Another really public library

In a phone box in New York City

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The man who turned his home into a public library

 "The only rule is that there are no rules."



The idea is simple. Readers can take as many books as they want, for as long as they want - even permanently.

BBC News Magazine, 20 Sept 2012 - for full story.

Rock & Roll Public Library

Mick Jones contributed his personal collection for this exhibition at the Subway Gallery in London. in March 2012...

The rock 'n Roll Public Library page, with more pix, here


Sabotage Times article


The Clash blog

Come with a story, leave with another

I love the Mighty Optical Illusions page.

Here's a link to a library campaign, Come with a story, leave with another.

Another Look

If you have visited here before, and wonder where the familiar layout went (and, indeed, the blog list, favourite places, etc) I can only tell you that I decided to test out the dynamic views that Blogger now offers.

Since the library I work for acquired its own front ends (Twitter, Facebook, Blog) I decided to more or less retire this one - but I still enjoy to experiment.  You can flip through the 7 new options yourself, but you can't revert to the old one, which also had links to favourite places to visit, blogs I like, etc.  (sigh).

So here are the results of the various 'looks':

Classic

Flipcard - Recent

Flipcard - Label

Flipcard - Date

Flipcard - author (only interesting on multi-user blogs)

Magazine

Mosaic

Sidebar

Snapshot

Timeslide - not sure I understand this one

Well, I thought it was funny...

you can buy this at The Literary Gift site.

I particularly liked their Description: "the perfect mug for librarians: we tried to do a mug which said "Go away I'm cataloguing, and shelving, and being nice to borrowers..." but we couldn't fit it all on."

I have left this blog on hold for now, as the official blog seems sufficient for the specific library tasks, and I don't have quite enough interest in the general process of librarianship to pursue too many links (heading towards writing books now, instead of lending them), but this mug made me laugh (even if the Shhhh cliché is pretty out of date, now).

Library Angels (again)

This is the stuff of magic and synchronicity (when you work among the akashic records, where everything can be linked to everything else) but I recently stumbled over David Crystal's delightfully amusing autobiography (and more) about his life as a linguist - Just a Phrase I Am Going Through. It's my bed-time reading. Makes me wonder how I can ever finish writing my autobiography, while at the same time motivating me to try.

So I looked in the catalogue and found we had several of his books, including Language and the Internet.

Today I heard from an English friend who lives in Amsterdam, who happens to share a flat with David Crystal's daughter, and he sent me a link (we're approaching relevance to a library blog)
to this impassioned defence of libraries on David Crystal's blog.

Library Angels rule, OK?

Slow clap for li-berry

Slow clap for li-berry

Library is stirring more trouble

From the blog: Everything I Like Causes Cancer

Fictional Libraries

It was a small pleasure to glimpse the London Library in the latest episode of New Tricks.

Brian goes to his local library where (yes) kids are singing, people are talking on their mobile phones, others are rummaging noisily through DVDs, etc - until he can't take it any more and shouts "Silence! This is a bloody library!" and gets removed by the security guy.

His wife leads him to the London Library which, as the title of the episode reminds us, 'smells of books."

It Smells of Books - episode 48 (transmitted 17th Sept 2010)
Brian finds the library card of cold case victim Dr Richard Symes, leading him to reinvestigate the death of the professor, who died after falling from the roof of his college three years previously. Sandra and Gerry interview Symes' widow, who believes principal Jeremy Ventham drove her husband to suicide following a conflict over teaching methods.

Still viewable in BBC iPlayer (accessed 23rd Sept, 2010)

Note: The London Library is a subscription library - it'll cost you about £400 per year.

Library Bricks

With the 4% cuts in public services now turning into 16% cuts, and the chances of job losses or pay cuts in the wind, the policy change from a suggestion of (unpopular) uniforms being provided to the (unpopular) dress code (paid for out of our own low wages), and all that sort of demoralizing stuff...moan, moan.


I needed something fun to post.

Link to a Library Reference Desk made out of books.

link to a small octagonal 'book cell' made of books by Matej Kren.

Here's a link to his follow-up, an enormous book building

And then theres Tom Bendsten's fabulous piece at the Toronto Reference Library...



You might also enjoy the Book Art that you can find on M.J's blog , for instance Octopus done for the Anagram bookstore in Prague by Kaspen/Jung v Matt

The oddest people work in libraries

http://www.examiner.com/libraries-in-chicago/from-jabba-the-hutt-to-library-technician-toby-philpott

What's your image of a 21st Century Librarian?

OK, OK, library assistant... (sigh)

Top 8 Books Written by Librarians

Currently, Abebooks has displayed their top 8 books by librarians!

• The Less Deceived Larkin, Philip
• A Wrinkle in Time Madeleine L'Engle
• The Aleph and Other Stories Borges, Jorge Luis
• Out Stealing Horses Per Petterson
• Daybreak - 2250 A.D. (original title: Star Man's Son) Norton, Andre
• Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand Wallace Breem
• The Middle Age of Mrs Eliot Wilson, Angus
• At Mrs Lippincotes Elizabeth Taylor

Librarians on space hoppers

According to Manchester Libraries' Facebook Page, librarians on space-hoppers will be seen in a street parade on Sunday 20th June.

