An array of photos

Apologies for the delay in postings but I bring to you the long awaited class dinner photos, and more!

Exhibit A and B  were taken at the Red Snapper restaurant in Brighton. Anexcellent choice by Gordon, with BYOB, and as you can see we brought it!

LIS students.

 

 

 
David and Audrey lurks in the shadows…

Exhibit C is the only photo that was taken with my camera in Manchester during the 2011 New Professionals conference. SHOCKING!

But many more were taken by Sarah Ison the librarian, and can be found here.

Last exhibit is from the class lunch after the the last day of class for full time and first year part time students.

The George has vegetarian food delicious enough for a meat lover!

___

I want to take this opportunity to say that I enjoyed my year of learning  with all these lovely people, and I wish everyone the best for their future!

P.S

I would like to say congrats once more to Gordon for getting a free place to attend The International Association of Music Libraries, Archives, and Documentation Centres  (IAML) conference in Dublin on 24-29 July 2011,

Joseph and I really enjoyed our experience at the NPC conference, and I’m sure Gordon will have a great time at the IAML too!

__

Ka-Ming

 

New Professionals Conference 2011

On Monday 20th June 2011,  Jo and I presented on Student Activism and Engagement at the New Professionals Conference.

There have been many good blog posts on the events such as Alice Halsey‘s blog and Saint Evelin’s blog. I feel rather guilty as I’m getting admired for what other great members of our class have done to help save libraries. But I’m also excited that people got something out of our presentation, and people are interested in doing a #uklibchat.

Jo my partner in library crimes of the good sort, has also posted a supercalifrajilistic hourly comic, which gives a comprehensive overview on what went down at NPC2011, aside from omitting how he got us lost on the way to the hotel on Sunday. [The truth is out now, you will no longer be able to retcon this!].

Thus I will offer only my highly idiosyncratic impression of the conference in pictorial form.

Also:

T-shirt slogan idea:  I went to the New Professionals Conference and all I got was an astrolabe.

 

Advocacy in Action

Joseph and I will be presenting at the New Professionals Conference on the 20th June, the details of which can be found here at the CILIP website.

Our joint presentation is called:

Can we play? Building Opportunities for Student Activism and Why it Matters

We will talk a lot about why it’s beneficial for students to engage more with the wider professional network.  It is also something that I’ve been trying to do as well through things like joining Jiscmail.

Here is something that I felt is important that came up during one of the recent conversations in Lis-pub-libs Mailing list.

“My local council is under pressure when it was discovered the police force spent £35,000 on drinking water last year. This is North Yorkshire where the tap water is pure and libraries were up for closure to save £35,000 per branch!” (Ian Stringer).

This is a case of people interested in libraries actively thinking about how councils could save the money needed to keep library branches open. Immediately after this mail others on the list mentioned using FOI requests to see how much their council was spending on bottled water. This issue is worth examining, but in order to discuss this, we need to get the message out. The  Voices for the Libraries blog was mentioned as a potential place for where the ball can start rolling.

I am only marginally involved, but I wonder if by posting about it here (and then tweeting about it), I will be able to connect up the different communication networks that information professionals are using.

Please feel free to leave a comment if you’re interested and want to let people know that you’re interested.

 

Teach Meet: Ka-Ming’s Perspective

The Brighton Lib Teach Meet:  A tale in two pictures and two lists

The meet was attended by information professionals from the University of Brighton, the University of Sussex, the British Library and City University, amongst others.

And the topics covered were varied and informative. I did learn things that I hope to use and apply.

I’ll now proceed to steal Jo’s format, provide continuity between this post and the previous post.

Things that stuck out from the talk and the informal chats.

1. Sussex University Library has changed a lot since I studied there as an undergraduate. I’m impressed by the use of social media, and the use of space for researchers.
2. Great use of experiential learning to teach Boolean search by Siobhan Duvigneau from the British Library. She got students, to stand up or sit down depending on whether she was wishing to express the AND, OR, or NOT operators. She tried this out with the members at the teach lib meet. An aside: I have to say that in the modern age with the acknowledged existence of gender fluidity, a simple question like stand up if you’re male/female can possibly be problematic.
3. Google docs forms function that allows answers to a question to be instantly inputted into a spreadsheet (presented by Katie Piatt), made me go ooh!

My experience of giving a presentation

1. I am terrible at singing and playing the guitar in front of people, but luckily for all it was very short.
2. Having someone to focus on in the audience was assuring, helped to ameliorate my stage fright somewhat. My deer-caught-in-a-headlight-gonna-get-smashed-by-an-oncoming-lorry gaze  fell very often on Mr J who I’d spent time conversing with earlier.
3. I SURVIVED.

