Places where they do it better

Today it has snowed.

Snow outside my study window

 

Now, living in the UK that shouldn't be news, snow is part of our regular weather pattern but it seems to excite us and whips up the media into some sort of frenzy about cold and the destruction of life as we know it. I switched on the television news to see a reporter on the streets of Canterbury.The reporter was pointing out the small scattering of snow that had settled on a grassy verge, you could tell it was grassy because you could see the grass. Then the camera turned to show the road which had many tyre marks in freezing slush. Traffic was flowing normally and safely, people were walking around as normal. The reporter was explaining that this was snow and when it froze it became icy and slippery, which was dangerous.

Dangerous snow in Canterbury

I thought to myself "but what has happened to education and experience these days? Do people not know about snow and ice? What are they teaching then in school these days?" Now, the reporter could have been sent out to get reports of blizzards and traffic congestion and a scattered patch of snow and slush was all he could get, so he was making the best of it. Undoubtedly frozen slush is a hazard to cars and pedestrians. I simply felt that the normality of the situation did not merit the sensationalism that it was being given.

This is a long lead up to what I was really going to say and perhaps the link is tenuous but my despairing thought about children's education is nothing to do with the quality of teachers, I have been one. It is more about the way that education systems have been played around with by Political Parties whose goal does not appear to be helping any one individual to blossom into a person who loves learning and discovery. Governmental leadership are more concerned with statistics and budgetary cuts. Education is not simply about sending children to school, it is something that children do, they learn because they are children and what they learn is dependent on the experiences around them. Children learn to read when there are books around them.

Now, here is the bit about other countries doing this well, better than the UK. In a city in the Philippines, Baguio City Library has developed an outreach programme with local elementary schools and day centres which lends books to children for up to three days in order to develop "the love of reading for lifelong learning". The city Mayor is supporting this project: the Baguio City Library Mobile Book Service because he is "a firm believer and promoter of the power of reading and education" to improve ones station in life.

Getting children involved and giving them the opportunity to have a say in running a bookshop is another way to stimulate their reading. In Michigan, USA, Warren Public Library has a strong supporters group, the Friends of Warren Public Library which runs a bookshop to raise funds for the library. They allow children to be full members of the group. For $1 a year the child receives  12 free books from the bookshop, 10% discount from books purchased and the right to attend the regular friends meetings and have a voice in the running of the bookshop. It is hoped that the children will remain as members, possibly running the bookshop in the future.

Finally, the City of Jember in East Java has problems with literacy. Indonesia is said to have low "Literate behaviour characteristics" according to the United Nations Development Program. This prompted the government to start Indonesia’s Reading Movement in 2015. The government was not alone in trying to inspire literacy and reading because a retired teacher, Imran Suligi, has  already set up a foundation called Indonesia Membaca in order to combat illiteracy. Imran set up a library, developed into a "Reading Park" which has been recognised officially by the Indonesian government. There he provides physical activities for children, followed by reading sessions. In the past he distributed books by motorbike. Imran's latest enterprise is to lend out Reading Corner packages; books, a bookshelf and a carpet, all free of charge.

I just wish that the UK government and all local authorities had the same desire to create the environment where children could learn freely. Investment and development at the beginning of a long life would prevent the need for expensive education programmes and suddenly statistics would show that the UK is a nation of readers. And everyone would know about snow and the slipperiness of ice.

Getting children inspired in Laos

A friend of mine has recently returned from one of her regular adventurous holidays, although she claims that about four holidays a year is "not much". This time she went to Cambodia and Laos and found the experience profoundly moving. While in Laos she visited a unique publisher, Big Brother Mouse. This is a not for profit publisher that produces fiction books in the Lao language so that children can be inspired to read.

By Rama - Own work, CC BY-SA 2.0 fr, Link


They also have reading programmes in schools, and they try to develop language skills of young people. You can read their story in this book. It is run entirely by Laotians, although the idea was that of a retired American Publisher. I and of the opinion that it is far, far better for children to read books in their first language, rather than being "donated" books in English that are surplus to our requirements in the more privileged nations. 

Pictures telling a story

I have a google alert set that sends me anything related to children's mobile libraries. It is a bit hit and miss if I actually get anything more interesting than obsure mobile apps (change of use of the word mobile) or the running schedule of a particular vehicle. However, browsing through today I found the following photos loaded up onto flickr from an album posted by Providence Public Library (Rhode Island).

 

This first photograph is from 1961 as you can tell from what the library assistant (or librarian) is wearing. She is so formal and professional - you couldn't possibly go anywhere without wearing a hat. The children are wearing the same sort of thing that I used to wear as a child of about their age in the 1960s. The mobileness of the vehicle appears to be that it contains a shelf of books to pull out and browse through. I do love the poster on the shelves announcing "Playground service" and the children are so serious.  

  This next photo is from 1986 where Providence Public Library has obviosuly invested in a much larger vehicle. This time the children look happier.

 I think that this photo taken five years later is iconic - it could be an artwork. Presumably it is the same vehicle, in its garage, waiting to spread books, happiness and literacy to the children of Providence. To me, who has never been to the USA and take my knowledge from films, it looks like it could easily turn into the Ghost Buster's vehicle. 

 As we can see here, however, it is a beautifuly illustrated bookmobile. It did turn into something...

It appears to have become a mobile art gallery, a good idea in itself, but I do feel a bit sad that in 2004 it is has become a glaring red, like a fire engine.

The album that is home to these pictures is at: https://www.flickr.com/photos/ppl_ri_images/albums/72157622565124845

Starting a new adventure

I have been incredibly busy over the past year, after having spent leisurely four years doing a PhD and taking a whole year to write up my Thesis.  over the past year I have written three reports and four online handbooks, and have had another paper published (Grounded theory and ethnography combined: a methodology to study children’s interactions on children’s mobile libraries). It is more interesting than it sounds.

