DigitalDamage or Ex Libris Darwinian

The Library Monitor

2008-04-27T03:22:00.000-07:00

Library staff were asked to check out a beast in the children's area of the Darwin City Council's Casuarina Library this week.A mum thought she saw a snake coiled up amongst the books. It was actually a goanna (although more specifically a Tree Monitor, we think.) This is Rosario, our Children's and Youth Services Librarian,who calmly managed the situation

After the photo shoot we put it in a tree in the library car park

Family History tour Northern Territory Library

2008-02-20T03:38:00.000-08:00

ALIA Top End had its first meeting for the year with a tour of the Family History area of the Northern Territory Library given by John Richards
John gave a very good introduction to the available resources to an appreciative audience.

Day two of ALIA Top End Symposium

2007-10-06T21:17:00.000-07:00

Gillian Hallam gave a presentation based on a recent survey of the Australian Library workforce with a specific focus on the NT.

Other speakers included a speaker from the National Library, school librarians and colleagues from CDU. There were lots of smiling faces with the door and raffle prizes.

After this,, quite a large group then attended a National Advisory Council meeting at the Darwin Sailing Club.

The ALIA TopEnd Symposium Day 1

2007-10-06T01:46:00.000-07:00

A great networking opportunity for local library staff as well as some interstate speakers held for the first time at Darwin's Sky City Casino.

After a Welcome to Country from Larrakia Nation Elder - Alderman Dorothy Fox,
The Honourable Austin Asche AC QC gave a witty opening speech.

This theme of this year's symposium, "e-volving education",
focused on the changing ways in which the library and information
industry promotes learning and the evolution of how the library
industry maintains its own "education" in ensuring that
its professionals stay on top of information trends.

ALIA meets at Mindil Beach

2007-10-05T06:13:00.000-07:00

Library staff gathered at Mindil Beach Market prior to the Symposium

Nice way of doing things

2007-09-27T16:21:00.000-07:00

My former colleague Susan Brunner from TAFESA and the man in her life, school teacher, Trevor Jones created this:

Strange little library movie...

2007-08-20T23:43:00.000-07:00

Saw this on another blog at http://robin-news.blogspot.com

More photographs , these from Jayshree

2007-07-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

ALIA Top End Garden Party July 2007

2007-07-25T16:31:00.000-07:00

A pleasant evening at the ALIA Top End Garden Party which was held in the Chinese Gardens at Charles Darwin University with a really good attendance from the library and information sector of Darwin. Great networking opportunity and nice nibbles and drinks as the sun set.

Old contacts

2007-02-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

It was nice to catch up with lost contacts. I saw Jenny Paradisio, formally of TTG Library and West Torrens Library now working with Ex Libris

Jenny and Kate from UNISA got tangled with a very good magician.

Information Online Dinner

2007-02-02T20:31:00.000-08:00

The Information Online dinner.
This was good as I spent my evening with Darwin colleagues.
This is Jayshree with Ruby who works at RDH Medical library

Di Sinclair,Ruby with Ann Ritchie
MaryAnne, Sue Chilman, and Anne Wilson

Maryanne and Ruby

Quiet conversation

Information Online

2007-02-02T20:30:00.001-08:00

The Information Online conference is underway. I attended a great dinner last night at Cockle Bay, "Coast", sponsored by EBSCO. This morning I have caught up with many old friends and colleagues from Darwin and Adelaide as well as some of the company representatives that I know. I have organised some trials of new databases for the TAFE that I hope will be useful for all.

This is Richard Sayers from Caval with Gillian Hallam from QUT.

Jayshree with a Fijian colleague.

Sarah managed to capture the Blogger at work

2007-02-02T20:23:00.000-08:00

After the Information Online Conference I stayed on for the NSW TAFE Library Conference which was held parallel with a health sector conference so I met other librarians i knew from Adelaide as well, eg Philip Keane, from RAH/IMVSwith Lindsay from NWHS.

Gillian Hallam, here with Marie the NSW DG of TAFE and Lucy Hill from NSW TAFE.

Times Past or have you washed your books today?

