Two days off this week (Mon and Wed). Conference Tuesday. That just leaves today and tomorrow to clear up.

I had been going to come in on Mon and Tue of next week but have decided to take leave instead and spend a little more time with my foreign relations.

So what was the 'bird of the day' thing I mentioned yesterday?

Well a colleague, R, was appalled at my lack of knowledge of birds when we went for our team Christmas meal the other day. She's taken it upon herself to email me a photo each day which I have to identify (I've got a little pocket book to help) and provide one interesting fact for. I managed to get the first one right more by luck than judgement, since then I can only say my results have been 'patchy'. Still, I am learning something - I just hope I can put it to use before I forget it. I just don't 'see' enough birds.

And with that, this blog is closing down until the New Year and January 5th when I'm back at work again. (This holiday contains the most days the university closes down for for several years - 8 days!) Unless of course, I'm inspired to logon over the Christmas break! :-)

The university annual learning and teaching conference today.

(The one I submitted a paper for I may have mentioned but they had too many contributions to include everything - and I was a day after the deadline thanks to illness etc).

The opening panel session where students were grilled for 45 minutes was interesting. But possibly not in the way intended. I felt for the students who got some pretty convulted and poorly expressed questions from the 200+ academics (and others) in attendance. On the other hand, they gave some pretty unclear answers as well. (Never mind revealing that none of them knew what the word 'values' meant).

In retrospect, were it my show I'd have appointed a properly neutral 'moderator' to field the questions and support the students. And I've have considered having either prepared questions or questions submitted during the session (on paper) or via phone text or twitter or some such and then 'vetted' for clarity before being passed onto the chair.

Then two sessions to attend - but with 6 options to choose from both times it was a nightmare of wanting to go to everything and feeling you'd not made the best choice after the session. Each session consisted of two papers/presenters or whatever. Both times I felt that I'd got much more out of the one I got be virtue of having chosen the session for the other option! But all four items I caught were interesting in their own way.

The highlight for me though was the keynote speech after lunch from an external speaker who'd traveled some way to be with us. He talked about 'troublesome knowledge' and the conceptual breakthroughs that students need to make to achieve understanding. Knowledge you can't 'return from'. (And having explained to my boss why I found having a laptop to take notes and with live internet useful during such sessions - rather than just taking pen and paper notes - it was fun to do as I'd suggested and find his PowerPoint slides from a previous iteration of the presentation on the web - meant I could annotate them directly and bypass the whole dead tree part of the process.) (Perhaps she finally got the larger point that my office isn't big enough to cope with even a tiny amount of paper!)

I probably should have gone home after the conference finished, but it seemed a fractionally early and besides I was looking forward to my 'bird of the day' so went back to the office to get some clearing up done.

Of the academics who is appointed to liaise with me for his department had his leaving 'do' this afternoon. I trundled over to the admin office where it was to be held only to arrive just as the fire alarms were being set off by one of the admin ladies making toast. Cue the whole building (staff, students, the works) out into the carpark in the rain.

I was moving outside along with three of the admin staff I vaguely knew. (Well one's a friend of my sister and recognized me from drinks, the other two have seen me about, but the office is so big and I'm never introduced to these ladies so I was right on the edge of recognizing them at all.) Anyway, thanks to the rain one of them suggests we sit her car which is welcome.

One of them was concerned for my reputation if was seen getting into a car with three attractive young ladies, which was sweet. I did point out when the dancing to the music on the radio started that such jiggling of the car and the windows steaming up weren't going to help the rumors!

Back at the leaving do, the good Doctor was sent on his way in fine style. A 'This is your life style' presentation from the department head I find the most approachable and would perhaps get on with best were to meet socially. I also discovered that the academic in question was four years younger than myself which was very scary given how much he felt very much my 'elder' and 'better'. His deep African voice will be much missed.

This morning we had one of our special training sessions that wasn't so much work related. It was a food themed one for Christmas with war (and post-war) rationing as the theme. It was quite surprising to learn how widespread rationing had been across the States and for how long. The assistant who put together the US government statistics also found some great photos.

But the food was good too. 'Mock apricot' cake (made from carrots and surprisingly like apricot if you had a good imagination), 'Mock crab' - a paste made from cheese and tomato and egg, a satsuma even.

You see this is why I hate this kind of stuff.

It's why I have so many doubts I should even be doing this job - certainly in no hurry to have more of it (i.e. via promotion).

I managed to seriously mislay very important paperwork that I was taking extra special care of. It's the notes I made in D's appraisal and I took it home at the weekend knowing Friday and Monday would be too hectic to write them up. I brought them back into work on Monday but was then in a team meeting all morning and off in the afternoon sorting out daughter and dentists.

Came to work on Tuesday fully intending to write up the notes with the bit of time I had free. But couldn't find them. Must have left them at home where I'd put them to be 'safe'.

That evening, yes, you've guessed it, can't find them anywhere. And spent some considerable time looking. Phone work at 9pm and asked the security folk to check a drawer where I thought they were (for safety again) but they reported no luck. Nearly drove round at 11pm (40 mile round trip) to check myself as I couldn't face getting to work next morning and not finding them.

Sanity/tiredness/depression prevailed and I did actually go to bed and attempted to sleep.

But you can guess what I was doing as soon as I arrived at work. Very stressed, really cross with myself, pain across my chest - the whole works. How on earth was I going to be able to go to D and say I've lost these 3 or 4 pages of notes which would be exceedingly hard to recreate after the fact. Wondering if I could do it at all without telling her. (I don't think I could have done - either physically or morally).

In fact, I managed to track them down in just five minutes in a really 'safe' place that I must have missed on Tuesday. The upside was that I was so relieved, the actual job of turning them into a proper document positively breezed past and by lunchtime they were ready for a proof read and handing over for signing.

Phew.

Thank goodness the team leadership reverts to S for his two years in the summer. Means I've got three years or so before I have to do that again. So now I'm not a fan of appraisals from either end.

Herding cats this morning.

It's one of our mega team meetings when we get the part time staff in and thrash through various issues. This time a plan for the coming year. (My appraisal required it).

Not quite three hours but we did spend the time usefully which was one of my fears.

PM off to deal with daughter and teeth.

Today's 'trial' is presenting a workshop over in a nearby center of excellence on teaching and learning in virtual worlds. Mainly one of the computing academics is leading the session (the other two can't make it) and I'm there in a support role really to tell stories of life in SL and to login and be a 'presence' with my laptop.

We had hoped to have a couple of people to chat too. But they couldn't make it. Rather than talk to myself as a demonstration, I happened to find that one of my old Second Life tutors was online and she graciously agreed to drop in for 10 minutes and tell us what she did in SL. Gorgeous jewellery and all (which I think I commented on when I was doing the online course).

Sesssion went well with some 20 staff turning up and lots of questions. I contributed more than I thought I might and my colleague was glad I could make it. (Which is a relief as I sometimes feel a bit of a spare part with my lack of skills in SL.)

Well, the appraisal went well enough. Bit short of a couple of hours thanks to the over run of a thursday morning staff training session (who knew business databases could be so funny?).

But that was the easy part. Now I've got to write it up. No time today with the an enquiry desk, Christmas buffet lunch, students and a googling workshop. Not to mention running the AV at a Christingle service this evening.

D's appraisal in an hour or so.

Definitely apprehensive about it. Not so much because I think the time will be 'difficult' but because it's not something you can practice to be good at. And I'd hate D to feel that the process was just the tick box exercise that appraisals can sometimes feel like.

Still, once we're done there's our team Christmas lunch to look forward to. :-)

Bother! These entries appear on the website with absolutely no hassle whatsover. But I don't seem to be able to adjust the date/time which is annoying. Even if I can edit on the web page subsequently that kind of defeats the whole point.

Irritatingly there's an option (on 'Advanced Post Options') that looks as if it would let you do what I want but it's all greyed out. Presumably this is the price of 'Freeware'. Not helped by the software not having been updated this year. But it might be worth dropping the author a line as otherwise it looks like exactly what I want.

Goodness! That was easy.

I've been looking for a way of doing blog entries 'off line' as it were. It might help me post more frequently if I could use my laptop to write posts whether or not I was connected to the internet and then post them when I was connected. Would have been brilliant last week at the conference when I actually was posting regularly but only had an internet connection periodically.

A colleague (who'd seen me struggling with this at the conference last week) has sent me a handful of links, one of which caught my eye and doesn't even need installing. w.bloggar

I can't believe how easy it was to create Wednesday's post without any hassle at all. But I'm trying it on my desktop with internet - next step is to do the same on my laptop. On the bus (i.e. no internet) and see what happens. But so far so good. Now let's see if I can mess with the date stamping...

Just finished the first (of a pair) of Google workshops. Now retitled 'The Google, the Bad and the Ugly' from Good Googling. Four people turned up - which isn't bad for these but does keep me questioning whether we should bother. Still, they seemed to like my (bad) attempt at a photoshopped movie poster along with the theme tune as an introduction. And the feedback was kind enough.

That was the lunchtime edition, tomorrow's early evening edition I'm getting my assistant D to run as I've been feeling a bit under the weather all week. Or is just stress at the prospect of having to do my first appraisal (of D) tomorrow morning?