After being at the Centre for Research Communications in Nottingham University, I worked at LISU for a year (Loughborough University - yes, can't keep away from there). I have been involved with a project that sends messages over people's televisions (SMaRT Messenger), I have examined "Patient Pathways" with the help of a computer simulation modeller and done a fundamental review of a regional library service. More of those at some other time. Apart from the regional library service they seemed largely irrelevant to this blog, they were about information and older vulnerable people. Not my usual subject, but interesting to dip into.

Now, I have a new job - Research Fellow at Evidence Base, in Birmingham City University (BCU). I don't have a picture of the the University yet, but here is a map. I like maps.



Hopefully, now I can use my expertise with children and libraries to track down relevant research.

The Libraries at Lincoln Cathedral

I visited  Lincoln Cathedral library last week. It would be fairer to say libraries, because there is more that one collection, specialising in different books and documents dating from the 1400's up to the present day. The collections are held in separate rooms: the Reading Room holds books dated from 1801 upwards that are all about cathedral architecture and artefacts; the Wren library holds the medieval collection and books up to 1800 of diverse subjects; the collection in the gate house at Exchequer Gate holds books about theology. All of these can be read by prior appointment with the librarian, Julie Taylor (librarian@lincolncathedral.com).

As well as diversity of collection, there is a diversity of Architecture. The reading room appears to be in  a Victorian extension to the Cathedral, but a nearby set of steps leads to the original medieval (15th century) half timbered reading room where the library had a collection of books that were chained to large long lectern like benches. Apparently the Cathedral kept a chest full of books that could be borrowed. If a book was lost, then the borrower had to replace it with a book of a similar financial value, not the same subject matter, so that meant the collection became very random. It is possible that the mediaeval room was constructed and the books chained to prevent then getting lost. It would be really interesting to find out if that system could work these days?

A door in the middle of the mediaeval library leads to a beautiful piece of reformation architecture. Restrained, perfectly proportioned and elegant, the long room above the north cloister was designed by Christopher Wren for  Michael Honywood who was the Dean of Lincoln from 1660 to 1681. He had gathered a large collection of books about many subjects, including beauty tips for ladies! On his death he left the collection to the Cathedral. Current day librarians that are concerned about classification would have a nightmare: the books are not arranged in conceptual order, but are simply arranged by height; large on the lower shelves and small at the top! This room has undergone some recent restoration and the walls are now painted in the original style. More restoration is taking place. Many of the books are quite unique, others have similar versions elsewhere. Many of the books are of Dutch origin because Dean Honywood spent some years in Holland.

Although none of the collection is currently digitised, the library does have an on-line catalogue which can be searched from the cathedral website (http://lincolncathedral.heritage4.com/HeritageScripts/Hapi.dll/search1).

The library web pages can be found here:
http://lincolncathedral.com/library-education/

Libraries that get children excited

One of my five theories from my PhD research was that children's mobile libraries "worked" because the anticipation of them arriving and then disappearing made children excited. I noticed many times, all over the UK, that the children who came onto the vehicles were happy, smiling, looking pleased and excited. There were two or three children, I think, that were more cautious and shy and showing that they did not really want to be there, but that was out of about 700 children that I observed. There was even one pre-school child that came on with her mother, before any other children had come on to the vehicle, that was running up and down the vehicle with the simple glee of being surrounded by books. She want to borrow far too many. Her mother said, when apologising for the daughter's behaviour, that she was always excited on the day that the CML visited because she liked it so much. Here are examples of two other vehicles where the excitement happens:

http://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2013/11/the_bookmobile_rides_on_in_south_brunswick_kids_wait_eagerly_for_mister_mike_wheels.html


http://kymkemp.com/2013/nov/15/romancing-bookmobile/


My theory, which I may have mentioned before, is that when something is ephemeral, and comes and goes away, but you know that it will return again, makes humans interested, It is not always there, so you don't get used to it and you think you will go, but not get around to it. If it visits just briefly, then you are much more likely to go because you can only catch it then. It is a bit like a travelling show, or an ice cream van, or a fish and chip van (yes we have them in the UK). You must get there before it disappears.

The next time that you know it is due, you anticipate the pleasant experience that you had last time (assuming of course that you did). Your brain then starts to produce adrenaline, which makes you excited (a bit like going on a fairground ride). This works positively for learning, because the adrenaline makes your brain more alter and receptive to what is going on all around you, and if what is going on all around you is books and words and stories, then more of it is going to sink in and stick.

This is why the children in the Goddard School South Brunswick didn't want to wait to put their jackets on before running out to the bookmobile.

Random Updates and Reminiscences

One of the small irritating problems that we encountered on the Reading Rocket (a children's mobile library) was accessing Derby City Libraries' library management system live from our lap-top. Mobile technology was still developing at the time, and although some authorities were using satellites dishes on top of their mobile libraries, our technicians considered that the expense of satellite dishes, their deployment time and reliability was not as effective as using an internet dongle. This meant that we could access the Derby City Libraries system and the internet over a mobile phone signal. This was great, most of the time, but there places in Derby that received poor signals and on occasions the driver of the Reading Rocket would have to move the vehicle a few feet up or down a street before we got good reception. It seemed particularly bad in places where we were near mobile masts, like if we we just too close.