2006-11-07T00:03:00.000-08:00

In cleaning up my office I came across something I have had for a number of years. Its a Western novel, a genre I have never read. Why I bought it is because its got a bookplate from the "Hygienic Lending Library" in St. Peters, Adelaide. It was last borrowed in 1948 (I hope its not overdue!!) I have always assumed that hygienic libraries came about because of such concerns as tuberculosis etc.

I did a bit of research and found this article in the Medical Journal of Australia from 2001
"Books as carriers of disease In the early years of bacteriology, librarians, microbiologists and public health physicians were much exercised by the question of whether books could transmit infectious diseases."which pointed me back to an evidenced-based review that appeared in 1912 in the Bulletin of the Medical Library Association
THE DISINFECTION OF BOOKS

Our planning day at Palmerston

2006-10-09T22:44:00.000-07:00

We had a productive planning day at our Palmerston campus.
Sonia joined us via videoconference from our Alice Springs campus.

Anne Wilson was a good facilitator for the team.

We made some interesting suggestions to work on for the next 12 months.

Anastasia is a real Angel!

2006-09-28T16:33:00.000-07:00

Have you seen our celebrity colleague? Anastasia Govan appears as one the three Charlies Angels in the Screen Goddess of IT Calendar.

Ps contact her if you want one she has some for sale
Click this link for a preview

A visit to the ABC and Trailer Boat Club

2006-09-28T00:03:00.000-07:00

The ALIA TopEnd group had the opportunity to visit the ABC studios in Darwin and meet the Archive and library staff.

We later adjourned to the Darwin Trailer Boat Club (along side the Darwin Sailing Club) to have drinks to mark the retirement of Ann Alderslade from the Department of Health Libraries.

Libraries and Wikis

2006-09-26T01:19:00.000-07:00

I have been asked to speak at our Alice campus soon on wikis , time to find out more about them. This link from the USA is helpful! It's a presentation by Meridith Frakas at the ALA Conference

Also seaching the EDnA website gives some good results as well

library video

2006-09-23T17:23:00.000-07:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrtYdFV_Eak

Blogged with Flock

The Information Literacy Land of Confusion

2006-09-20T05:54:00.000-07:00

Michael Lorenzens blog has good articles on Infomation Literacy topics

The Information Literacy Land of Confusion

Busy Friday......

2006-08-19T00:24:00.000-07:00

The day started early at 8:ooam with ALIA seminar Liber80n on the future of library education in Australia, with many guest speakers, including Stuart Ferguson from Charles Sturt University, Wagga Wagga and Gillian Hallam from QUT as well as locals.

.

My day was busy with telephone conference to Queensland for an hour and a half, then a 2 hour meeting for the Bachelor of Nursing Advisory Group. I needed the drinks at the Darwin Sailing Club in the evening with some of the speakers!

An informative talk at the Northern Territory Library

2006-08-12T20:35:00.000-07:00

I attended an informative talk at the Northern Territory Library by author, researcher, Pauleen Cass on Researching your Family History. She focuses on the social context of genealogy which brings a lot of colour to ones family tree.
Here is Pauleen with Robin Hempel, Reference Librarian at NTL.

Google Scholar and the handwringers

2006-07-26T02:25:00.000-07:00

Something that has influenced my work a lot this year has been that of Martin Kesselman,and Sarah Watstein, in their article
”Google Scholar and Libraries:point/counterpoint” which can be be found in Reference Services Review Volume 33 Number 4 2005 pp 380-387
They argue that there are two current camps amongst librarians when considering Google Scholar:

Point: handwringers
Handwringers worry that Google Scholar will drive our users away from libraries.

They worry that students will gravitate to Google Scholar due to its name recognition and ease of use.

They worry that Google Scholar will become their sole source of research information and that students will bypass libraries and librarians altogether

They worry that suddenly their library's tremendous investment in online databases is at risk.
They worry that students will neglect the important subject databases with value-added thesauri and subject indexing, complex search and limiting capabilities, likely broader scope of materials in terms of publication time frame and numbers of materials indexed.

They worry about Google Scholar's impact on service, collections, and everything in between – not to mention reaching library-purchased material.
They worry about costs and advertising.

They worry about worrying.