(Just a follow up from last night to say that F, the map librarian, was superb in the lead role. Well worth going to see. And in the second most embarrassing incident of the week I discovered this morning that his love interest was the catholic chaplain - completely unrecognizable in a wig!) [1]

The main event of the day, however, was a workshop on Web 2.0 that I've been preparing to lead all week. Offered to university staff, I had six turn up which wasn't bad. They seemed to enjoy it and get a lot out of it, but I could have been tighter and remembered a handout and a couple of other things. The activity I got them doing, sort of blogging on paper and then 'tagging' with post-it notes and commenting with more post-its, seemed to go well. (Except for a member of library staff who came along and got a bad case of writers' block!)


[1] And only reinforces my idea that I usually get far too sucked into a performance to think of the actors as real people. (My brother-in-law still won't let me forget not spotting "Lt Cdr Data" in the movie _Independence Day_).

Pension briefing this morning.

Nothing more likely to depress you about the future and the fears it holds. On the upside if I die today my family gets a sizeable lump sum. Cheery thought.

In the afternoon we had a presentation on what we can expect from school leavers. Which only goes to depress you in the other direction. (Irritation at your own past including teachers who clearly wouldn't meet even such standards as there are today and fears about your own children not getting the education they're capable of.)

Still, tonight the map librarian has the first performance of the amateur dramatic play he's in. And I'm looking forward to it even if I couldn't persuade anyone to come with me. But Wodehouse should be good value whatever the production is like.

It must be course committee meeting time again. I had another today which I thought started at 2pm but actually started at 1. Not to worry. Even an hour late I still caught two hours of it, so I'm really glad I *was* late - especially as the stuff that I really participate in comes later in the agenda. But I do feel it could have been more tightly chaired. Isn't that always the way? It was no different at TheOldPlace though.

One of the scary aspects of my new (can I still say that after two+ years?) job is that I have to appraise an assistant. I can't say I'm looking forward to it or feel that I know what I'm doing - even after today.

They have a course for appraisers which I have to attend and that took the morning. It was good and helpful. But only exposes my worst fears about my inadequacy at doing this kind of thing well. I'm sure the actual process won't be that bad and D is friendly enough soul that I don't think between us we'll be lost for words. But I don't want it to be the kind of thing she does because it's expected but is of no real value. I'd like to think that she feels it's valuable and worthwhile. But I doubt my ability to make it so.

Chaplaincy today had one of their semi-regular Monday events on 'researching with integrity' which was an interesting look at the moral and ethical dimensions of how researchers behave. (The speaker's main thesis was that it was something we should live and 'be' rather than a set of policy guidelines that we sign up to).

These things are quite informal (projector/laptop on a coffee table projected on the wall; sit around in a half circle with coffee available) but I was surprised that only three people as well as myself had decided to come. The fact that one of them was my Head made it a bit library heavy.

Most embarrassing moment of the week: When I arrived I noticed the keystoning on the projector was way off so we weren't looking at a rectangle but an odd trapezoid. I thought I'd fix it (as this is my job elsewhere and they know me well enough in chaplaincy that I feel quite at home there), but in sorting that the projector decided to switch itself off. Now it may not have been me - but it certainly looked like it. I'd have sorted it out, but the presenter - fairly senior - told me not to worry. Twice. I took the hint. As there were only a handful of us we could all see his laptop screen in any case. Fortunately these days they're large enough for that kind of arrangement to work. And at least we didn't have the projector hum.... but it will teach me not to mess.

Some thoughts on the conference:

- interesting seeing - in real life - a University more known for it's distance learning and virtual aspects (seemed kind of ironic given the conference theme - apparently the organizers considered doing it all in Second Life but then decided there was too much value to be gained from the networking and f2f communication that goes on in the real world. Interesting.

- felt I got to know the academics from this place that I travelled with a little bit better.

- still processing the 'aftermath' and absorbing some of what I experienced. It will take time, but there's lots to read and explore. (Not to mention taking the plunge with Twitter).

- after some hassles due to my hard drive space being full (again), I've managed to download the PowerPoint of the final keynote from RR. Great reminder of what he said and some things I can recycle, plus some inspiration on how to do presentations in the future. (He's from the same school of fill your slide with a gorgeous photo and few words that H is (my colleague who started here at the same time I did)).

- I've no idea if they have plans to run this conference again, but definitely put me on the mailing list!

Probably just had the most directly useful talk of the conference given that it was about a particularly library's implementation of themselves in Second Life.

Here are some notes from the session (very notey!):

“Get away from just recreating physical building – we wanted to do something a little more innovative”

Callimachus as a librarian in SL, who would morph regularly into different sorts of shapes/concepts whenever a student called him/her/it from wherever they were on the island

providing links directly in the environment to some search tools, but still some ambivalence as to where search fits in here, searching in here (SL) is a bit of an unknown

how do we work with publishers who put restrictive licences on work and get them to engage with the students using this content?

reuse, repurpose, students being able to say “I’ve found this really useful bit of text, video or whatever”. Thinking hard about being less transmissional and gated and more collaborative and creative.
More creative engagement with the material.


Risks encountered along the way
- initial lack of technical skills within the Library Team to implement rapid prototyping of service development
- reliance on technical implementation team and broader prioritization needs of the project
- tight deadlines and available project funds
- identification of existing suitable services for embedding with a 3D env
- working with publishers
- requirement for high spec machines to access and use SL
- balancing the need to create equitable services being delivered into parallel learning environment (VLE and SL)


Further Development
- working with publishers and suppliers to enable the creative reuse of content
- populating infrastructure
- reviewing existing licenses
- piloting the embedding of emerging HelpDesk services
- working collaboratively with students to develop more tools and services which meet their requirements
- evaluation

Q&A
“powerful ability to support social networking”
“Fun and genuine research – possibilities are endless”
Need to work closely with students
Gives library opportunity to engage in providing new types of skills and services
Fought hard not recreate library building
Need to take authentication barriers down and need to do things creatively rather than just ‘serve it up’

I'm fed up.

No, not that sort of fed up.

Full of food and thought. It's been a full couple of days (one more session of three papers left and then the wrap up from RR which I'm looking forward to as I've been a fan of his for some time now).

I think it will take me some little while to digest both the meals I've been having and the surfeit of information, thinking, research, ideas, conversations and more that I've been exposed to.

The session I attended just before lunch included 'faceted classification' of virtual worlds - enough to warm any librarian's heart, but even more interesting was information literacy guru SW who spoke about research into searching in SL and how SL information literacy compares with real world information literacy. If nothing else I had the chance to apologize to her for possibly being a bit tired and frustrated during the SL meeting of librarians which I attended (sort of) last week (too upset to blog about it).

Apparently this is my 501st post.

Yay!

And well done to all those of you who follow this. My thanks.

Utterly brilliant conference dinner.

Welcomed by a caricaturist who was great at capturing the people I watched her draw. At the risk of missing my starter (which didn't happen), I took my turn sitting for her.

At the meal itself a magician worked the tables and I have to admit I've never seen such sleight of hand. Very very skilled. And it helped that he picked on me so I could really watch him closely and yet still never see what he was up to - including stealing my watch.

So by the end of the (also excellent meal) the much anticipated after dinner speaker might almost have been an anti-climax. But TW was as fascinating as you might expect telling us about his five year imprisonment at the hands of terrorists.

Our workshop has gone well – around a dozen people attending. Some newbies and some more experienced. We divided them like that and three of us supported the newbies while one of us showed those who knew what they were doing various sites. I spent a lot of time helping complete newbie who struggled from logging on right the way through. I was also able to report on experiences such as getting motion sick and name drop the lovely building and underwater maze of TheOldPlace.

The keynote speaker C was, of course, brilliant. I’d expected that after reading his book on synthetic worlds and been looking forward to hearing him. But even better than expected with a marvellous (if speedy) tour through some of his thinking and observations, but finishing up with an uplifting look to the future and links to the spiritual value of what we’re doing. I wish we could just have him to hear all day.

Registration – went much as expected. Nice bag of ‘goodies’, conference proceedings on a 1 gig memory stick, nicely wrapped chocolate, badge with our Second Life avatar pictures on. A bit disappointing to be given a programme and find my name wasn’t on workshop – not exactly the end of the world. The programme itself was covered in images of delegate avatars; a very cute girl who of course turned out to be a presenter called Graham in real life; all of the three colleagues I was with – but somehow I’d been missed off that too! Ah well. Perhaps because my avatar is as boring as I’m in real life.
One nice thing in the bag was a handy notebook as the one thing I’ve forgotten is a notebook I can use with the Z-pen gadget the library has bought me to try out.

Attending a conferece tomorrow and Friday. Researching learning in virtual environments. Should be interesting.

Arrived at the conference safely enough. Just a ‘reception’ for the first evening before finding something to eat. But it went well and good to meet some of the delegates already – including a publisher who runs sessions in Latin in Second Life. One of the delegates was wearing some attractive pink fairy / butterfly wings. Why? It was obvious once I knew – because her avatar has wings in Second Life and that’s so much part of her character she thought she’d bring some with her. And why not. But weird seeing bits of Second Life creeping into the real world rather than vice versa.

My other blog is growing.

We now have official permission not only to do it in work time but to have 3 additional helpers - making 5 of us so it can go on if someone's sick and so on.