It is quite remarkable, then to read this story of a mobile library in 1980s Colorado which not only could be the very first mobile library with an on-line computer, but perhaps also a very early example of WiFi. The signals between the Mobile Library modem and the library mainframe computer were by radio, meaning that library had to have its own frequency. More of the story can be found at:
 
https://bookmobiles.wordpress.com/2013/11/03/the-first-online-bookmobile/

It is really quite common for children's mobile libraries to be illustrated with pictures from well known book authors. The Reading Rocket was covered with illustrations from Nick Sharrat's book Rocket Countdown (Walker Books) http://www.amazon.co.uk/Rocket-Countdown-Nick-Sharratt/dp/1406322245. This was all perfectly legal, we got help and permission from Walkers Books and Nick Sharrat himself came to officially launch the "Rocket" and I still have my signed copy of Rocket Countdown which Nick said he signed with Jacqueline Wilson's pen. During my field work I found examples of work by:


Chris Riddel (Manchester's Reading Voyager)

  Mick Inkpen's Kipper from West Sussex

and Little Rabbit Foo Foo by Arthur Robins in Stockport.

The attractiveness of a familiar picture or artistic style appears to draw attention to the vehicles, and perhaps gives some sort of clue as to the content, not ice creams or hot dogs! I have found this other example of the tradition going on in the Caribbean island of St Martin where a local author has allowed her character "Lizzie the Lizard"to be put on a mobile library that visits schools on the island. 

http://www.smn-news.com/st-maarten-st-martin-news/13916-lizzy-lizard-is-a-star-on-the-jubilee-library-book-mobile.html/

And here are some pictures of the Reading Rocket:

Getting involved in something new

On Tuesday I went to Waterstones in Derby, actually a place that I usually try to avoid because it is the seat of my addictions: Books, Ordnance Maps, that sort of thing. I find it very hard to leave any bookshop without buying something. However, this time I was there for a different reason, Derby is getting around to having a book festival and it was the launch of the advertising for the festival and general announcement that it is going to happen. Here is a link to the website:

http://www.derbybookfestival.co.uk

Which is a bit sparse at the moment, but I am sure it will fill up with information as things are finalised. There are pictures of the event on twitter (@DerbyBookFest) and there is a Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/DerbyBookFestival. I have managed to get myself involved with it's organisation because I think that Derby needs a good cultural event, and anything that may promote books and reading is fine by me.

There will be many events over Derby between 1st and 7 of June, some of them directly organised by the festival team and others by local cultural organisations and businesses. The idea appears to have snowballed to a great extent with local theatres scheduling book themed performances. The headline act is Michael Morpurgo who will be closing the festival with his band, and several well known teen authors, for example Bali Rai, are going to go around schools in Derby. There are projects and competitions as well as author talks, and hopefully something for everyone. And it didn't leave without buying a book, I got "All Men are Liars" by Alberto Manguel, it was rude not to...

The Book Trade

When I agreed to teach a 12 week module on the Book Trade for undergraduates at 10 days notice, I really did not think that it would be as much work, so tiring and as rewarding as it turned out to be. Now the marking is done and the module over I can relax and mull over the pro's and cons of the experience. I have to admit to a certain amount of bravado when it comes to teaching, I have been teaching for something like 30 years, in some way or another. I worked in Adult Education for ages, then did a PGCE to teach Design and Technology, did loads of supply teaching, when you have to walk into a classroom and instantly start teaching a lesson that someone else had prepared, sometimes in subjects where you just don't have a clue. Gujarati was a challenge, and I have also previously co-taught graduates and done one off lectures. So I thought that a pre-planned 12 week series of 2hr lectures would be a breeze.

The first problem was IT access, the university IT people were very methodical with the way that they give out access rights and email addressed to "new" staff. I put new in inverted commas because I was not entirely new, I have worked as a university teacher there before but has a minor break of 2 years when I defected to another university. This meant that I couldn't get onto the VLE for the first 5 weeks of the 12 week module. The second problem was getting inside the head of the previous teacher and trying to convey the meaning of the presentations that had been planned. This, combined with the lack of IT access, did lead to some tricky situations, such as not knowing how a certain bibliographic database featured in one lecture actually worked, because I couldn't log on to the system to find out. 

I was also told that I couldn't use the planned assignments because this group of third year students had done them in their first year, so I hastily invented some with no idea of how feasible they were and whether the students would be able to find out enough information for what I asked (The assignments were approved by the programme manager, so they could not have been too outlandish). After 2 years of sitting at a desk playing with a computer every day I had forgotten how exhausting it was to stand up and talk at people for two hours (Actually, although I more or less stood up and walked around for two hours, I did plan the sessions for student interaction, discussion and activities, so although I am capable of talking for Wales at any Olympic Talking event). 

The benefits, however, overcame the problems. The students were great, polite, keen and receptive. I was really pleased to see the number of them that attended specially arranged talks with their subject librarian, a visiting lecturer and a field trip to the local Waterstones where the manger talked to them about being part of the book trade. I also learnt a more about the book trade than I had when doing a similar module for my Masters at Aberystwyth. Teaching a subject is a brilliant way of learning because not only do have to absorb the information, you have to understand it to a level when you can explain it to someone else. I had to update my background reading and find current statistics. I really would have like a longer time to do that and to put the module together.

As the semester this academic year was longer than the previous year I also had to write a few new lectures, but I found them much easier to deliver. In fact I did pepper the pre-written lectures with my specialist knowledge. The proof of the pudding is in the eating so I was very pleased when the students did their presentations (an "on-line encyclopaedia" article about an aspect of the book trade) and when I read their written assignments (pretend you are giving an annual report to the board or shareholders of a Bookseller). They had not only taken in much of what I had told them in the lectures but they  had also found out a lot of information independently, despite my fears there was sufficient information out there for them to find, and some of them wrote very convincing annual reports (I did check that they had not just filched them from the internet).

I found out a huge amount of information about booksellers such as Waterstones, WHSmiths, Amazon and Barnes and Nobel just from reading their reports. Repetition is a good learning tool! I like lecturing, but I far prefer to plan well in advance. I just hope that the students liked it too.

Speak Up for Libraries

Last Saturday I dragged myself out of bed at just after 5.30 am to catch an early train to London. It doesn't take very long to get to London, but I booked my tickets in August in a rush of enthusiasm when the days were long, light and warm! So I arrived nearly 2 hours before the start of the Speak up for Libraries Conference 2014 in the damp, cold and dullness. I amused myself nicely with a Beano Annual illustration exhibition in St Pancras, a walk in Regent's Park and standing at the foot of the Post Office Tower (yes, I know it isn't called that any more) marvelling at 1960's technology.

I was so pleased that I did manage to drag myself out of bed, however, because the conference was really interesting and felt that it had a purpose to it. I was surprised at the number of Unison reps that were there, especially the number of librarians that are also Unison reps. When I worked in Derby City Libraries, the Union reps were not from libraries, and didn't have the same passion as the ones I saw last Saturday. A sign of the change of times, I think, I left Derby City Libraries just before all the cuts happened. Librarians have become activists. I was also pleased to meet a number of people, some of them quite elderly, who were simply library users, passionate about their library with some of them actively resisting library pending library closure. One gentleman said to me that libraries are "the poor man's university": the place where anyone can learn irrespective of their class or income. Of course the words there are the phraseology of another generation, we don't talk about "The poor" in the same way, and he was using the term "man" to mean universal humanity, but coming from the South Wales Valleys myself, I knew exactly what he meant. The library was, and still is, a place where you can learn despite not going to school or not understanding your school work. On the Reading Rocket, at a few stops, we had random individual children coming along and enjoying themselves with books, who we knew should have been in school. We had the attitude that they were at least doing something constructive with their time, and learning what they wanted to learn.

Sorry, this has diverted me from my main theme today, the Speak Up for Libraries Conference. It was  well organised with workshops in the morning to discuss questions to put to politicians prior to the forthcoming general election, to work out ways to activate library campaigners on the ground during the pre-election time and polarise what the Speak Up coalition (SUFL) can do. These workshops also served as a vehicle for people's frustrations at what was happening in their area, good to unload their feelings before the politicians joined us in the afternoon. The group that I was in came up with the following:

To politicians: "What would your elevator (lift) pitch be for libraries?"
                        "Will there be a postcode lottery for library services in the future"
We also felt that having library standards for local councils were necessary, and were interested in their viewpoint of volunteer run libraries.

For local campaigners:
                         Give all local councillors library cards
                         Educate local councillors in what libraries really do
                         Get councillors to justify library cuts
                         Attend council meetings when libraries being discussed
                         Send postcards to residents naming councillors who want to close libraries

The SUFL coalition should:
                         Aid  national co-ordination of friends of libraries groups
                         Collate information.
                         Be honest, and state positives as well as the negatives about libraries closing or being                          taken over

In the afternoon, three politicians, Green, Conservative and Labour, spoke about their party's position on libraries. UKIP had not been invited. Lib Dems had, but could not find a representative.

Martin Francis of the Green party spoke passionately about libraries being a neutral, social space which could enhance and change peoples lives. He stated that the Green Party considers libraries a public service not something that needs to have financial returns.

Helen Goodman MP and shadow secretary for Culture, Media and Sport (Labour), talked about statistics of closed and at risk libraries, suggested the government underspend of faster broadband put towards supporting libraries. She stated that Labour does not approve of putting out libraries “entirely” to voluntary sector. Believes in professional libraries.

Justin Tomlinson MP  Conservative, was chair of parliamentary library group. He also quoted statistics and said that libraries should be run by core professional staff, However, libraries need upgrading, should open longer hours and library numbers should be published. He did not appear to be very well informed about what libraries are actually doing.

The discussion included Digital Inclusion, which was supported by Green and Labour, but Justin said that libraries workers shouldn't be IT workers, they should have time to do their proper jobs. There was gasps and stuff from the floor, IT is so much part of librarianship these days. As for Secretary of State intervention to prevent library closure, Labour and Greens agreed that they should, and Conservative think that they should not interfere with local decisions. As for volunteers running libraries, Labour thought they may be a current necessary evil, Green was not clear on the situation and Conservatives thought that they add useful extra skills, but should not be the core of library function. One has to remember that they are politicians speaking to about 100 people passionate about libraries, they were not going to say anything contentious.  

The second part of the afternoon was devoted to the latest library reviews,Welsh Libraries and the Seighart Review of English public libraries. Clare Creaser gave a useful summary of the Welsh Libraries, which have library standards and the intention that a Minister of State can and will intervene to prevent library closure,

 http://wales.gov.uk/topics/cultureandsport/museumsarchiveslibraries/cymal/libraries/public-libraries-review/

Sue Chateris gave an indication of what may be in the Seighart Review when it is published and Alan Gibbons gave a very socialist and impassioned speech about the power of libraries which made me realise that he is now much more a library campaigner than a children's author these days.

The day finished with drinks and some food at a nearby pub where I got to know Barbara Band, the current President of CILIP who appears to be a very dedicated School Librarian, so we already had a bond and Ian Anstice of Public Libraries News, a website that spreads reported news about UK public libraries which puts this blog to shame.

http://www.publiclibrariesnews.com   

This is a long blogpost to reflect a long day. I got home at around 11pm. I was pleased that I was there to take part in the debate, and I hope I now have the resolve to ask all politicians that knock on my door in the next few months "What are you going to do about libraries?". Please do the same thing.

What IS a Librarian? Yet More from Library Camp 2014

What IS a Librarian? I asked at the session which I facilitated at Library Camp 2014. Of course, being a librarian I knew what I was, and the jobs that I did, and the various roles and activities that other librarians do. My reason for asking was to try to find the refined essence of librarianship, the one thing that can be explained to people to show the special skill that a librarian has to have. Like a builder constructs buildings, a medical doctor treats ailments, an accountant looks after finances. There are many nuances to their jobs, but that is their raison d'etre, their reason for being, so what is a librarian's definitive description?

I hoped by the end of the session that we would come up with a sentence or short paragraph that can the define the main quality of librarianship that can be used on websites, campaigns, in literature, letters to MPs, anywhere that the real job of a librarian needs to be explained. In the end we came up with the thought that maybe one snappy definition was not necessarily enough, the phrasing needed to be suitable for the intended audience, but we only had a scant 45 minutes to pursue a basically philosophical argument. We did come up with a number of ideas that certainly identified the threads that make up the tapestry of librarianship, and some good sentences.

I did not do a statistical survey of the jobs of the 15 or so people that came along to the session, so I can't scientifically say that they were a randomised sample of library staff, but I do know that some were qualified librarians, others were not. Some worked in public libraries and others in academic libraries, but they all agreed about the following aspects of librarianship.

• Librarians are a conduit of Knowledge
• Librarians support and facilitate Knowledge creation in the community
• Librarians engender empowerment

Those three statements on their own are powerful thoughts. They demonstrate that librarians deal with the flow of  knowledge from one individual to another. We all thought that there was an educational aspect to librarianship: a librarian doesn't know all the answers, but knows where to find them and can teach other people to do the same thing (information literacy). We realised that there is a spiral of knowledge creation, where a librarian is a key component: a librarian helps someone discover knowledge, the individual gains understanding and then can impart that knowledge, which is collected and distributed by a librarian. This bit really could do with a diagram, I need to think about this.

Meanwhile, here are some of the statements that were constructed:

"Our business is helping people access information"

"A librarian serves and empowers users and communities by sharing, facilitating and supporting access to knowledge and information"

"A librarian is a conduit of information who supports his/her users, and through sharing and facilitating this knowledge, thus empowers them"

"A librarian is a facilitator who supports the user and shares knowledge with information to empower and server their appropriate audience"

Well, I think there is enough there to show that a librarian is a Knowledge Broker. It is not all about books.

It's about anything that can contain knowledge: people, computers, images, maps, data, objects and artefacts, anything.

I promised the people who came to my Library Camp session that I would blog about the session and perhaps write something about it, so I am sorry that it has taken me a while to get around to it, but now I have I am inspired to go into more depth, and write that article.

An assemblage of reflections about Bookmobiles

"Bookmobile" is the very descriptive word that is used in America (and other countries) for a library vehicle that takes books and other library services around their countryside, towns and cities. Here are some links to articles where people reflect about their experiences, albeit some are brief, about book mobiles and what they are doing.

The first is a blog post that has stimulated a few answers:
http://www.thepassivevoice.com/10/2013/to-the-bookmobile-the-library-on-wheels-of-yesteryear/
I particularly like Rene's comment about her working experience in a bookmobile, and the short one by Edwin Mason. Perhaps he has now found one.

The second is from the Chemung County Library District blog:
http://ccldblog.wordpress.com/2013/10/21/the-ccld-bookmobile/
I love their nickname for this bookmobile and the fact that "you can't fail to notice it"

The third URL is rather more tricky to access, you have to go through a consumer survey before you are allowed to read the page, so I have copied and pasted the relevant article in case you don't want to do that. The article has interesting snippets of information about libraries in America. To make sure that the correct attribution is given, here is the URL:
http://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2013/10/22/bookmobile-rolls-into-county/

Bookmobile rolls into county

Published 11:15am Tuesday, October 22, 2013

  

By AMY JONES / Associate Editor
It might surprise some of you to learn that the United States has more libraries than it does McDonald’s locations.
Or that 1.1 billion people go to the library every year, compared to the 204 million tickets sold to sporting events.

I consider myself a major bookworm — most of the time, I’d rather read a book than watch a movie or TV — so I know the lure of a great library, but those facts surprised even me. I learned those when I was touring the Digital Bookmobile, which rolled into Hoover to visit Spain Park High School and Hoover High School Oct. 17-18.

Both schools have their own digital library databases that students can access at any time with personal computers, tablets, smart phones or other electronic devices. Spain Park librarian Marnie Utz said when Spain Park launched its digital library last year, most students were immediately comfortable using e-books and audiobooks via their school-provided iPads, and were able to seamlessly go back and forth between the brick-and-mortar school library and the digital library to get whatever they needed.

As a Hoover Public Library card holder, I have really enjoyed diving into the digital world via e-books. I love having books with me wherever I go just by downloading them onto my iPhone — as much as I enjoy the feel of a book’s pages between my fingers, it is very nice not to have to lug those books around in my bag.

I’m sure Spain Park students also enjoy the lighter backpacks they get as a result of using iPads and digital books.

Bailey Hotujac with OverDrive, which distributes the digital books used by Spain Park in its library, said she sees the Bookmobile as just another chance to get kids excited about reading in all its different forms.

“Anything that gets kids reading, I’m a fan,” she said.

I totally agree. There are so many forms of entertainment jostling for kids’ attention these days — video games, TV, movies, the Internet, social media, etc. — that I fully support any method of getting kids to read, even if it includes a screen.

For more information on the Digital Bookmobile, check out Digitalbookmobile.com.

Amy Jones is the associate editor of the Shelby County Reporter. She can be reached at amy.jones@shelbycountyreporter.com.

- See more at: http://www.shelbycountyreporter.com/2013/10/22/bookmobile-rolls-into-county/#sthash.vkonENXo.dpuf

It being Friday ...

Well, despite my great resolve that Friday would be blogging day, I have managed to miss at least three Fridays in succession but I feel I had good reasons for each of those times. Last Friday was half term and because the other half teaches, I decided to have a "holiday" as well. In actual fact, on Friday he had to do the marking he hadn't got round to, so I consoled myself with moving the books around in my personal Library. I have a study where we keep most of out book collections and a couple of years ago I decided to "Dewey" it. not intensely or accurately, but separate the fiction and non fiction and put things into rough Dewey groups. Because of the configuration of the book cases, the Dewey was not in the correct order and more than one set of shelves had fiction and non fiction. I bought and constructed another set of shelves, and have sorted it all out into order. Well, not to the exact 000.00, but in the right groups of the classification, The 300 are social science, the 600's technology, etc. I wonder whether that can count towards an exercise for Chartership?

The previous Friday, I was having fun in Cambridge with the Grandchild, doing autumnal things, sticking leaves on paper, doing a magic wand making trail in the Botanical Gardens, playing on the swings IN THE DARK!, carving a pumpkin and making pumpkin cake. We put raisins in the cake which was good:

Grandchild to my picky eater daughter: "We made a cake, mummy"
Daughter: "Ohh that looks nice, what sort of a cake is it?"
Grandchild: "Raisin cake"

The Friday before that, however, was a much more solemn occasion, I attended a memorial service at Loughborough University for Dr Ann O'Brien, who was one of the lectures there in the previously named Department of Information Science. The department got swallowed up by the School of Business and Economics, which is where Ann continued teaching. However, her death was particularly sudden and traumatic for the school because she experienced a fatal heart attack while working late in her office one evening.

I had come across Ann right at the start of my PhD work, I wanted teaching experience and she needed an assistant to help with tutorials, so I worked with her to teach small groups of students about meta-data and mark their resulting essays. The lessons were meticulously planned, and she was always happy to share her study with me on teaching days. She passionately felt that students needed pastoral care, and to learn effectively you really needed a system of small tutorials where not only you could talk to students, but they could feel more comfortable talking to you. I still can hear her voice telling me "Oh Marianne, you're doing a grand job". She was so grounded and homely.

She told me that she had been an academic librarian in Ireland and as part of her work, taught students. Her evident skills at teaching and relating to graduates were spotted and she was asked to work as a lecturer. I did not know that she had also spent time in America as part of an exchange programme, had conducted and published a ton of research, taught Ted Nelson about meta data and with another Loughborough lecturer had sorted out the joint library management systems for the Oxford colleges. I have a book she "lent" me, I will always treasure it to remember her.

More about Library Camp 2014

To get some sort of order into my #notcurrentlyinafulltimejob life I have decided to adopt my work schedule of Friday being blog day. Which means that I can shift some of the blog lag that I mentioned last week and here is a fuller account of one of the Library Camp sessions. It was about the possibilities of Public Libraries breaking away from their council and becoming some sort of community interest library. I went to the session because for some months now I have considered that a local council in my area appears to be running down children's library services. There used to be a large team of children's librarians which has dwindled to just a few people trying to cope with lots of little suburban libraries as well as one main city library. I know that they are lucky to have children's specialists, as I found out in the PhD research many library services do not have any children's specialists at all, and my research proved that generally, services with children's specialists achieved a much better service for their under 18's than those who did not. However, I have thought that I could, with a group of children's librarian friends, make a far superior children's library service to the area. The problem with that is two fold, convincing my friends to start a business, and how to find the right sort of business structure to provide enough income not to make a loss. I think I have found out how to do it.

The Library Camp 2014 session was lead by Andy Sinnot about the way that the City of York Libraries split away from the council to become an Industrial Provident Society (like the Co-op) to become Explore York. I got really enthusiastic about what they had achieved and as you can see below I took copious notes, which I now have to interpret into some sort of sense to show my friends. (I realise now why I never managed to type up my lecture notes when I was a student. I think I have a very unique take on Mind Mapping!)

So, making sense of the notes below, York Libraries knew that something had to change and a senior manager supported the decision to become a basically different sort of organisation. The ethos of Explore York is that the library service is not pushed onto volunteers having to fulfil roles, if there is a job to be done, then that is a paid post. Volunteers are used as they should be, as icing on the cake, adding the extra special bits. The IPS (Industrial Provident Society) is owned by the staff (one third of the business) and individual members. It is run by a board of trustees, through a CEO, and there are staff representatives on the board. They have not entirely split away from the council, they have a somewhat symbiotic relationship at the moment. They library buildings are rented from the council, services such as HR and IT are bought back from the council (although that may change in the future). The library sells services back to the council, such as Adult Education classes. But, because they are an independent business they have discovered that their costs have dropped considerably because companies charge them less for things like buying a small bit of carpet. They are also eligible for applying for more funding and as a sort of charity they will be able to reclaim tax expenditure.

All this could not have been achieved without the support of the council, the enthusiasm of the senior manager, important legal advice and most importantly getting the backing of library staff. It will be interesting to watch how the service develops. I am seeing my friends next week, I wonder what they will think about my idea?

Blog Lag: Library Camp 2014 and FLA

Oh dear, this not having a full time job problem seems to be making me very lazy. A few years ago if I attended a conference I would blog about it straight away before I forgot anything, but now I seem to put off the blogging until I have done other tasks on my list list. My excuse for not blogging library camp 2012 straight away is that I had to go to Nottingham early on the following morning (early for a Sunday that is) and talk to librarians of Women's and Feminist Libraries at their regular gathering (FLA). My reason for not blogging about FLA is that I had to finish writing a paper to take to my ex supervisor/colleague/co-author in Loughborough University, and while I was there I managed to pick up some teaching work, then I have had to do some planning, and so on and so on. So, or I really should say Therefore, there were a lots of "so"s in that last sentence, to catch up quickly I am doing a brief blog about both, and I may well do some longer blogs about some individual sessions that I attended in Library Camp 2014.

