Staff Development Day today. Supposed to be an 'away' day but it turned into away to the new teaching rooms in the part of the new extension that doesn't belong to the library. Not bad but another time it would be great to go further afield.

We'd filled in various self-assessment sheets before the day so the two guys leading the session could report back to us on our Belbin profiles - interestingly I came out much as I had the first time round a few months back even though I tried to answer the questions in a slightly different way. Of course, I'm still as 'planty' as ever
http://www.belbin.com/downloads/Belbin_Team_Role_Summary_Descriptions.pdf
but when we were lined up according to our preferences was surprised to find that almost everyone one else was at the other end of the room from me (I didn't actually have to go and stand in the corridor for that axis as some suggested!). Still, apparently you don't want too many plants as they're liable to wind other people up. Perhaps less surprisingly almost all of us showed a strong team-worker preference. Well, that's librarians for you. Generally.

Meanwhile it was one of those days full of 'activities'. All of which were interesting, some of which were harder. (Write 6 statements beginning "I am..." that would be helpful for your team to know. And then share them with everyone.) Even the curmudgeonly recalcitrant couple who didn't want to play joined in which I was impressed with.

I got to be planty in the very first team exercise when we were split into three groups (each of the library's three floor teams) and given an exercise to do for half an hour. I'd listened carefully to the instructions and when I realized that we could 'solve' it much quicker with the three teams working as one suggested this to our team leader. She wasn't very convinced but we established from the leaders that no, they'd not said we couldn't do that in the 'rules'. So I persuaded her (the ultimate 'completer finisher') to at least try asking the other teams. But they all wanted to be competitive and 'win'. (I wanted to 'win' just as keenly but saw winning as either breaking out of the assumed rules or doing it quicker than other groups the leaders might have encountered). Of course, the leaders picked up on this at the end and wanted to know why we'd not worked together and then got an excellent teaching point when they asked what we might have done in a real life situation. Lights went on my head when they said that.

One long standing colleague ventured the opinion that of course in real life we'd have worked much more as a united effort across the three teams and it was only in this artificial situation that we'd been competitive. I nearly spluttered. That has not been my experience and before I thought about the fall out ventured to say so. I'm not sure it went down very well.

But at a break H came and found me and thanked me for speaking up because it had been her experience as well. General lack of enthusiasm for new ideas, or a feeling they'd be too difficult, or a decision to pass them up to management where they get lost, or else a decision to adopt the idea from one floor team that's not taken up by the others. Ah well.

I might have got negative points for speaking up in the morning, but redeemed myself in the afternoon when we were doing another half hour exercise to fit jigsaw pieces together. Very early on I clicked what the 'edge' pieces were and as I passed on the information suddenly saw how we could solve the puzzle and just sort of 'took charge' of doing so as there wasn't really time to discuss it. We just managed to solve the problem in the alloted time which pleased everyone no end and gave us a high to finish the day on. Phew.

Two center trip to a film institute library and the attached (but housed in a separate location) film archive today. 8 of us went in two cars.

Couple of hours each way was a bit daunting. But my car companions and the visits themselves were actually great fun and well worth doing as both a social thing and in gaining a better understanding of the facilitites that are available there. We have film students and it's good to know.

Highlights of the day for me were seeing a nifty Lektriver system for storing loads of periodicals in a small space (sad librarian that I am) and being allowed 20 whole minutes at some outdoor secondhand book tables that my family always drag me past when we're in the city without even stopping.

Definitely on displacement activity today as I try to get inspired about writing my article. I really must get on with it.

Our internet connection failed for much of the day which has left a curious sensation of being unplugged.

Had a funny day visiting SL yesterday.

Usual hassle of having to download the latest update. I see voice communication has arrived but I think I prefer typing.

I then spent most of lunchtime chatting with a professor from a college in Florida. I'd been thanking him for returning my 'lost' motorbike when we fell to talking about weather, second life, languages, students and so forth. One of my best encounters there - hey and just for a change not library related! (Nor purely social or somewhat dubious!) After half an hour of instant messaging he offered to teleport me to where he was and we both sat on mats meditating. I liked his 'Sophocles' look - dressed in what appeared to be a white bed sheet.

Then spent some time trying to sort out my inventory and the like which is a bit tedious.

And *then* made an effort to discover where I can get on my bike (or the rocket pack I seem to have acquired). Not everywhere allows you to get it out of your inventory. But it's further confused by the fact that once you're riding it you seem to be able to take it places you couldn't remove it. Or am I just really confused about the whole issue?

The sad thing was that with all the riding and flying (and I didn't do a lot), or maybe it was just tiredness, I got very motion sick. Worse than I've ever had it before. Such that I very nearly was ill and even last thing at night I still felt it a bit. Settled down by breakfast though fortunately.

I'm not entirely sure what use I will make of this, but I thought it was interesting and, I think, largely unknown.

If you use Google's image search as normal and then add "&imgtype=face" (without the quotes) to the end of the URL for the results page, and press , you'll just get images with faces in. Try 'libarians' (scary) or, say, 'astronauts'.

You can also add &imgtype=news to get images associated with news items.

Have a good weekend!

I know I don't often post URLs in this blog, but posting these yesterday round library staff made me think that perhaps there was a wider audience for those who've not already seen them. Both are links to videos, both are videos I've got a lot out of. One I've known for some time. One I'd not seen till yesterday.

The first is Epic 2015 and definitely worth 9 minutes of your time. It's a look to the future and what might happen with technology and the internet. You may have come across its 'Googlezon' idea before. Very imaginative and well done.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-auoYsPJ014

And on a completely different note, if you're overwhelmed by email, the other video is a 'Tech Talk' given to Google employees by Merlin Mann (of 43 Folders http://www.43folders.com/ fame):
http://lifehacker.com/software/email/merlin-mann-presents-inbox-zero-282544.php
It's just short of an hour, but only 30 minutes of presentation (well worth it) and then half an hour of questions (maybe less valuable, but some good tips and quite amusing). Very motivating.

If you really can't spare the time, CW - a librarian in Australia - summarizes:
http://blog.flexnib.com/2007/07/31/back-from-the-brink/

I'm off to have a go at implementing that today. Now.

Also today, it's the beginning of my term as a team leader (something I share with the science librarian). We switch every two years.

Again not sure about the whole process particularly as it's all about to change as I think I've mentioned. But it was interesting and perhaps useful to run across this today:

http://blog.flexnib.com/2007/07/27/why-would-anyone-want-to-be-led-by-you/

which I should probably pin up somewhere.

Appraisal this morning.

Never quite sure about these things and they were a bit of a mixed bag at TheOldPlace.

Still, they seem to take them quite seriously here so it will be interesting to see what comes of it. I'm never absolutely I'm not far too candid in the things, which of course my new boss is kind of new to.

Well, they can't get rid of me now! (Well, not so easily).

Just received notice that my probationary year has been signed off. Apparently I'm 'satisfactory'.

I did say to my boss that if I was only 'satisfactory' that I was happy to leave now, but she pointed out I could only be 'satisfactory' or 'bad' - so be happy!

I think I will.