We met this afternoon to plan how we'd operate and it feels as though it's going to work well. But we'll see - now if only I could get help writing this blog! It's been hard to keep up these weeks while it has been so desperately busy. :-)

Very distressing morning.

Over to one of our big lecture theaters for the postponed mindmapping lecture to computing students this morning.

Five minutes before I realize the lecture that's in there doesn't look like it's wrapping up and worse yet there's no students waiting with me. I check two other large lecture theaters near me. No signs of life there. I walk across to another building and check a fourth. No luck there - and the pharmacy students I met weren't expecting mindmapping!

Eventually give up and return to the office fearing I'd made some dreadful mistake. But no - I've got the right date, time, location.

Later in the day the academic who asked me to do it emailed to say that the students were waiting elsewhere and he'd given me duff information. Ah well. It maybe the first time that's happened, but it possibly won't be the last. But I could live without it.

Concert last night was brilliant - very glad I went. Just a shame I wasn't tucked in bed till after 1 in the morning. Paying for it today.

Still, lots more students keeping me going today.

With work finished I then attended two screenings of _Hollywood Librarian_ which I'd long been looking forward to. Unlike last night's concert however, this wasn't as good as expected. It was kind of disappointing and difficult to see why. Movie clips, librarianship, a reasonably uplifting story - it should have been my cup of tea. But somehow it was very 'worthy' but not great. I watched it twice to check I hadn't missed anything - but really the highlight of the evening was going with former colleagues for a drink afterwards!

The student who was late last night did at least run me down to the ferry in his car - saved me a mile walk in the dark.

Supposed to have a mindmap lecture this morning but it's been moved to Friday.

But now I'm off for the afternoon to see a 74 year old in concert... not quite sure about how much I'm going to enjoy it. But it'll probably be better than I imagine.

Lots of student appointments today - one at 5:15pm which means staying later than I might have done otherwise. Still, every trying to be helpful I'll fit him in.

Coffee morning this morning from Dr R. I saw her last year give a talk at the chaplaincy and loved it so much persuaded our training coordinator to invite to do a repeat for the Library. And easily worth attending again.

She'd done a charity dog sled journey for five days in the Arctic and had a series of management tips she'd learned from managing her team of dogs. Beautiful photos, great stories, good tips and a 'moving' journey of her own and the others with her. Marvellous.

Working from home this afternoon - despite my fears it might be a 'distraction' with lots of things to do at home, I actually managed to get four times as much done as I would in the office thanks to there being no interruptions.

Q's funeral this afternoon.

Tremendous turnout from the Library - over 30 + some former members of staff. Standing room only in the chapel.

An odd little service but two great hyms I could sing by myself (it felt) in the back row. A moving poem that was apparently found pinned to his wall.

:-(

You may recall my irritation at having to see students in a 'workshop' last week before their lectures this week.

The first of the lectures was yesterday and went well enough.

The other two were this afternoon from 3-4 and then from 4-5. Interesting to compare them.

All computing students in their final year. One lot were doing 'study projects' and one lot doing 'engineering projects'. So the latter tend to produce more techy work. The first lot were lively and interactive and a pleasure to lecture to. The 2nd lot were the opposite. Now it could have been the time slots - who wants a lecture (particularly from the Library at 4pm on a Friday afternoon?) but they weren't *that* different. It could have been the lecture theaters. One was well lit and averagely raked; the other was dim and had a very shallow rake (so the students were a bit further away).

I keep trying to tell myself it was these environmental differences and nothing to do with the nature of the students who might do an 'engineering project'.

Had to give a talk today for an hour not to students, or even to staff, but to computing staff who work with students in the IT suites.

The topic was the new authentication system that is in use for accessing databases (and more). Unfortunately, the new one was supposed to replace the old one but due to politics both are now running in tandem and causing some problems. Not helped by the old one itself supposedly 'replacing' the previous system and actually running in tandem with that. What with those three methods, plus databases that require individual logins (yes, still, in 2008), plus the variations between on and off campus access. Plus the possibility of using a webcache to make your off campus PC appear to be on campus......

Well, you can see that the situation is anything but clear. And you can see why the staff requested the session. You may also be imagine how fun it was trying to explain all this to computing types who actually know about the 'back end stuff' which I'm pretty ignorant about.

I just want to drive from A to B. I do NOT want to stop at point C somewhere along the way and look under the hood.

Oh, and if someone could bang the heads of those responsible for the politics of the authentication schemes.... please do.

Our department for enhancing quality has a new head who thought book clubs would be a fun idea.

Not the Library style one where we meet after work, read (mostly) fiction, and have a great social time.

Nope. These are *serious* reading groups. An academic book, group limited to 6 (though you do get a free copy of the book), meet three times and then meet the author. All very worthy and potentially very dull.

But I thought I'd sign up mainly because I was interested in how it would work and comparing it with the Library book. But of the six titles on offer one of them was about internationalizing higher education, and I thought I could muster some interest in that. And if no 'academic' experience, at least had some practical experience of other countries and cultures - never mind the number of international students who walk through my door.

The reading group's first meeting was today and I was feeling very pleased I'd read half the book already. Plus started on a mind map cover the half I've read so that I could remember the different chapters as otherwise I feared it would all be instantly forgettable. It was marked in ways to show bits I enjoyed, bits I struggled with, bits that were interesting and so on.

Only three of the six of us turned up - plus the 'facilitator'. (Horrible word but at least you know what I mean). Of the four of us, two hadn't really started on the book and the other was finished.

What was particularly amusing given that I generally don't enjoy the social book group picks was that it turned out everyone else hated this one (not enough research too anecdotal), and I'd rather enjoyed it (because it was anecdotal and not too reasarchy!) But we're a bit concerned about how we're going to 'meet the author' and say anything nice. I fear it may be down to me. Just to add to my fanboy embarrassment, it turns out that the best chapter of all was the one that persuaded me to read some 'international reflections' one University produces and the author of that particularly chapter was the editor of the book who is coming to see us.

Ah well, I thought it might be interesting.

As well as book club the Library has a film club. Due to restrictions on travel home I only tend to attend when the movie is less than 90 minutes. Which means I've made one so far. But tonight's film is one I've picked - so I have to attend. Fortunately it comes at 85 minutes. Delightful foreign thing called _Once_ with Irish and Czech connections. Definitely worth staying late for.

Now I'd just better go and write an introduction.

Library is in something of a state of shock today.

A colleague who was a bit unwell last week with the cold everyone was reported on Monday to have had an unplanned operation on his bowel over the weekend. Bit worrying.

But we were all unprepared for the news this morning that he died yesterday of renal failure.

I've not had many close to me die - my grandmother when I was young and could just about appreciate it, my grandfather (on the other side) more recently after two 30 year marriages and still preaching in his 90s. And it's difficult to say I was 'close' to Q. But we had spent the last year, 18 months learning to do cryptic crosswords together in coffee breaks and lunchtimes. We had, after some time, dragged a third person into our cryptic corner. We had spent endless time puzzling over the deranged minds of the setters and treasure the more brilliant of their creations.

There's going to be a definite hole in the breaks R and I take together, and almost certainly going to be blanks in the crosswords that would be Qs clues. (Particularly the literary ones).

R & I did today's crossword 'in memoriam' and managed to finish it which we weren't expecting. Bizarrely Q's surname formed the answer to 14 down.

:-(

Delightful journey to work this morning taking over 2 hours to travel 7 miles.

The car had had a 'recall' notice served on it thanks to a faulty oil something-or-other and left on the side of the road waiting for public transport that was over 50 minutes away, I read for as long as I could before I got cold and decided that just possibly a McDonalds breakfast wouldn't be a bad idea. In fact their bacon thingy and hash brown was quite nice and certainly made a change. At least it was out of the rain.

Dull, dull, dull.

How can educationalists be so boring. And tedious. And did I mention dull?

Went today to a lunchtime lecture by a visiting speaker who's renowned (apparently) in his field and has many books to his name. He was speaking on 'informal learning' and I thought it would be quite interesting.

Now I now that the lack of sleep I had and arriving a couple of minutes late (thanks to a student enquiry) so I had to take the last remaining chair right at the front under the speaker's nose probably didn't predispose me to the very best of lecture experiences. But I wasn't the only one who thought he took a potentially interesting topic and managed to utterly kill it with total dullness, dull slides, dull presentation, dull examples (where he had them at all which was all too infrequently), and dull manner. It was a textbook example of dull and even I, who will extract *something* out of almost anything, really failed to do so today.

I shan't be seeking out his books to see if he writes better than he talks. I've already wasted enough time.

The staff association arranged a murder mystery evening with a western theme which went well despite the perhaps disappointing numbers who came. The library had a very strong presence as you'd expect accounting for about 1/4 of the 40 or so who were there.

The acting company that had been employed were excellent and we had a great time. But got nowhere near the right solution. No one did. Still, we were very pleased with our (apparently very coveted by cop groups who book them) award for the best "fit up" of an entirely innocent person. We're thinking of hanging it above the plaque of the crime writer that opened our extension 18 months back.

I believe there may be photos on Facebook if you need blackmail material...

But it's gone 1am now and I'm still too hyper to sleep.

Farewell today to one of the chaplains.