This year Library Camp went to the distant climes of the north east, Newcastle, (upon Tyne) and it seemed that many of the plucky people from down South couldn't find the pluck to venture on such a hazardous journey, (my apologies to the person who got up at some unearthly hour of the morning to get there, at least you had the pluck) because numbers were distinctly down. However, the delegates that did attend were definitely from the brightest and best because an interesting and stimulating time was had, yet again. The conference format ensures that each year it is different and manges to produce session facilitators who are passionate and interested about the topics they suggest.

I went to one about an initiative called "Common Libraries" which are dedicated spaces that have the actives wanted by local people taught by the local people. The trade is in Knowledge, facilities and resources are provided for someone to teach a craft or skill and share it by writing down what how to make something putting a "maker kit" in a "maker box" which is borrowed by someone wanting that knowledge. The prototype is happening in Colchester. Then I found out about Community Interest Companies and Industrial Provident Societies (IPS) because York Library service has split with the city council and has become an IPS. This was very illuminating and shows how a library service can fight back, and the problems that councils have being run as councils (the quotes for supplying new carpet went down significantly after the library was not part of the council). I ran a session myself, trying to define what a librarian is and what a librarian does, so that will be blogged about separately. Finally, I attended a rather un unconferency presentation of "Dawn of the Unread". This is a fascinating concept being done in Nottingham to try to engage children with more reading. It is currently a series of one off online graphic novels about Nottinghamshire literary characters (Such as Byron Clough and DH Lawrence, Vampire Hunter) which have embedded links to other interesting stuff.

Other good things about Library Camp is meeting people who you would otherwise not meet, getting to see familiar faces again and above all the discussion with like minded people, and the hope that libraries will again struggle through the silly imposed cuts.

The FLA meeting was altogether different, just 12 of us, with two ladies from Japan. I was there to talk about Wikipedia Editing and the representation of women on Wikipedia. Women's and Feminist Librarians are very keen to make sure that notable women take their rightful place in history and that more women should edit English Wikipedia, as it appears to be flooded with young white American males (according to the Wikipedia Foundation). I found the gathering very illuminating, I have visited a Women's library, but I did not know about Feminist libraries. Feminist libraries are trying to document the history and development of the Feminist movement, with collections of music, books, images and oral histories.

All in all that was a busy but rewarding weekend, something to record in more depth for my Chartership portfolio. But now the other half is home from work, so I have to leave my trusty laptop and make his dinner! (actually, I am more of a feminist that that, and so is he!)

More about Wikimania 2014, London

Lakeside at the Barbican

I am squashing two days of Wikimania into this blog post, because by this time the events and experiences have merged and blurred because there were so many of them. It was also the weekend, and  being awake, up and about, talking to people, exercising my brain and learning before 11am was quite challenging to the constitution.

Saturday started well with a session of learning to edit. I am not a very proficient Wikipedia editor and the few little articles I have written have been produced with technical help from people better at it than me. Time for me to get this sorted, I decided, so I joined the workshop being run by user Rexx. He was very good, and now I actually have a user page and some more confidence to write something entirely under my own steam. Because I am a librarian, not to mention an author of an academic paper or two, I thought it best to find out more about the latest version of Creative Commons licensing (4.0). I heard two talks on that, both from "The horses mouth", people actively involved in the development and writing the licenses. CC 4.0 is more eclectic, it encompasses the laws of many countries and the wording has become clearer. It is also easier to make attributions to licensed work.

I managed to catch most of Jack Andraka's presentation, I missed the start because I was deep in conversation with a member of the public at the Wikimedia UK stall. Jack is the young man that had an idea of how to develop a test for pancreatic cancer because he had read some science articles that were available for any member of the public to read  through Open Access. Jack was a very engaging young man and a very confident speaker. The surprising thing about him, though, was that he considered himself very ordinary and that young people in America are engaged in inventing new things. He looks up to friend of his who has built a nuclear reactor in his parent's garage. This made me think that there is something very wrong in the British educational system. perhaps we do not have enough faith in the intelligence and creativity of young people?

The high point of Saturday, however, came in the evening when there was a mini version of the Edinburgh Fringe, but in London, with a Wikipedia themed comedy night. The performers were not just excellent comedians, but academics, including Dan Schreiber, a QI writer, Simon Singh, writer and mathematician, Dr Steve Cross of University College London and  others so funny that I have forgotten their names. I found this entertainment particularly interesting because the other half and I attended a stand up comedy workshop earlier in the year, when I started writing a few stand up minutes about being an information scientist. Steve Cross set up academic stand up comedy (called Bright Club), to help spread public engagement with science.

The "Sculpture Court", a peaceful courtyard in the middle of the Barbican just right for blogging

Sunday started with the media, Bill Thompson of the BBC talking about the rise of social media and citizen journalism, although he started with a phrase suitable for the Wikipedia themed comedy night "Freedom's just another word for something left to edit". Bill explained that professional journalists used to be the people who wrote the first draft of history, but now people using social media, twitter, blogs, etc, have taken their place. This means that professional journalist now have to be in advance of the bloggers, making the 0th draft of history, A new model of journalism is emerging, a sort of collaborative joint account of the world's events. He compared the concepts and premise of the BBC as being similar to Wikipedia, there is no advertising and education is a major remit of both. Both serve the public interest and he stated that he considers the BBC archive of broadcast programmes being part of the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) community. The speech seemed to flow from one concept to another, but I think Bill's overall meaning was that the BBC is concerned with the free and open flow of knowledge, be it journalistic reporting over events, or of more educative and cultural programmes; science documentaries, well scripted drama's, promenade concerts, etc. and this is what Wikipedia is also concerned with.

