Safely arrived at parents-in-law after a fairly untraumatic journey. Just started snowing over the last five miles or so.

Snag is that mother-in-law has had new internet provider and wifi since the summer and doesn’t know what the password to the latter is. Or at least of the three things she’s got written down and suggested none of them are working. I’ve tried those and other things, I’ve tried combinations and variations – but all to no avail. It’s immensely frustrating and means it’s going to be a very ‘quiet’ Christmas with no online Scrabble, no Twitter, no emailing friends or tidying up the incoming, no looking things up. I’m only able to post this by fighting for time (amongst five teenagers and 6 adults) on the one PC that is internet connected. But after getting used to mobile devices and access being easy, who wants to do that more than occasionally!

As this is probably my last logon of the year – have a Happy Christmas and a great New Year one and all.

Last day of work today before Christmas. The Library is open for two more days but for once I won’t be there till the bitter end. Family calls and the weather is iffy enough that it’s probably for the best we set out in good time. Looking at the news and all the travel chaos, no one is betting yet that we don’t spend Christmas at home by ourselves for the first time ever. (Although my parents are easier to get to if it actually comes to that). Happy Christmas everyone - see you in the New Year.

The University’s annual teaching and learning conference today. Although they’ve cut it from a shortish day to just a morning now. There are still four tracks through the day, however, so the usual trauma of deciding what not to go to.
In the second slot, however, I’ve no choice – we always like to try and contribute something from the Library if we can and this year it’s fallen to me. Basically reporting on the student project we were involved with to produce a mobile app of various library web pages. We had to link it to research informed teaching though which has made it interesting.

Last week I was having something of a crisis of confidence – probably connected with ‘research’ aspect, but H (who’d offered to help but couldn’t make the day itself) took my simple slides and made them really look coherent with brilliant ‘design’ and some lovely images that gave me great confidence. Together with a Bob Dylan title that another colleague had provided (which happened no to include the word ‘library’ for a change which I think always helps to not put people off choosing our session), I felt well armed to ‘perform’.

Had the bright idea of using the Dylan track itself as a welcome to people gathering in the room and that seemed to give the session a real buzz from the start which I managed not to pour cold water on. It’s always difficult to judge and it usually goes well enough, but I think this time everything came together in a way that really worked and was a great success. My favourite comment afterwards was “I won’t see librarians in the same way again” – although I’m not entirely sure how to take that!