Actually, not really farewell as I seem at church as well. And besides, he's got a part time post with my faculty implementing the personal development plan stuff the students do. The University Librarian attended as well as even more senior staff, but the former complained that the chaplaincy included a very short 'service' of committal for the outgoing guy and his incoming replacement who was in attendance. What did he expect?!

Skills drop in starts again today. One visitor for the 'writing / numeracy' expert (who lends me her Poirot DVDs). Not a sign of anyone wanting to ask me a question about the library or information retrieval. Still, at least it's a change from the office and allows me to get on with other things.

Annual leave on Friday as I was on a cruise at the weekend. Just a short one. But great fun nevertheless. Brought back lots of memories of time at sea, time as a student and gave me the chance to meet some young Navy types, see one of the most fabulous 'rooms' on the planet, and also encounter Anduril (Aragorn's sword) for the second time. Terrific.

Met a potty chap today. Newish lecturer in my faculty. Of mature age shall we say.

Wanted help with replacing a textbook which covered exactly what he wanted but now had to be reproduced online. He had a grand plan for 10 'chapters' (segments) really in the virtual learning environment with 10 sub-headings in each. And amongst other things wanted advice on how much he could copy from printed books to use in his work. Oh dear.

Still, with some help from the Business Librarian (who he should probably have been talking to in the first place) we managed to provide him with books, URLs, journal material and perhaps most importantly copyright advice.

If nothing else the deluge means he'll be kept occupied for a bit... I hope.

The delights of three consecutive and identical lectures this morning. Three hours of math 1st years. Our seminar room only handles 30 at time sitting in front of PCs and they've massively over recruited this year. I have two more hours of them next week.

Still, they seemed to go well and were reasonably responsive which is good for Freshers.

Whatever happened to the customer is always right?

I month or three back and for no very apparent reason, everytime I opened Internet Explorer it would open in 'full screen' mode (i.e. with the menus and things invisible) and with a window that was small and oddly placed.

I never got to the bottom of why it started doing that and I quickly learned that F11 fixed the 'full screen' mode back to its normal state and maximising the window sorted the other issue. The snag is that I had to do that *every* time I opened up Internet Explorer. I do that dozens and dozens of times a day. It wasn't a major thing in the bigger scheme of things, but it was annoying.

Anyway, I finally had an IT guy come today in response to my request for a proper fix. Only a month or so after the initial request (I had the email as evidence). [1]

He spent some time fiddling around and determining (it seemed) that I was telling the truth. At least that's how it felt. And then told me it wasn't a bug it was just how it was. No, he couldn't put it back how it's been for a couple of years, no it wasn't an actual 'fault', it was just life. He told me this several times as though that would somehow make it better.

But it didn't.

Ah well.


[1] In actual fact he didn't come in response to the initial request. He came because I was having *another* IT issue sorted by a woman who, on hearing about my Internet Explorer hassles said it wasn't her team but would get on to the team whose problem it was. I guess she went back and kicked some...

Went to a training session/workshop on the University's anti-plagiarism software today. Along with around 20 others from the Library.

First we were briefed on the software, then we were let loose on it with the instructions to put together some text that we could upload and test for plagiarism. (We were given the topic 'criminals: born not made' as it's easy to find stuff on the web on the subject, but could have tackled anything if we wished.)

Anyway, I cobbled something together from hits that I found 100 or more hits into a Google search result and other did similar things.

Some, scored 52% of their work being identifiable as plagiarism, some the software reckoned had copied 60% or 70%. But I managed a score of 98%! I'm really NOT sure that's something to be proud of!

I'm in shock.

Long time readers may recall that this time last year I was tasked with starting a blog that would find fun/weird things from around the web and be a 'fun' side to the library that people could read or become fans of on Facebook. The blog is a year old next week and part of my appraisal was to report on the experience at our board meeting this morning.

I put together five pages of report and statistics and so on and seem to have persuaded them to let us go on for another year at least.

But the shock came in a revelation that the University Librarian made.

Through the year there's been a reasonably regular contributor with a Scottish sounding name who's only occasionally wound me up somewhat with his pernickty comments. On the whole I've just been glad that someone's been taking an interest and contributing items as well as comments. But I'm really glad my responses were polite.

Yes, you've seen it coming way before I did. It turns out that the Scot (who for some reason I'd vaguely thought came from a university there), is in fact my own bosses' boss, the Head.

Oh dear. Apparently my face was a picture when he owned up to this and several others were quite surprised/shocked/appalled as well.

I don't know if I'm disappointed our 'fan' isn't really someone "out there" whom we've engaged with; pleased that he was taking an interest; humiliated by the whole experience. It's certainly a lesson learned and I hope it doesn't put me off bothering with the thing...

Freshers' Fayre yesterday and today.

This year the theme has been 'the body in the Library' with a 'murder' that's been committed. Perhaps inspired by the crime writer who opened our new extension at the beginning of last year. Answer five questions and you'll find the murderer (one of the Faculty Librarians - could it be me?!), the weapon, the motive and so on. More importantly you'll familiarise yourself with certain parts of the Library (e.g. the catalog, the enquiry desk and so on).

We chose not to have a stall in the marquee this year as the rates that are charged have nearly doubled to $1000. Instead, we've set ourselves up on a thoroughfare just across from the tents and right outside the Library. The 'design' of the stall/game has been brilliant. It looks like the board game Clue/Cluedo and I've even been turned into a suspect card which is fun.

To catch people's eye and their attention as we walked past I was persuaded to lie on the concrete while they chalked around my body. We'd borrowed some cones and got some police crime scene tape and the whole effect worked really well. So much so that some students who perhaps didn't 'get' our sense of humor really did think there'd been a murder. Oh dear.

Anyway, entries are already waaaaay up on previous years and hopefully it's engaging people with the Library in a way that's fun.

Students back yesterday - and of course loads of induction and training to do. In the Library, over in the Faculty, in my office as one-to-one sessions. Going to be a busy few days. But kind of fun and, umm, invigorating in an exhausting sort of way.

Well, that's it for the summer. New students next week, rest of 'em the week after. What's not done now probably isn't going to get done.

Good meeting today planning a report I've been tasked to write on the blog we started a year ago. Still going strong now. 236 posts, 13,242 views and 203 Facebook fans in its incarnation over there. Bother... that probably means I won't be allowed to give it up. :-)

I'd forgotten that today sees one of the most fun events of the year.

The International Fair where our students from foreign countries get a special welcome, briefings and, in breaks, an opportunity to visit various stalls such as banks touting for account custom, the Student Union, and of course the Library.

We go and give out leaflets and floor plans and show them the web site and generally enthuse about the Library. I probably wrote about this last year, but best bit for me is finally having a use for all those odd words and phrases I know from around the world (plus memories of visiting some 40 odd countries). Great fun trotting out 'Good day' in Bulgarian, my name in Chinese characters, "My German is clumsy, clumsy and clumsy" (but with three 'clumsy' words) in German and the Nigerian national anthem with a guy who was game enough to join in but somewhat bemused in retrospect.

Of course, I was really holding out for a Czech as I've newly acquired an impossible tongue twister (and a few other words and phrases in the language). And just after lunch a Czech computing student came past, then a little later a Czech engineering student. The latter tried to convince me that the 'impossible' letter of their alphabet was easy. But both were impressed with the tongue twister - or perhaps just thought it lunacy that that's what anyone would choose to learn.

Our 'roving' briefing today. From next week we'll be taking hour slots to 'rove' around selected parts of the Library (e.g. the atrium) to welcome/direct/help new students (and old ones who are clueless).

This year instead of shared t-shirts we've all been given our natty polo shirt. Well, as natty as such things are. I had to fight over an XL with a diminutive colleague who wanted it...

An internal conference today for the heads of departments and course leaders (plus others). (I'm most certainly an 'other').

Usual curious mix of things. One excellent presentation from someone with college and school experience explaining why students are so ill equipped for university. (Which then had a curious echo from someone presenting on very similar lines in the afternoon - but much more tediously. Which was a shame given she represented the government deparment involved!)

Highlight of the day though was sitting next to an academic who was taking notes in a notebook which appeared to have a big 'clip' at the top. Turns out he's using a special pen that interfaces with the 'clip' (ultrasound he said) and the two in tandem record all his writing and sketches or whatever. The clip then plugs into the USB port of a laptop (in his case the very natty and tiny Asus) and uploads his notes for storage or converting via OCR.

I had a go at the latter thinking - particularly with my handwriting - it would be poor. In fact it wasn't - and I wasn't even making an effort to write neatly and hadn't trained the system.

I was most impressed. A Zpen from DaneTech if you want one. Amazon had a pretty good price of just $120 which is ..... ALMOST ... tempting. If only I could convince myself it wasn't a toy!

Awake far too early this morning thinking about things I've not got done this week (this blog being one of them). I must take some things home to do over the weekend. I'm not used to doing that more than very very irregularly, but I'm beginning to think I may have to start.

Finally dared to look at the draft version of my boss's write up of last Friday's appraisal. It was a fair summary and perhaps not as bad in print after the event as the hours themselves.

The comment on Friday's post ("Sounds like it was a badly conducted appraisal if it made you feel de-motivated." in case you missed it), is fair.

But there is a bit of me that wonders.

