'entertainment' related topics. So why fight it, I quicly zeroed in on the webs #1 Doctor Who podcast 'Podshock' at http://www.gallifreyanembassy.org/podshock/podshockmp3.xml and then promptly added it to my feeds.

No much more I can say about it really. As for its applicability to Libraries. It could be used to promote our auditory facilities ie music., audiobooks, but I suspect we would run into copyright issues there. Maybe with inhouse reviews using sample portions would be a way around it.

We have also had a couple of enterprising kids run their own web based radio station from the library called Rumble radio, and I suspect that it would be here that Podcasts would be best used by libraries in conjuction with other outside special interest groups to put themselves out there as it were in a mutually beneficial symbiotic podcast

Me Gingerbread man You Tube aka Week 9 #20

First off in the interests of full disclosure. I must confess that I had already spent a little bit of time on You Tube. So I had some familarity with it.

I get a nostalgic kick out of being able to view stuff that hasn't been seen on the old Cathode Ray Tube (Television for non geeks) since I was a little cookie.

I lurved Conan the Librarian. We've all had times when we'd like to unleash barbarian fury on a patron or two (or is that just me)

As for the 1950's Life's Work Reel on Librarians. Some observations with a caveat. It dropped out on me after 2 hours with 5 min to go, so didn't see it all. But I haven't seen so many wasps since we disturbed the nest under the front porch. Thank Goodness that's changed! As corny as it sounds one thing that hasn't is that it does help to have a love of People and Books, and its still a profession which is largely female dominated. (That's a good thing, before you all start spamming me)I couldn't help but notice the Librarian interupted the teen when he was asking about the TV Book. Very bad customer service. And as for the reference Librarian she seemed to be bombarded with queries where the patrons could and should have come to the Library and done their own research first. What do you think its out job to sit around and answer questions all day. On second thoughts ignore that. One question. What's a Cataloguer, Do we still have those? ;} (OK you can spam me for that one)

Finally my favourite You Tube site is by a guy called appropriately enough 'Just some random guy' He specializes in using plastic superhero comics figures in a format based on the 'Hi I'm a Mac and I'm a PC' ads. Called 'Hi I'm Marvel and I'm a DC' (The two biggies in comic publishing) And has a bit of fun with the characters and conventions of comics and related movies. I find them LOL funny although it helps to be familiar with the said characters and conventions, ie a geek. He does all the voices himself and is currently ranked #61 most subscribed out of the millions of entries, so not bad.

Here's a link to all of his work on You Tube:

http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=ItsJustSomeRandomGuy&p=r

And here's the first one just to get you started: