Weekly library staff training session this morning on genealogy. Particularly interesting was the connection made between general library searching skills and how knowledge of such has improved searches for relatives.

Farewell to the lead chaplain today.
It's been a huge privilege to meet him and I wish him all the best for his future role as 'rector'. (Looking that up gave me the chance to edit a wikipedia article I rarely get to do!)

He's been a great inspiration with his calm and his wisdom - and his calm wisdom now I think about it and the chaplaincy won't be the same without him.

Here's a great word:
technishererfolgangabemangelsfrust

"the frustration caused by having a sense of achievement for completing a technical task but being unable to boast about it because it is too boring"

And by the time I can say the word adequately I'll be experiencing it again!

As part of a program for adult learners this week, I signed up for a demo of one our Virtual Reality Labs. (The session on Monday about Lego, Coke and trashy mags was unfortunately cancelled due to lack of interest - shame!)

But this one had it's own disappointment. I don't know. Somehow I expected more.

Perhaps I'm spoilt by Star Trek's holodecks or Red Dwarf's 'Better than Life' but even Second Life with all it's limitations seemed a bit more engaging than this suite seemed to be. With screens forming three of the walls in the room and I don't know how many projectors, much of what they showed us was indeed very clever. But I don't know... the giant insect buzzing into our faces out of the screen seemed very Disneyland of more than a decade ago (or more). The walk around famous monuments in 3D wasn't unimpressive in its own way but made Second Life look like the height of interface simplicity. I don't know, I just expected more.

The highlight for me was the haptic pen with a kind of pen mounted on an arm/ball kind of mechanism which - when you pressed against an object on the nearby PC screen - responded as though you were pressing on something in real life. Sculpting what felt for all the world like an invisible bit of plant oasis, was quite interesting. Although it was immediately obvious just how much training you'd need to be any good at it. Even the academic and the research student in charge weren't very good at it.

Still, the lab gives students a chance to make and do things that I could only have dreamed of when at university.

Before the days of FaceBook, I could escape work colleagues knowing when my birthday was. Now of course the cat is out of the bag as it were and greetings and cards and demands for lunchtime drink outings are just what you might expect.

I was going out for a meal after work. But the movie club in the Library took it into their heads to show _Closely Observed Trains_ this evening so I've decided to stay for that. Partly because I've managed to invite not one but two Czechs to attend. The meal will just have to start later.

First day off sick in I don't know how long. :-(

Brilliant training session this morning from R, one of the junior staff from the loans desk.

She was telling us about the pre-history and archaeology of our neck of the woods. And she was very good. Her structure was good, her manner was engaging, her enthusiasm was obvious, her knowledge was lightly held but deep, and her content was fascinating.

She's a natural and should do more. I think she's already been asked to do a repeat session and lead a field trip.

While we wait for the latter however several of us hung out like groupies at a nearby TV archaeology program 'dig' that just happens to be going on for 3 days. Went down at lunchtime to find they were at lunch, went back after work to see lots of tv personalities and assorted activity.

Knock on effects from yesterday's network troubles mean that there will a planned outage of all systems this afternoon from 3.30pm onwards (for the rest of the day).

So now I'm planning what reading I can catch up on. For example the dissertation from the student who built us a Library presence in Second Life. And she's cited the work I did with S from TheOldPlace which was kind. Plus some more of S's work several times.

Much quieter diary this week - so I had been hoping to do a bit of catching up.

But of course the students are all up against deadlines and I'm getting a lot of them (and staff) at the door needing help (or via email or on the phone).

So, not so much done after all.

Not helped by a network failure this morning for a couple of hours. Fortunately, I had just saved a new and involved piece of work a minute before the crash. Or that would have been another hour down the drain.

Over to our new refectory thingy today to meet with some computing staff I've been involved with on various Second Life stuff. The four of us had put into to contribute to a workshop on virtual worlds and ideas for practical things to build in them for teaching purposes.

However, only two of us had been accepted so we were picking who went.

I offered to step back as I use Second Life least from a teaching point of view, but no, they were keen I was one of the two. I guess there are some advantages to being a Belbin 'plant' type when ideas are being asked for.