IF we imagine for a moment that I'm doing a really terrible job, or I'm not up to scratch, then surely the appraisal process isn't supposed to mollycoddle me but get me to pull my socks up. Perhaps the disjuncture was because I wasn't expecting that and was shocked to see myself through my bosses eyes for a moment and felt I'd let her down.

The lull before storm.
I sat at our new "electronic help desk" phone enquiry service for an hour today. We anticipate in the coming weeks lots of problems with and enquiries about the changes in logins to dozens and dozens of databases that has been forced upon us. I'm sure we won't be the only university struggling with this but I have a feeling our own IT guys have not made the situation easier.

But today - still a couple of weeks before the students return en masse, I escaped without a single call.

Gave me a chance to read a journal article about a plagiarism study which had surveyed students on the issue. Apparently one of them had copied the free text responses of a friend...

Off today as well - and slept till lunchtime!

But a good moment to say many thanks to R who organized yesterday's trip. It's been a year of planning and organization and excitement and much of its success was not so much down to 'luck' as to R creating her own fortune as it were. Well done and thank you.

No (work-related) post today due to a theater trip to see a couple of stars in Hamlet. Quite brilliant. Despite the 300 mile round trip I did half the driving for.

Even collected a very special autograph - the last he did of only a dozen or so at most. Amongst so many disappointed (and rabid) fans it seemed a bit churlish to bemoan not seeing the other star and the one I really wanted to sign my program!

Late now. Will sleep tomorrow.

Well, perhaps yesterday presaged what was coming.

I've never come out of an appraisal feeling I wanted to cry.

It was so disheartening and discouraging...

Apparently I should be planning more, leading more, organizing more. My document was 'thin' (though better by the end of the 2 and half hours) and I have a ton of things I now need to do - but no more time to do them. Aaaaargh!

There have been two appointments in my diary for today for some time now.
A Word 2007 training course for a couple of hours in the morning starting at 10am.
My appraisal at 2pm with at least two hours set aside for it.

Very disheartening to get to the end of the former to find my boss has been looking for me wondering why I wasn't at my appraisal at 10. I don't know. How can I get that so wrong... (I'm not even sure that I did get it wrong but can't find any evidence to show that I was told it was at 2. ). Not a good start.

Interesting day today putting together the document I supply to my boss prior to appraisal.

I started finding it quite hard to think of much under the heading 'achievements' in the past year but I was quite pleased by the end of a trawl through my diary and through my CPD folder at how much I had actually done.

I don't find all this 'reflection' and review very easy. But presumably as a 'leader' or nascent 'manager' (I feel like neither), I can't avoid it.

Day off on Friday (to church sit bizarrely enough, it's a long story) didn't help any of the work that's piled up over the vacation go away.

Worse yet it rained very heavily all day (and the next - but I won't go into that it was too horrible).

What regular readers may recall is that the non-new extension part of our library leaks like a sieve. You can often see orange buckets strategically located around various damp bits of carpet. I can't recall if I've mentioned that once after particularly heavy rain, one of the leaks manifested in my office.

I arrived at work this morning very fortunate to find that the flood across my desk had only made some 'reading' very soggy and nothing precious got damaged. Some irreplaceable stuff (including a pile of personal books I'd gathered out of the exhibition I believe I've gone about which were just waiting for a dry evening to carry home) was less than a foot away from me being very very upset this morning.

As it is I'm just wringing out the stuff I do want to read, mopping up the continuing drips onto the desk, and realizing that my goldfish bowl is perhaps a more literal description of the office than even I'd bargained on.

I *suppose* I could learn the lesson and somehow keep my desk absolutely clear like a certain senior colleague. But I doubt it.

Phone call today from a company that's fast becoming my unfavorite of the month.

Initially a rep was coming to sell us something and was a bit too brash over his demands for coffee and a parking space for my liking. But not to worry.

Now I don't often arrange reps like this and have in the past assumed that only I and closely related colleagues would be interested. And completely failed to invite academics or marginally related library colleagues and such.

This time I pulled my finger out and invited the Technology Faculty, the Science Faculty, people from acquisitions, other library staff and so on to the meeting. Well, it's a lot of money and a product that would be widely useful.

So you can imagine how thrilled I was today to hear that they've had to postpone the meeting. Not only that but could *I* call back in the afternoon to rearrange a new time? (You'd have thought they'd be keen to call me). And not only that but when I did call back was brushed off when the rep was interrupted by something and could I give him half an hour?

Well frankly no. I won't be calling back. Life's too short. I'm not even sure I'll reschedule the meeting if they bother to call. I have way too many things on my desk at the moment and this isn't top of my priorities.

And remind me next time to go back to the easy option of not bothering to invite anyone else to the meeting.

One of the things I most enjoyed on vacation was a bit of smithying.
I visited a recreation of a medieval village (and yes there was jousting sort of[1]). But there was also a smith at his forge and for a modest sum I could choose to make a hook or a bottle opener (presumably for all those medieval bottles of beer...).

I had a go at the bottle opener and although I was under strict guidance, naturally, I was surprised at the hands off nature of smith letting me get on with it. It was no surprise that it was hard work - keeping the forge hot with the hand pumped bellows, hefting the chunky hammers, trying to get the metal in the shape you wanted (to look good and be functional at opening a bottle), trying to remember what was hot and not to be touched...

But the satisfaction of actually making something. And making something that looks remarkably good for absolutely no practice or previous experience whatsoever, was quite something.

Presumably that's why I enjoy putting together 'finished' things like library tours and hate the endless email/paperwork/reading that never seems to achieve anything.

[1] I say sort of because I've seen it before where two riders would really go at each other. Here they took in turns to tilt at wood or pick up rings or whathaveyou - which was still impressive and took a lot of skill.

It doesn't seem as if I've missed a lot while I've been away.

Same old hassles and it's easy to step back into the same rut as ever.
And while a lunch date that I'd looked forward to got cancelled, I *think* the proof-reading I've been trying to help with has finally stopped bouncing back which is a relief as today was their deadline for me to be done.

I'm back. Trust you haven't missed me.
Over 2000 miles later it's kind of nice to be back in my seat not moving - but the vacation's been generally good - the weather could have been a bit kinder. But we managed to swim every day just about. Sometimes under leaden skies in a rather too much wind.

Now I'm just swimming against the tide of work that's piled up whilst I've been away. That's not gone anywhere. Although looking on the bright side I was able to connect my laptop wirelessly four or five times - twice through the auspices of a tiny but connected public library, the other occasions via a friend's server as we visited. On the downside my laptop battery seems to have given up the ghost and until I persuade a colleague who doesn't use theirs to swap, or my boss to buy a new one, I'm power supply dependent.

Meeting today to discuss Freshers' Fayre.

Good chance to be creative even if I'm finding it a bit hard this afternoon. We're looking at a theme along the line of forensics (very popular these days) and CSI style detectiveness and so on. Despite the obvious possibilities of dressing up as one detective or another that's being ruled out this year.

We're NOT booking a place in the marquee with everyone else ($500 for a stall has made some think it's too much and we could better use the money for prizes), so we'll be by the exit to the building by the park not far from the marquees.

And we're going to be a bit more *serious* this year, apparently. And concentrate on study skills type things and how we can help rather than being a bit surreal to draw the students in. (As we won't be competing with all the other stalls giving away pizza, bottled water, or whatever). Previous years have seen us with daleks or as pirates and so on.

So it will be different. Although I may yet end up on a 'Clue' style card as Professor Plum or someone.

Anyone any good questions that can be answered using Google, but not instantly?!

Finally a quiet day when I'm NOT being, umm, distracted. Chance to catch up on the ever incoming tide of email and at least deal with the important ones. Perhaps I'll take some reading ones away with me next week. Perhaps not.

Meanwhile my language learning is not progressing very well but excitement is mounting as a group of us look forward to a theater trip next month that has been in the headlines this week. Mostly through the show being terrific and long since a complete sell out. Apparently the tickets we have are now selling on Ebay for anything up to $1400. I'm almost tempted to take the money and run... (Poor R, sitting there with all our 16 tickets at home!)

Feel astonishingly exhausted today - as though I've run into a brick wall.

I don't think it can have been solely yesterday. Or even perhaps a slightly unhealthy diet the last few days as I feed myself for a change (with the family away).

Perhaps it's just indicative of being ready for a vacation. Just four more days...

After all that angst, it seems to have gone rather well.

Over 20 people came and I'd catered just about the right amount of drink.

People were pretty complimentary and I don't think it was just politeness (or the wine!). In fact one self-admittedly cynical colleague said that he was sceptical of the whole idea and was actually surprised by it being better than he'd thought it would be.

So I guess the moral of the story is to be bold and go for it!

I have to admit to be astonishingly nervous about the whole Private View thing. I mean it's a tiny display cabinet and barely worth crossing the road for really.

But:
The VC is apparently coming.
S is coming from 20 miles away.
I feel somewhat vulnerable having 'poetry' on display like that.
I've no idea who will turn up or how much drink to buy.
I've no idea if it will all fall flat on its face.

Yesterday, the art librarian H, bemoaned the empty display cabinet she has and was wondering if my offer to put something in it still stood.

Of course!

Why not display some haiku I've written and some of the books and magazines I've collected over the last few years.

So last night I extracted all the books I could from my shelves and then was a bit sleepless thinking about how it might work.