It relates to this year's Summer Reading Challenge - more details at the fun webpage at SpaceHop.

Keith Richards - wannabe librarian

Keef strikes a blow for the stereotype of the librarian - apparently in his forthcoming autobiography he admits to a massive reading habit, and his attempts to sort the thousands of books in his house...


Keith Richards - It's Only Books and Shelves (from Times Online).

"When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you. The public library is a great equaliser."
- Keith Richards

How to ask a Library Angel

Ahem - after my little rant I thought I should find something more charming and interesting for you.

How To Ask a Library Angel


I found this after reading A Whole New Mind (by Daniel H. Pink), which (in the design section) recommended the work and websites of Robin Williams the designer.

Well, will you look at that!

Kansas City Public Library looks like this! Snopes confirms it is not a fake.

The Community Bookshelf, it’s called, and you can see it on their website

I came across this on Cracked, which has a series of pictures that you won’t believe weren’t photoshopped!

Berglas's Corollary to Parkinson's Law

I was leafing through my old copy of Systemantics recently, because it still amuses me, and I work with ‘’complex systems’ of course.

One that I came across online recently was Berglas’s Corollary to Parkinson’s Law.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

According to Wikipedia, there are modern corollaries like:

Data expands to fill the space available for storage.

But Berglas’s Corollary amounts to:

No amount of computer automation will reduce the size of a bureaucracy

And whether you see these rueful laws (mostly invented by scientists) as pure jokes, or containing a grain of truth, you might want to compare them to real life.

When I joined the library service the department was part of Leisure, Libraries and Parks (LLP). We then changed to Leisure and Lifelong Learning (LLL), before becoming Culture, Leisure and Parks (CL&P).

Guess what? We now belong in Citizen Services (part of Housing and Neighbourhood Renewal).

Oh, and I haven’t worked for libraries as man and boy. I have only been here 13 years!

I don’t intend to single out our authority for this, and am aware that a certain amount of re-arranging of management hierarchies must prove necessary in different economic and political climates (quite apart from management fashions).

I only mention it because of the inevitable complications that arise from such reshuffles. Trashing a load of headed notepaper is not the only problem these days.

Because we use complex computer systems, containing folders and cross-references, files and documents with embedded links, etc., it means that all kinds of things can go wrong if one folder gets renamed. I find people whose email address still carries the LLL listing, files and lists that you need to search with LLP, etc. I guess the less said about the unfortunate acronym CLaP the better.

Berglas's Corollary or Why it is Important that Software Projects Fail

Conclusion

We have provided empirical proof of Berglas's Corollary, and clearly shown that software does not improve real productivity. Further, we have shown why it is essential that most software projects fail. No one need ever again be embarrassed by participation in a failed software project. Rather they should be proud to have spared society from yet another burden of complexity.

Some may misinterpret this article as satire. Surely it is not really desirable for software projects to fail. But the facts speak for themselves.

Parkinson's Law - Where all this started

A smile for Monday morning

I don’t seem to be keeping my current reading list up to date. I was leafing through my old copy of Systemantics recently, because it still amuses me, and I work with ‘’complex systems’ of course.

One that I came across online recently was a corollary to Parkinson’s Law.

Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.

According to Wikipedia, there are several modern corollories like:

Data expands to fill the space available for storage.

But Berglas’s Corollary amounts to:

No amount of computer automation will reduce the size of a bureaucracy

And whether you see these rueful laws (mostly invented by scientists) as pure jokes, or containing a grain of truth, you might want to compare them to real life.

When I joined the library service the department was part of Leisure, Libraries and Parks (LLP). We then changed to Leisure and Lifelong Learning (LLL), before becoming Culture, Leisure and Parks (CL&P).

Guess what? We now belong in Citizen Services.

Oh, and I haven’t worked for libraries as man and boy. I have only been here 12 years!

I don’t intend to single out our authority for this, and am aware that a certain amount of re-arranging of management hierarchies must prove necessary in different economic and political climates (quite apart from management fashions).

I only mention it because of the inevitable complications that arise from such reshuffles. Trashing a load of headed notepaper is not the only problem these days.

Because we use complex computer systems, containing folders and cross-references, files and documents with embedded links, etc., it means that all kinds of things can go wrong if one folder gets renamed. I find people whose email address still carries the LLL listing, files and lists that you need to search with LLP, etc. I guess the less said about the unfortunate acronym CLaP the better.

Berglas's Corollary (the complete article)

[excerpt] Conclusion

We have provided empirical proof of Berglas's Corollary, and clearly shown that software does not improve real productivity. Further, we have shown why it is essential that most software projects fail. No one need ever again be embarrassed by participation in a failed software project. Rather they should be proud to have spared society from yet another burden of complexity.

Some may misinterpret this article as satire. Surely it is not really desirable for software projects to fail. But the facts speak for themselves.

NB: The wonderful clock image was found at litemind/parkinson's law

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... :-)