Counterpoint: the carpe diem “camp”

While some see the introduction of Google Scholar as a source of frustration, others seize upon it as an opportunity.

Indeed, there are those who believe that Google Scholar presents unique educational opportunities for academic libraries, opportunities to reaffirm our role in the educational enterprise, and opportunities to underscore our role in the creation of an access culture on campus.

There are those, too, who believe that Google Scholar presents unique advocacy and marketing opportunities, and by so doing, exposes our valuable resources to our users and promises to make usability more effective.
Besides, Google Scholar has opened up invisible content to web searchers and our users, so, why be nervous?

Those that have seized the opportunity believe that, yes, there is room for both Google Scholar and traditional library databases; the “buzz” in these quarters is how best to embrace or otherwise integrate Google Scholar into our repertoire of collections and services.
The carpe diem “camp” is convinced that Google Scholar provides a range of opportunities for librarians at the front lines and behind the scenes – at the reference desk, in the classroom, and in our web space. In short, here is a great marketing opportunity for libraries.

I have been arguing that we should introduce the topic in our information literacy sessions, recognising that many of our users may be using GS anyway and suggesting it as a launch pad for our commercial databases and our own federated search interface CrossSearcher. With links now to Libraries Australia, and the ability to download to EndNote, its becoming more of useful resource.

ANZIIL

2006-07-17T17:02:00.000-07:00

I was lucky to have the opportunity to attend the Australian and New Zealand Institute for Information Literacy 6th Symposium, held in Brisbane. I stayed on the 24th floor of the Oaks, North Quay. The view was good!

I walked each day down to the other end of this river to South Bank Institute.
Mere coincidence that on the Friday morning at dawn there was a hot air balloon over South Bank!!

There were over 80 attendees from Australia and New Zealand, from TAFE and higher education, from school and law and other special libraries. I caught up with old acquaintances like James Duncan from Victoria University, Wellington,New Zealand and Bronte Cerny from the University of South Australia

Helen Reynold from The SouthPort School wowed us all with her enthusiasm for information literacy in an all boys school.She is here with Judith Peacock

Debbie Orr, fresh from the Lifelong Learning Conference with Cecily Martina, who broke her wrist the previous week whilst getting this event organised!

Bev Hodges, from Bay of Plenty was as passionate about her area of New Zealand as she was speaking about information literacy

Time was allowed for plenty of formal and informal networking, this was one of the workshops.

Sheila Webber, from Sheffield and Bill Johnston from Strathclyde, two UK authorities on Information Literacy were keynote speakers.Sheila's blog information-literacy.blogspot.com
is a very useful resource

Brisbane is a great city,some good walks and fine dining.
These are some shots at sunset

Library Week 2006

2006-05-25T16:34:00.000-07:00

I was busy with Australian Library Week as I judged a photo competion, went to the Library Technicians Dinner. This was at Karawa, the CDU training restaurant,you can see why I enjoyed the meal!.(Great food and prices)

then the next night a tour of the new Palmerston library
and a panel session all of which I was asked to be the
official photographer for and then today a morning tea
where I announced the winner of the photo competition.
This is a photo from last nights panel and tour.
It's myself with Elizabeth from our Library Studies Unit,
and Leigh from my team.

2006-04-17T18:13:00.000-07:00

Dave, (my son) and I visited a couple of universities whilst we were in Singapore around Easter, Nanyang Technological University and also the National University of Singapore.
This is just one of the libraries at NUS where I gave a talk to the Library Association of Singapore on Google Scholar.

They have a chill out or "Perk Point" area with food and drinks available as well as zones where mobile phone users can duck into!

This seat is tucked into the stacks and I liked the quote, I guess that's what librarianship is all about!

Evidenced Based Librarianship and ALIA TopEnd

2005-10-13T21:35:00.000-07:00

I was involved in organsing the ALIA TopEnd Symposium and also attended a dinner and a workshop on Evidenced Based Librarianship with British authority Andew Booth. This is Andrew enjoying himself at the workshop. It was a great professional development opportunity.

I asked Valmai Hankel, wine writer and former Rare Book Librarian to speak at the ALIA TopEnd dinner. It was a great event and she was a delightfull success.