Honorary mention goes to Emma’s delicious home baked goodies.

The Jam and Nutella buns were scrumptious.

 

Civilisation in Ruins

Between 2005-2009 Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre carried out a project to photograph Detroit and its decaying buildings.

St Christopher House, ex-Public Library

Despite the rise of the internet, and the increasing accessibility to information online, the above image of an abandoned library is stark and potent. It warns me of what can happen if we let it.

We can’t take for granted that public libraries are safe from destruction. If our society as a whole doesn’t recognise their worth, one day they will disappear.

___

I recommend visiting Marchand and Meffre’s website to see more of their haunting and beautiful photographs.

 

JISC do it

I used JISC mailing lists when I was working on the Information Policy essay, and I’m using it now for the Management module. I think it’s a great way to get information, and I wanted to share it.

This link will take you to a list of all the different library related mailing lists available. The one that I’ve been using is LIS-PUB-LIBS, simply click on the link that says ‘subscribe/unsubscribe’ on that page and follow the instructions.

I hope it’s of use to you!

Ka-Ming Pang

 

Class Dinner @ Las Iguanas

On the 23rd of February, the MAIS students were rounded up and corralled into Las Iguanas where they were forced to enjoy Mexican food and a choice of beverages.
All had a jolly good time, especially enjoying Josh’s table top dancing, and the escapade with the pink flamingoes and the missing hedgehog.*

*Accounts of events on the night may vary.

xx Ka-Ming

 

The Book Surgeon

 

Books can be things of beauty, but American artist Brian Dettmer also known as The Book Surgeon,  takes it to another level as he cuts away away at old books and creates amazing works of art.

The Household Physicians. Photograph: Brian Dettmer

 

Todays World.  Photograph Brian Dettmer

The age of information in physical form is waning. As intangible routes thrive with quicker fluidity, material and history are being lost, slipping and eroding into the ether. Newer media swiftly flips forms, unrestricted by the weight of material and the responsibility of history. In the tangible world we are left with a frozen material but in the intangible world we may be left with nothing. History is lost as formats change from physical stability to digital distress. Dettmer.

There is food for thought here as we ponder the apparentlyy transient nature of information in the digital form, and the diminishment of its physicality.

___

Photos reproduced with permission from Brian Dettmer.

More photos of his work can be found at his website

 

A response that tells you little

While researching the Information Policy essay, I visited the MLA website and was curious to find that there seemed to be no mention of the fact that it is soon to be abolished by the current government .  After a quick search, I discovered www.theyworkforyou.com, a website that keeps tabs on debates in Parliament.

Through this I pulled up a series  of responses from Ed Vaizey on questions about how the decision on abolishing the MLA was made.

Click here to see the series of Q & A.

Here are some choice answers from Edward Vaizey.

“The decision to abolish the MLA was made with reference to these previous reviews and within the context of the Government review of public bodies which aims to increase the accountability, transparency and value for money of public bodies.”

“The decision to abolish the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council was taken as part of the Government’s review of public bodies which aims to increase the accountability, transparency and value for money of public bodies. The decision was taken on the basis that the potential for cost savings outweighed the potential liabilities. Transferring museums and libraries functions to Arts Council England will ensure work is delivered in a more efficient way with a reduction in back office functions.”

“No formal consultation took place prior to the decision to abolish of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council (MLA). Ministers at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport regularly meet representatives from a wide range of cultural organisations and within the context of these meetings the role and structure of organisations in the cultural sector, including the MLA, has been discussed on a number of occasions.”

Is it not ironic that Vaizey speaks of abolishing the MLA in order to ‘improve transparency and accountability’  then states that the decision to abolish was not made on the back of a formal consultation?

Does he have any facts to prove that abolishing the MLA will be “value for money”   and when he says “value” what does he mean exactly?

Ka-Ming

 

Greetings fellow inforgs!

As the person with the idea for starting this blog, I figured it was probably high time to pop on and make my presence known.

First off, I’m pleased to see that we already have posts from class members! I will be posting things too though.  They are most likely to be short and lightweight things, such as a pointing you towards the Read or Die Wikipedia entry that gives you information on a Japanese animated series about a librarian who is an agent in  “the British Library special operations division, a group tasked to locating and protecting rare books worldwide.”

Because somebody has go to do it!

Secondly, the blog entries, don’t seem be showing who posts what, so it is probably a good idea to include your name within the post.

Lastly,  I hope that we can make good use of this blog! I would like this to be a place where we can feel at ease in sharing whatever we want about the course the professional field and fictional librarians who save the world.

xx

Ka-Ming