Today I've been arranging the material in the cabinet. Thanks to S, my former colleague for her help and advice and even a title.

Then H pointed out that such 'exhibitions' often start with a private view. Easy enough to arrange and invite Library staff and a few assorted others. But to get permission to have wine required contacting the President of the University. Who said he'd only agree if he got an invite and we supplied orange juice. I can't help feeling this is all getting out of hand. But Monday lunchtime it is for a 'Private View'.

Back with the pre-entry project people today.

This time they want to link to reading lists which isn't a bad idea.

Except...

how many students before they even arrive are going to want multiple page reading lists?! Perhaps a few items of indicative reading - which the academics have already put into the pre-entry project. But not full blown reading lists when the academic has gone overboard anyway!

and then there's which reading list?
the Library collects them and puts them onto a library system
a local bookshop does the same
(fortunately we collaborate and share what we get)

Sad though it is to say, the bookshop lists look much nicer than the library computer system equivalents. Perhaps unsurprisingly so. But of course the bookshop ones prioritize buying a copy of the book and don't link through to electronic full text when we have it (though they do manage to have a small link that's you'd barely guess its purpose that links to the library catalogue entry for an item).

It just all seems a bit unjoined up as yet. Ironically the reading lists wouldn't even go in the Library part of the pre-entry project!

Hmmm, I'm not sure but I'm beginning to hear rumors that would suggest I may have upset one of my crossword colleagues. I can't think why but I can't bear rumors and tales and gossip so I'll give it a day or three and then find out what's up (or what's not up and been completely overblown).

I've been informed that a section of books up the 2nd floor - planning and garden design of all things - are my responsibility. And desperately in need of weeding (hah!).

So I'm back amongst the shelves getting my hands (and clothes) dirty once again. But clearing the shelves of a lot of dead wood.

And up on the second floor I even seem to be able to get help! Why my team is so poor at that I don't know. (My boss recommended kicking them.)

Book group meeting last night.

Our glorious leader was unfortunately unable to make it (Mum getting a new knee which is a fair enough excuse). Just a shame that it was her book choice. _Cold Mountain_ by Charles Frazier.

Now the back of the book and other places have raved about it. R, who suggested it, has loved it.

But unfortunately none of the rest of us did. It's very 'fine' writing in a literary sense but rather a bleak story all told. I'd made up my mind about 2/3 of the way through to love the scenery and the obscure words and the descriptions - and was getting on with that. But then I got to the end. And watched the film as well for added impact.

Somehow I need more cheeriness and escapism in life! Still, I mentioned it to one friend and former colleague who I had a sneaking suspicion might like it. Turned out she'd read it and I was quite right.

Back with the pre-entry project woman today explaining all the revisions we've made after their request to expand it somewhat. I learned today that that request had come because the initial launch had been so successful and our library had garnered such interest.

That's gratifying. Of course it means more work...

Marvellous day today of getting my desk/drawer/shelf cleared up. Not quite done and have unearthed some jobs to do, but did clear a fair bit of detritus and at least now I can see the extent of the problems!

I've had it agreed that tomorrow I can stay home and do as much as I can of the pile of reading I need to get through. That will make a change and probably be more productive for not being worn out with commuting for a change! I could do with a break like that. But only a couple of weeks till the vacation.

Second graduation today - the other half of my faculty.

Slightly different in that as it was the afternoon it was much warmer in the hall! Also, one of the departments is all research so they had no graduates. Just an hour instead of 90 minutes.

Sitting there does get you questioning just how much you contribute to their success. Not a lot is the answer most likely.

The sadness of today's event was one of the Heads of school making an utter mess of many of the foreign names. It seemed a shame for the students whose names were sometimes unrecognizable.

Perhaps I'm just biased having had the privilege of living in Nigeria for a year and then in Asia for a couple of years but Yoruba or Chinese names just don't hold the same mystery as they evidently did for this poor lady. Why can't they just get someone to do it who can get it right?

Much as I expected really - the ceremony - all done and dusted in 90 minutes which wasn't bad. But then there weren't any honorary degrees and so no formal speeches. Our new chancellor - the actress - did make a few remarks at the end: haven't you all done well, aren't you all beautiful, go out into the world. But that was it.

Still, it felt very grand processing in robes, sitting on the stage (I had a prime at the side, to the front, right by the table where the doctors signed a book). Great fun.

But the other lot tomorrow (cosmology, math and computing) so I hope it won't be tedious doing two in quick succession. Perhaps I can take some Swedish words to learn.

Just back from the gowning rooms where I've picked up a gown, hood and mortar board.

It's graduation this week and next and the engineers turn this morning.

I'm a bit more excited about this than I expected to be. Mainly because it's actually the first time I've done this. I've attended a couple of friend's graduations before, in the audience. This time, however, I'll be on the stage and wearing a gown with my proper colours and so on.

I've never done this before because my graduation ceremony wasn't held until November by which time I was on the other side of the world. It always irked me that they couldn't have been in July as these are as I would love to have attended.

Another 'management briefing' training day today (only did one a couple of weeks ago). It was good though - same woman as did a 'cultural awareness' day in the Library which went well. (And from whom I shameless stole an ice-breaker for the last sermon I preached because it was so appropriate.)

This one was on 'maximising team performance' and as is often the case I feel I come away with more doubts about my ability to lead a wet paper bag than I do renewed vision to maximise my team's peformance. But there were some useful tools to take away and think about. And once again I got to 'sell' De Bono's 6 thinking hats and our use of them at TheOldPlace. Can I get a commission?

Lots of weeding the last few days. It's that time of year.

This year I've picked on the civil engineering and building/architecture type stuff which looks like it's been long overlooked. (We did no weeding last year thanks to moving almost all of the stock).

It's different - having to involve the academics - but once I get into it I quite enjoy the process and it certainly improves the looks of the shelves somewhat making the stock look more attractive (and hopefully useful) to students.

It just seems a shame that books have to come to the end of their natural life. But when it's not been borrowed in ten years or more (my record was 1985 for a last stamped date), it's probably not going to be greatly missed.

It will be interesting to see what, if anything, the academics decide can't be thrown away.

Three of us have been 'volunteered' to work on the details for Freshers' Fayre this year. In place of the rather excellent organization I've observed from A in previous years. But she's busy this time round.

I can't help feeling that with the three of us in charge - none of whom are best in this kind of role - it could yet be a disaster. We'll see.

I had been looking forward to the Library summer barbeque this evening but it's cancelled thanks to the lousy weather we're having. Perhaps another evening. But I'm not holding my breath. And to think I didn't go to the *university* party last Friday because two Fridays in a row was a bit much!

Completely unrelated to work, but congratulations to my sister who gave birth today. As an older first time Mom there were some worries over it all and Elijah is currently in a neo-natal unit as his blood sugar level is low. But he weighs a little under 6lbs and I shall look forward to seeing him as soon as maybe.

Over the summer the Library tries to organize a visit or two to other libraries if possible.

Today we went to a small college about an hour away that specialises in horticulture, aquaculture, agriculture, animal husbandry and lots more. Lovely little library with around 30000 volumes and lots of natural light. Nice folk to show us around and they put on a great lunch.

The only snag was that by it's very nature a lot of the day was outdoors and the weather forecasters' predictions for the day were proved right: rain, rain and more rain. Just when you thought it was beginning to brighten it suddenly got heavier.

Still, seeing the archer fish spitting at their food and a pair of the most delightful red pandas you've ever seen (at close range) were two real highlights of the day that made it all worthwhile.

Started doing some weeding today.

I can't look at all the books over the summer, but am concentrating this time round on civil engineering which looks like it's not been done for a while. Going to start by visiting every book that's not been borrowed in ten years.

Of course, at TheOldPlace it was entirely my decision. Here I have to get the academics involved and allow them a veto which complicates the process and makes more work. It will be interesting to see if that's a positive experience and useful or just an aggravation!

Makes a change to get away from the PC though and get my hands dirty on some real live books (and their dust).

I may have mentioned on a previous occasion that we (faculty librarians, plus our boss and our assistants) get together with our opposite numbers over in the academic skills unit sometimes. Just an opportunity to liaise, swap notes, share projects and problems, make sure we're coordinating any similar things we might be working on.

Another such morning today and once again I was struck by the way that if we didn't do this, there'd be a lot of reinvention of the wheel going on. Today we were joined by an online course developer from one of the faculties and she was impressed by how much we were - jointly -already doing and how much she (and presumably her equivalents in other departments) could benefit from swapping notes.

I could see this growing...

I've visited a nearby Catholic church four times this week. They hold a mass at 12.15 every day for half an hour. This is not my normal church or even my normal denomination but I'm glad I got over any trepidation I might have felt.

I've not joined in the Eucharist. I've been forward with everyone else but keeping my arms crossed in front of me to indicate you just want a blessing rather than the bread - sorry, wafer. But in fact I spoke to one of the staff there and he took the pragmatic view that I would have done, which was that it would be fine to join in if I take it in my own church. My boss is actually the chair of their pastoral committee and she said the same thing. But I wasn't sure I wasn't doing it for the wrong reasons, so I refrained. Perhaps another time.