Di Thompson a long time Adelaide library colleague came to the conference as the keynote speaker. She was well received. Here she is with my new team member Pauline Ferguson at the Darwin Sailing Club.

I had to arrange to get Powerpoint presentations for the TopEnd event and load them, fun!

Jose Mendes

2005-09-23T21:34:00.000-07:00

Jose Mendes has spent the last month living with me and undertaking training here at Charles Darwin University, He is from the Library at the Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosae (UNTL) (National University of East Timor.)
See this site for more information about his university and library.
http://www.untl.labor.net.au
Their library need lots of help....
Universidade Nacional Timor Lorosae

This was on a visit to the Northern Territory Library.
With myself, Robin Hempel, Reference Librarian, Northern Territory Library and Faridah Antwertinger from CDU Library

Jose has a farewell lunch at which he was formally presented with a laptop computer for the library. We enjoyed a good lunch and some speeches.

We thanked each other, I have learnt a lot about East Timor and now want to visit one day.

ALIA Top End garden party

2005-08-01T21:32:00.000-07:00

This was at the ALIA Top End garden party in the Chinese Gardens at the Casuarina campus of the Charles Darwin University.

A new role in Health Librarianship

2005-05-20T05:47:00.000-07:00

I have taken on a new role in addition to that of Liaison and Information Literacy Coordinator.
I now have responsibility to liaise with:
School of Health Sciences
School of Social and Policy Research
Menzies School of Health Research
Centre for Remote Health
Cooperative Research Centre for Aboriginal Health

I have long had an interest in the health sector and I am currently building web pages to support our nursing courses.

2004-12-14T19:30:00.000-08:00

One of the best Information Literacy related blogs created by librarian Michael Lorenzen who discusses library user education, library instruction, librarianship, information literacy, and search engines. Also covers other observations on life in general.
The Information Literacy Land of Confusion

A good comment on blogs and Information literacy

2004-12-14T17:58:00.000-08:00

Weblogg-ed

2004-12-14T17:45:00.000-08:00

A very useful blog from Sheila Webber in the UK.Sheila has visited Australia, and her Weblog has a lot of international comment and good links.
Information Literacy Weblog

Talking of Wiki's how about a Kiwi Wiki ?

2004-11-02T15:09:00.000-08:00

My NZ friend Richard Elliott sent this link only this morning!
"Alan Levine from the Maricopa Community Colleges Group in Phoenix
Arizona is currently a visiting educator at Unitec.

Alan has covered Wikis (how about a kiwiki?) e-portfolios ,
learning objects, the web as a learning tool and hybrid courses so far.
The site will grow as the workshops are completed."

So, go to:
Kiwi Wiki

Content, Not Containers

2004-11-01T22:51:00.000-08:00

My colleague here at Charles Darwin University, Anthony mentioned this report from OCLC, 2004 Information Trends: Content, Not Containers.
Content,Not Containers

Amongst other things its discussing the'growing phenomenon of content being created, published and shared outside the traditional structure of the library.' It contains a very useful glossary. I now know what a 'wiki" is!!!!
Take a look at the report

Another new title

2004-10-25T16:37:00.000-07:00

This is a new title, Journal of eLiteracy (JeLit). JeLit is an online open-access peer reviewed journal focusing on eLiteracy and related issues. Volume 1, issue 1 can be accessed at
Journal of eLiteracy

Just in another e-zine

2004-10-25T02:53:00.000-07:00

Check it out. I have not had a long look at it, but see what you think.
EX LIBRIS

Some great e-journals

2004-10-24T20:07:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of e-journals I recommend
"firstmonday
"D-Lib Magazine"
"Ariadne"

This is where I work

2004-10-23T23:38:00.000-07:00

This is a photo looking at the library building at the Casuarina campus of the Charles Darwin University where I work in the Northern Territory, Australia

This is my professional interests blog.

2004-10-23T23:30:00.000-07:00

For a more personal "blog" go to topend.blogspot.com

Here I hope to point to things I like, sites and sights I have seen and perhaps the odd sigh, from things I have seen or wished I was seeing!