If you write as good as you talk, nobody reads you

Simon Hoggart managed to get a laugh out of Camden Council (in London) with this wonderful example of bureaucratic language. If everyone wrote like this, no-one would read books (including me).

Reader John Richardson sends in a magnificent example of jargon, from a report by Camden council, north London, called "Growing Your Library" [sic]. This turns out to mean sacking lots of staff and replacing them with barcode scanners. It includes phrases such as "information plinths" and reads in part: "The People work stream sits alongside service visioning, ICT procurement, spatial strategy, pilot RFID (radio frequency identification), enabled library and communications work streams."

The Good Library Guide has already picked up on this, but I’ll mention it anyway.

Just to be fair, however, when I looked at the PDF the Council offers on ‘Grow Your Library’ (I don’t even like the title: ‘grow your own…’ maybe, or ‘grow your libraries’ perhaps), there’s something about the rhythm or the grammar that just doesn’t work as a slogan for me. [muses] ...Grow your rose, grow your pig, no it doesn’t work for me.

Ahem.

Anyway, I can find no phrasing quite as awful as the bit Mr Hoggart quotes, in the PDF.

We all live with 'noisy library theory' these days...

Oh, and the title for the post is the way I remember Lou Reed dealing with an inarticulate heckler...on Take No Prisoners (read Gadfly for background)

Too creative with the truth

The local papers rang the library, enquiring about an incident which had been reported to them.

Whoever alerted them failed to realise how creative our Leisure Department are.

They seem to have missed the announcement of a visit from crime author Peter James, for a book signing - disguised as a Wanted Poster.

We also have some wonderful messages scrolling across our plasma screens, from the BBC feed.

Quite often they seem so gnomic and unlike a headline that you wonder how you would trace the story, but some seem so eye-catching that staff have accused me of smuggling them in!

Today the one that stopped me was:

Mammoth dung clue to evolution
(it didn't help that my brain read that as something like - massive 'dung-clue' to evolution).

Probably this story... :-)

Requesting Google Wave invites

Carl Clayton at Sinto has created a page for library and information workers to request invites.

I assume each person gets 8 invites they can pass onto friends, and it seems worth organising, so as not to waste invites on people who already got in, or who don't want to play, etc.

Currently, one of my sub-personalities got invited, so he will probably keep his invites for creative friends scattered world-wide.  :-)

If my 'real self' also gets an invite (different Gmail accounts) then I may have some to share with library folks. But don't hold yer breath!

New Wave

I was glad to hear that some librarians and information workers had begun exploring the possibilities of Google Wave, but unfortunately I can't join in, as the interactivity causes it to be blocked by our ICT settings (no chat, etc).

I don't particularly want to work from home on this, and if I go down to Starbucks (where it isn't blocked) I would have to work on the netbook, which has a screen too small to satisfactorily experience Wave's benefits I suspect (see Comment from Chrissie in previous post).

Still, being well-informed information workers they pointed me to The Complete Guide to Google Wave: How to Use Google Wave

I can't check out these wave links from here, but you could try a UK Librarians' wave, or this maybe or perhaps this - will check out links when I get somewhere it works!

These graphics come from Dion Hincliffe's site, definitely worth a visit for some background and comment.

Wave of the future?

I just received my invite to try out Google Wave, as a semi-beta tester type person. Will invite a couple of buddies that like to play with gizmos, although we have produced genuine on-line collaborative work, so this tool is more than a gimmick to us, it could really speed up our inter-continental communications about creative product.

Of course, I find it hard to consider as something which might improve communication within the library service right now, as it is blocked at work (both staff and public side of the network) as Instant Messaging, etc.

So I took the netbook down to the local Starbucks for my extra strength hit, and their BT FreeZone works fine.

Of course, a netbook screen isn't ideal for something as sprawling as Wave, which needs a big screen, I reckon, like a messy desktop. But still, I don't like to judge new things immediately.

Come Write In!

Although we have a great new library building in the centre of town, and at least two of the staff here have set out to write a novel-in-a-month, we have not managed to convince other Nano writers to use the building for a write-in.  For any librarians, managers or staff (especially those involved with children or literacy programs), or people with independent bookstores, go have a look at the support and networking page you can find from the Office of Letters and Light  (who organise the NaNoWriMo event.)

Maybe next year.

Word Clouds

I so enjoy the stuff Dave Pattern does with data and mashups, etc that I went to see what I could find to play with online.

I use 'play' in the sense of 'for work' of course! :-)

I had fun with Wordle - these are some word clouds I made, based on this blog. Possibly useful for library posters and suchlike (?) You have to Print Screen, paste into Paint, edit, etc...





And yes, you can change colours, layouts, etc - this one, for instance, is alphabetical..

I also tried TagCrowd, which has different parameters you can tweak, but does seem to remain alphabetical (although you can strim out common words, etc)

access ago although anon archive atom author best blocked blogger blogs book cardiff ceredigion change children clouds collaborative comments communication computing conference council course creative days discussion e-learning educational environment etc experience found free fun future goal google guide hours ict imagine individual information initiated instance integrated interactive interesting internet invite issue labels learning librarian library local love matter months moodle national net networking news online play pm pool possible posted rather read really resources search seems service simple site social something sounds staff story stuff subject talking teacher team thousands times twitter unblock useful video vle wales wave web

created at TagCrowd.com