Exciting email last night.

Remember the conference I was supposed to be attending last month, but that was amalgamated with another conference and is now taking place in January? The one that was offering a free iPad for all early bookings?

They want delivery instructions for the iPad (or apparently I could opt for one of the new iPod touches with a camera).

Does that mean it's coming soon?

Given that I've spent a loooong time waiting (what happened to the hope to get them out "by the end of summer"), and been very frustrated in the meantime by the desirability of the thing, *and* been teased by colleagues that the whole thing is a scam, that I tweeted something along the lines of "perhaps it is real after all".

But the conference organizer saw it and tweeted back that that was a bit harsh! (Although he did it with a smiley face). I guess it was and he did explain that they'd had some huge logistical nightmares to over come. But it was a salutory reminder that Twitter isn't private and I'm certainly glad I wasn't ruder!

Great news today!

Last year - at the end of the financial year - the Library was given quite a large amount of money by all the Faculties. Partly because the Faculties hadn't spent it and partly because we could - and had need!

Despite me dutifully spending absolutely every cent of the book budget as we'd been warned we'd lose it if we didn't get through it, the Library *did* underspend on what the Head called 'paperclips and people'. This was largely because of our staffing review and the voluntary severance exercise which has meant several people have left and not been replaced. (Not becasue I suddenly stopped using paperclips!)

Anyway, the University instructed the Library to offer this money back to the faculties but Technology (and I believe the others may be following suit) have decided not to take it so that we can pay for the IEEE Xplore database for another year *and* have a book fund!

Wow! I thought it might be one or the other but never dreamed that both might really be a possibility.

Of course, it only delays the IEEE pain for another year. But that's 12 months away. In the meantime, I'd better get buying boooks.

Over to the psychology department again today to be a guinea pig in another of their experiments.

This time they had people either lying about an upcoming holiday or telling the truth. I was picked for the former which was a bit scary - people tell me they can read me like a book so I doubted I could succeed at convincing the questioner.

Anyway, I was detailed off to invent a trip to Chile where I've never been and was told I could do as much or as little research as I wanted before the day of the experiment. In fact - aside from looking up flight time, a reasonable ticket cost and finding a suitable 'town' - I didn't really research anything.

What I did was think through an amalgam of a lot of previous travel, a couple of trips to Brazil and then relocated the Columbian researcher I met in the Czech Republic last year as a Chilean friend I was flying out to visit.

By enthusing about all of that kind of semi-real stuff I got through the questions that were being asked without quite as much stress as I might of imagined. Although I started so nervously I thought the game would be up immediately.

When the researcher returned to the room to debrief me she also asked the questioner whether I'd been telling the truth or lying and I was somewhat surprised to find that I had indeed convinced her. "You're either lying or have done a huge amount of research."

The trouble is, that although I 'succeeded', I'm not really sure that that's a good thing. Nor do I feel proud of myself.

At least they revealed that *they* had been lying when they had said in the preparatory material that those who do well at the task are more successful in their jobs. Apparently that's to motivate you to succeed - but I should have remembered that they always mess with your head!

Good job I normally liaise with the engineering and computing academics. Now, I'm not saying anything about them in *particular* but today I've been doing a 'guest' spot for someone from the economics department.

It was on mind-mapping and apparently I'd come recommended from a computing academic (who has just retired) but who had often invited me to come and teach mind mapping techniques to his students.

The library's subject specialist for economics isn't comfortable with the technique at all so it made a lot of sense for me to fill in. Especially as previous appraisals [1] have pointed out that I do the least amount of teaching of all my colleagues. (Not for lack of me touting myself around the departments.)

The snag has been that my pre-meetings with the economics academic, let's call her F, revealed her to be a new member of staff. Apparently a real go-getter I've learned and very bright and on the ball. And drop dead gorgeous....


[1] Speaking of which we have a new appraisal system being introduced and so yesterday I had an afternoon of training on how to appraise someone. The (external) trainers introduced us to 'forum theater' which was new to me and not uninteresting. The guy was a good actor - he really sucked me into his two roles!