But it was a marvellous space for quiet and contemplation. Even though the liturgy was sometimes identical to what I'm familiar with and sometimes just a little different, it was easy to pray and listen to God (and find that he spoke there as well!). You could genuinely sense the devotion. Right in the heart of the city, in the middle of a busy day, in a week in which I really needed such a space.

Thank you to the friend who guided me through my first visit and most certainly stretched my comfort zones.

Chance today to visit the new Second Life presence of TheOldPlace.

I have to say I'm really really impressed. Very imaginative and appealing. It draws you in and gets you exploring and wanting to find more. With a 'bubble transport' system that I've not seen before, a proto-library presence, catwalks for the fashion students, nightclubs, a swan pond, helter-skelters and all sorts, it's really lovely.

And apparently more to come from the library in the shape of an underwater maze and seahorses!

My thanks to S and Z who showed me round (or should that be their avatars, E and Z?)

Spent the day in a training course on 'communication' which was very good. Possibly a bit too interactive for my liking. Indeed at one point it all got a bit intense when in trios we were taking turns at observing, mentoring and being mentored. All was fine until I was taking on the latter role and picked a management issue that I was evidently too emotionally engaged with! The other two were fine with it (and I think secretly quite pleased that they may have been able to help with the problem), but I found it quite draining.

I thought the subject overall was quite amusing given that I spent the in between bits of the day trying to resend an important email that kept bouncing back.

Farewell at lunchtime today to a friend I've not known for very long at all.
Farewell this evening to one of the chaplains who I've known for somewhat longer.

Doesn't get any easier. Indeed parting seems to become ever more of an exquisite pain as I get older. Joy at the memories, sadness at the separation. But surely life's been enriched by knowing both of these people. I can only hope they feel the same way in return rather than 'phew - glad to move on'.

Safe travelling and take care.

A few of us (including our boss) met to swap notes on the various faculty conferences or bits of conference we'd attended last week. It was pleasing to see that firstly it was indeed acceptable to spend time getting to more than just my own faculty - there were interesting points from all of them.
And secondly it was good to come up with a flipchart full of action points from the various sessions we'd really enjoyed (or not) as the case might be.

I think I'm now down to do something on the Deep Web after Wednesday's disappointment! Just remember it's supposed to be some 500 x bigger than the web (which I knew) rather than 10 x (which is what my tongue said).

First proper day in the office all week which meant there was a lot of catching up to do. Difficult to get into it though knowing it's Friday already.

Still, no team meetings of any sort today so at least there were no distractions like that.

And it was also our book group meeting tonight. Been going almost a year and tonight was the discussion on the title I selected way back when. Chinua Achebe's _Things Fall Apart_. Unfortunately, no one had enjoyed it. Even me. It was just too depressing. And it's the first book that *someone* at least hasn't liked.

Still, they were very gracious about it. I think buying the round of drinks probably helped.

So, today was the turn of the Technology Faculty Learning and Teaching day.

Good time keeping in the morning but a bit lax in the afternoon and a later finish meant the day seemed to drag on. Isn't it typical that the most boring speaker (in everyone's opinion not just mine) is the one that over runs?!

Great talk on using humor in math teaching that may cross over to the kinds of things I do.

But highlight for me was a foreign national turning up who I've met a couple of times before and being asked to translate Acronyms and any difficult words. Made the day much more interesting (and kept me on my toes). Although I nearly caused trouble when as a joke I spelled out DVD and nearly caused a suffocation as laughter was stifled.

This week each of our faculties has a Learning & Teaching conference. I've attended the Technology one before but I don't recall hitting any of the other ones. Not that they're not intersting, it's just fitting them in.

Well I've missed the last couple of days thanks to leave, but today was the Science Faculty's turn and particularly because I'd been asked to present something, I thought I'd attend the whole thing.

It was very good. Aside from the usual complaint of having to choose between two sessions you wanted to see both of. Twice. Full marks to the organizers for keeping the day nice and tight. (Starting at 10.30 finishing at 3 and always on time.) Nice slot in the afternoon about the similarities between stand-up comedians and lecturing - and what lecturers can learn from the former. Good slot in the morning on using more interaction with students even in big classes. You can improve retention of the material from something dire like 20% to around 50%.

My slot in the middle of the day seemed to go well given that the three of us hadn't really rehearsed beyond a quick sketch of what we thought we might do. People seemed interested and I even managed to tout the article that S from TheOldPlace and I wrote about alternative libraries. Good to be an interloper with the Science Faculty and be able to point to some research and peer-reviewed material in support of the 'fun' stuff.

Gravid sister's farewell (for the moment) do now so I must run...

Off several days next week and conferences when I'm technically "in"... so don't expect many posts.

Destination: information
Our library staff development day today. Training on Information Literacy without mentioning those two words. Set up by our inhouse training lady we had 5 teams of 6 each given a holiday to plan. (From two center trips to Russia to hen night shopping sprees in New York to slightly more local ecoholidays).

In the morning each team collected the info they needed (and had a briefing from the map librarian on his resources including printing vast posters) and in the afternoon they had to create a poster of whatever size they wanted and then do a presentation.

The presentation wasn't so much on their holiday as in their process of finding out what they needed.

Meanwhile some of us weren't allowed to 'play' because we'd be detailed off to be various experts (I was an "IT consultant") which meant roaming around the different teams and helping, offering advice, and resisting the urge to tell them I'd put them on a 3 day waiting list for assistance.

Then our boss wrapped it up with some theory, learning points and discussion.

It was interesting watching library staff from all grades reverting to student stereotype and almost exclusively relying on Google - despite all sorts of other material that was available. But everyone had a great day and some terrific posters were produced.

Two days of working with my email have reduced my inbox to just 5! It's difficult to describe the weight that feels as though it's been lifted. It'll start piling up again but just for the moment it feels good.

No meetings today! Even though it's Friday!

been great to catch up on all those emails that have been lurking at the back of my consciousness for a while. Not easy to answer, not really ones I could just ignore...

Also expected to come up with a better workshop title than 'Good Googling' to see if we can't drum up more student attendance next year. 'Great Googling' didn't seem like much of a change. 'Googling with gusto' didn't really appeal. Something along the lines of a "long title" like 'All you ever wanted to know about Google but were afraid to ask' was ruled out for advertising reasons (this workshop is one of a series and none of the others were labelled like that).

I'm still of the opinion that we could use classic films and their posters to attract attention (assuming it's ok under copyright as parody or fair-use or something). Perhaps I could do 'The Google, the Bad and the Ugly' as I spend some time on Google's censorship deals with China or utlization of things like the fascist press for (part of) its news gathering.

Any suggestions more than welcome...

Why oh why oh why do I find it so hard to organize even a wet paper bag?

How hard can it be?

Few weeks ago one of our database providers phoned offering to do some training for us. I could manage to arrange myself and my assistant so it was worth the trainer coming. Even managed to email another library colleague over in another building in case she was interested. But what with conferences and other busyness didn't get round to emailing the Faculty rep or the rest of my colleagues in the Library till this morning. Not surprising the academics didn't come. But just to gratify me, 6 other colleagues from the Library came and made the 90 minutes really worthwhile. Including the woman I'd not thought could come because she was on leave - she came in 'specially.

Phew. But really, next time...

Attended a day conference today on creativity.

Not like the last one I went to 18 months back which was very 'serious'.

This one started with a woman in a bag 'dancing' on the floor very slowly. Quite compelling. And then had poetry and even a song or two all as a 15 minute welcome to the conference.

Great keynote speech from one of four acting brothers.

Good opportunities to network and discuss how and if creativity can be measured (the practical upshot was 'not easily' but there were things that could contribute to a kind of measuring process).

Once again I felt very much the 'outsider' as a librarian amongst all these creative types (the rest of the delegates were either artists of some sort or members of the creative technology faculty here at the university). But that paid off as they were pleased to attract what they saw as the creatively challenged! (I didn't tell them about my extra-curricular activities that would count as performance or art or both). But did get a chance to talk about 'guerilla creativity' which one delegate was very taken with and make sure they knew that the Library wasn't completely uncreative.

Great day, well organized and more useful than my boss thought it might be!

Mini conference cum workshop today on Second Life held here on campus. To my shame (muddling it up with something else) I thought I'd mentioned its existence to former colleagues at TheOldPlace. My apologies to them for missing passing on the news; and my apologies to those here running the thing for not spreading the word more diligently.

It was interesting - scripting workshop very useful. Lunch was good. :-)

But the highlight of the day was the visitor from TheOldPlace (who'd heard about it from elsewhere!) who showed off the as yet not public space that TheOldPlace is building in Second Life. It looks absolutely fabulous and I'm very envious. It makes the speed at which we're doing anything look positively glacial. But then apparently they've farmed out the actual work to a foreign whizz which would explain a lot. But the design is great and it will be fascinating to see how it works in practice - 'specially the Library bit. Best of luck to them with it though. Even if we caught up I fear our vision might not look as attractive!

To a lunchtime presentation today based on this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q

(only without the music which rather lessened it's emotional impact)

Or available as PowerPoint from:
http://entrepreneur.iiee.org/new/about.php
(under 'Shift Happens' towards the bottom right).

While I'd seen it before a couple of times on YouTube, it was good to be reminded of it and the discussion it provoked afterwards about how it affects us in University teaching was interesting. But no real 'answers'.

Nothing to write about today except for the delights of a long lunch celebrating someone's birthday.

The only downer being the number of non-work related friends and relations invited as well which meant polite conversation with people I'm unlikely to see again (well, till next year or something) and feeling a bit cut off due to table arrangements from people it would have been great to be able to chat to.

Who thought it would be a good idea to have a meeting at 4pm on a Friday afternoon? Especially one on how the loans team deal with boards of examiners and students who may or may not have left and/or be in default over borrowed items.

It's not often I find such things a yawn. But permission to do so once?

After a holiday yesterday, great to come to work with both nothing in my diary and knowing I've got two more days off this week (theater trips and late nights involved) before the end of my two day week on Friday. Might even get something done.

Bitty sort of day with a training session on a digital mapping service, a lecture on security, a talk on planning for personal development, a meeting with my boss on progress and developments and another meeting on the perils of Facebook.

Sadly, the only meeting of the day I'd been particularly looking forward - the book group after work - has been cancelled/postponed because so many haven't finished the book (it's 1000 pages) or didn't like the book so didn't bother with it. [1] Irritating as it's the first book of the group that I've actually enjoyed. (Suzanna Clarke's oddly intriguing _Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell_).

[1] So much for my dutiful plowing through 7 previous books which I didn't much care for just so I could be part of the discussion and feel I'd committed to the group.

Funny sort of day.

We occasionally do late nights here. Usually a Friday every term or so. But recently a colleague has some changes of circumstance at home so for a few months we're filling in and doing an even more 'odd' late night. Means I'm here till 8.45pm which isn't great. But as I had the morning off instead it's not been too bad.

Still, after nearly 4 hours on the enquiry desk I'm about ready to head homewards. Shame the buses have long since stopped for the evening...

Trip out today to the local branch meeting of our professional group.

80 minutes away by rail and 5 of us going. You'd have thought it might quite social. But no, between us we set off for 3 different trains! My boss apparently likes leaving things till the last moment with no margin for error. One of our number was on the committee and was going a little earlier. The other two chose the most sensible train timewise. I plumped for going a bit earlier to keep A company. With laptop in tow I can work anywhere - 'specially if there's mains power to hand. But fate had the last laugh. We got to the station to find our train was cancelled - half an hour's wait reading the article my boss has had published (bit unthrilling to be honest, but worthy) and then the other two caught up with us...

The branch meeting was holding an AGM (about as thrilling as such things can be - but only 15 minutes so not too painful), but also a briefing from a recruitment company on "getting that promotion". Not that I'm looking to do anything of the sort - or expecting much along those lines - but it had some useful pointers.

Best bit of the day was randomly meeting someone I knew at the end of the day who could give me a lift home instead of hanging around for a bus for the best part of an hour.

Had to show off the pre-entry site to a Library team this morning as the lady who did the actual work isn't here today. Good response as people were very positive about it. A few revisions to send in but nothing major. Couple of typos which may have slipped through from us in the first place.

But it suddenly occurred to me as I thought about what it looked like now (transformed from the PowerPoint mock up) that what's really been created is the visual version of the alternative library from TheOldPlace that S and I built and wrote up in a professional journal some years back. Sigh. Am I going round in circles or is this development?

I wonder if we could put a donut machine in a picture somewhere? :-)

Smidgeon of excitement today when I visited a building across the park to see the work that's been done on the Library bit of the pre-entry project I may have mentioned.

This is a project to create a suite of web pages for students about to join the University in the summer before the start. Give them info about the uni, their course - and of course the Library.

Inspired by a Dr from down the coast who'd invented some fun games to engage the students at her university (I think I mentioned her session as being a highlight of the learning and teaching conference I attended here last December), we really didn't want out bit to be boring and tedious.

So after brainstorming with a small group here in the Library, I was left with trying to create a mockup of what we wanted in PowerPoint that would look pictorial/graphicy and encourage 'exploration'.

Some techie web people have turned our 'vision' such as it was into something that looks great and is easily the best bit of the web suite - in our not so humble opinions! Well, it's fun at any rate and not just more text!

Day off without touching the computer (partly enforced) - but probably very good for me.



Spent some of today looking through the PowerPoint slides brought back by a senior colleague who went to a day of presentations by ebook publishers and the like. He was contributing his own presentation on our perspective as academic institution users.

Although it's hard to judge the tone from just the slides you can't help feeling that even now as the publishers boast about how they're getting in touch with users that they're only just beginning to get anywhere near thinking about what users actually want. Our usage is (apparently) pretty impressive compared to other universities - but I still think we've yet to see how ebooks could be used once all the technology/rights issues stop getting in the way.

Full day today including showing round some design students interested in the design aspects of the building (and getting the University Librarian to take them through the process from his point of view) , a somewhat surreal friday meeting (aren't they all?), and highlight of the day going to a lunchtime thing with a metaverse researcher who was excellent - and even thought I might be able to contribute something to research on motion sickness in Second Life!

I also saw for the first time, one of those "$100" (aren't they $200 now?) laptops that are supposed to be great for developing/third world countries. It looked great (if odd) and although limited in memory was very usable and the screen was better than I'd expected. Be interesting to see what comes of them.

No blog on Monday. Day off.

Well. The workshop went about as well as might be expected.

The quiz *was* too hard but I suggested doing it in pairs which helped. We ran through it as a memory test and then turned on the computers to try tackling it with the pages in front of everyone (even then there were difficulties).

Still, it seems to have improved people's awareness of certain features of our web site and it certainly generated discussion on design, layout, expectations and so forth. Which I guess was the point.

I don't *think* too many people were utterly demoralized...

Trying to prepare for a little workshop I'm leading tomorrow on 'How well do you know your web page'.

I started by trying to create a massively complicated (and far too small to read on the handout) graphical representation of our library web pages.

Gave that up as a bad job and created a quiz instead.

But I've just tested it on the University Librarian and am now worried it's much too difficult to be any fun for anyone. Oh dear.

The swamp, otherwise known as my desk (and virtual email desk) is back again.

Astonishing how quickly it builds up.
Astonishing how much of my day it consumes if I let it (and if I don't I'm back to the building up again).

Ah well. The sun is out, surely summer is on its way and things should quiet down a bit.

At work late tonight getting caught up which is great.

Sounds of a student carnival going on the park next door which makes me feel as though I'm missing out on a party. I might have to wander over later to hear the Brazilian batala band.

But still lots to do. Sad that it is being here on a Friday night...

Great staff training session this morning from H on databases for the visual arts. Not only was it well thought out and clearly explained, but her slides were really attractively designed as well. I mean I know she looks after the art and design area, but I wish I had a tenth the design ability!

Visit today from a couple of our 'colloborative partners' at a college a couple of hours drive away. H and I gave them a tour and showed them the electronic side of things which they can access (and show their students how to access).

Very sociable.

Followed immediately by a birthday lunch for a couple of colleagues and fortunately just enough alcohol to get me through some humiliation in the afternoon.

I managed to not only answer a student enquiry completely incorrectly, but was then told by R - one of our loans team - the correct answer. That would have been fine only I didn't know about a peculiar 'quirk' of the database involved and told R what I thought was the 'correct' answer.

Fortunately, I didn't actually give up at that point, discovered my mistake and was graciously received when I went to grovel in apology. But maybe we could just switch jobs and I could be spared being stressed about all the email that's piling up while I show people round, take 90 minute lunches and also fit in another visitor who'd dropped in for something else entirely but by chance I could introduce to our map librarian who shares a common interest.

At least today I had nothing happening in the evening so I could stay late and work in the relative peace of just the rain tapping on the window and dripping in the newly acquired bucket.

Yes, I'm now the proud owner of one of the leaks that the old part of the building is renowned for. I don't know why it's suddenly manifesting itself now, but I shall make sure the University Librarian gets some of the water damaged paperwork just to make the point.

With rather a lot of annual leave to use up before the end of August I took yesterday off. Although I'm stressed by the work that's piling up, I was glad of a day off doing very little after a weekend with in-laws.

On the upside French rellies were visiting which made it fun and I managed to beat father-in-law at chess which is a once in 20 or 30 game occurrence. Or less. Very unusual.

The new campus cards have arrived. We had photos done a while back. Now they're here.

I must admit mine is much improved. I guess I was in shock when the first one was taken - it was my first few hours in a new job. Now I'm not so embarrassed to wear the thing. Though I can't say I like the vivid lime green of the card in place of the more subdued green of the old one. I'm sure I won't notice soon though.

I may have mentioned way way back that that's one difference between the library here and TheOldPlace. Here staff are much more inclined to keep campus cards on them at all times round their neck on chain or cord. It's been a while now (nearly two years!) but I don't recall many doing that at TheOldPlace. Maybe no one.

They haven't yet implemented the proximity detection that's supposed to be on its way - so these new ones are still swipe access. But mine seems to be letting me in, still, to the huge range of places I'm 'cleared' for. Some, apparently, have had the wrong numbers printed on them preventing borrowing from the Library. Great!

Great coffee morning this morning as a colleague who's just returned from leave presented pictures (and thoughts) from his travels in India. If only my staff development offerings were as well attended - we had to switch venue when numbers got up around the 30 mark.

One moving section of his talk was the images of kids from an orphanage dealing with those who've lost parents working with salt. More information here:
http://www.akaashganga.org/