The final  talk that I attended on Sunday was one about the worth of  face to face editing sessions. This was a panel discussion that appeared to be lead by a Wikimedia Foundation researcher who had found a great deal of difficulty getting Wikipedia editing trainers to report the sessions that they gave and to evaluate the impact of the sessions. Money is being spent on these sessions and it seems that most of the people who attend these sessions do not go on to becoming an editor, so is it worth doing? Some of the trained trainers in the room made the point that at least some more articles had been written or improved, which is always a bonus, that at least people know how to edit, and gaining more long term editors is not necessarily the point of doing the training. Other individuals said that they often show people how to edit Wikipedia in a less formal surroundings, because someone has noticed what they are doing on their laptops and want to know what to do. I used the analogy that the discussion was like educated people in the 6th century saying that they do not know why they bother to train boys to use quills and vellum to write and illustrate because few of them end up being monks and writing a decent illustrated manuscript. Meaning that it is the stimulation of literacy is important and that knowing how to do something does not mean that someone wants to do it all the time, or to a high degree of proficiency.

So, what I think about the conference as whole? I thought that the community village was a great opportunity to find out what is going on in different parts of the world, with Wikipedia chapters and with open access organisations as a whole. I thought the discussions interesting and thought provoking, and being the sort of person who considers that information and knowledge should be as free as the air that we breathe I felt inspired by the people who are fighting hard to make it that way. I also found it exciting that it was a gathering of people from all over the world who had come together peacefully with a common interest and made me hope that even in troubled times World Peace may just be a possibility.

Day two of Wikimania,

The second day of Wikimania found me working at the Wikimedia UK stall in the Community Village. This was a selection of stalls where the various Wikipedia “chapters” from around the world, the different projects of Wikipedia and allied open source organisations had a chance to sit, give away food, such as stroopwaffles, and talk to people about what they do. This Community Village was situated at one of the main entrances to the Barbican Centre and was in an area open to the public. This meant that there were many people looking at the stalls who knew little about Wikipedia and then could find out a great deal more. I spoke to a number of people who wanted to know more about Wikipedia, about editing and about the activities of the Wikimedia UK, such as the woman who had just come to drop off her library book who entered a lively debate between me and a young man form America who couldn't understand the difference between England and Britain or the librarian from the Feminist library wanting a woman to teach a group to edit Wikipedia; an interesting opportunity to improve the representation of notable women in Wikipedia. As well as giving out information, leaflets and free beer mats, I was able to listen to some of the talks. These are two that caught my attention.

 Andy Mabbett outlined his work of recording the voices of living people who have articles in Wikipedia and adding the recorded voice as a small roughly 10 second sound clip. The purpose is to have a historic record of their voice and a canonical pronunciation of their name. He advised that it is important to keep the message neutral, eg not let them say “hello Wikipedia” so that the recording can be used in other places. Andy needs some help in doing it because locating the people is difficult. So if you know a person with a Wikipedia article could you record their voice for Wikipedia? There is a page of instructions on how to do it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiVIP. Techies amongst you will understand this, but I don’t, apparently you must use an ogg or flack file, not Mp3. Some people in the hackathon are working on a website to record and add things to the relevant article in order to make it easier.

Zillah Watson of the BBC, found out what Andy was doing, because she was working with the research section of the world service radio archive. Amongst other things they have worked out how to identify individual speakers from their voice, automatically. They wanted a library of voices, sample and clips, so they have added them to Wikipedia. This is the first time the BBC has released files from their programs with an open licence. In consequence the project has added new articles of people to Wikipedia that had the voices, but not the articles, as well as adding voices to existing articles. The BBC project is still running.

The idea of keeping someone's voice for posterity appears to be a means to give an emotional depth and reality to the life a person. The human hearing seems to pick up so many nuances, and just from a few voice snippets people in the future may think things like, "Jimmy Wales sounds like a good guy" or "Stephen Fry sounds really friendly".

Peter Murray-Rust is a Doctor of Chemistry working in Cambridge University who has been a Wikipedia editor for many years and is a passionate advocate for Open Access, Open Data and open science in general. He believes that Wikipedia is the future of science and is currently entering into a collaboration with WikiData. He has been running a project to find a means of machine reading PDF files, and that is because he wants to extract facts from scientific papers, which unfortunately are published as PDFs. His project has managed to do this, and Peter has chosen to add the data generated this way to WikiData. I think that it is a significant breakthrough to be able to machine read PDFs, that would make searching the content of things on the internet so much easier. More can be read on the project website www.contentmine.org.  

In the evening I met up with the other half, sorry, I haven't mentioned that he was also there, in fact he is the real Wikipedia editor in out household, I only dabble, and as he had arranged to go out for a drink with some other editors that he either knew, or that he had stumbled upon during the day, and I wanted to see the ceramic poppies outside the Tower of London commemorating the start of WW1,(http://poppies.hrp.org.uk)  we led off an expedition of various nationalities, including Dutch and Australian, to the Tower, stopping at a Pizza Express for food and drink on the way back.

    

Wikimania 2014, now in London

Can you imagine a tropical paradise in the centre of a Metropolis, a place of exotic plants, water and laptops?... Laptops? what are they doing there? Well, that is the scene that I have just encountered at the Conservatory of  the Barbican Centre in London at Wikimania, the phenomena that is the annual global celebration of the Wikipedia community.

It started Friday and I am attending as a Wikimedia UK volunteer, helping out at the Community Village where there are stalls from the various Wikimedia chapters from over the world. I will be sending out a few blogs about the event over the next few days. The opening ceremony last night had a few speakers, Ed Saperia who was the initiator and motivator for bringing Wikimania to London; Jon Davies, the Chief Executive for Wikimedia UK, the body who organised the event together with the Wikipedia Foundation; Lila Tretikov the new CEO of the Wikipedia Foundation and of course, Jimmy Wales himself. They set the scene of why Wikimania came to London, how it has been organised, and they all emphasised the power of Wikipedia.

Jimmy Wales endeared the crowd by telling us that Wikimania is a gathering of  "A bunch of geeks like us…" who together are making Wikipedia "as good as well possibly can be". There was an emphasis of  the Wikipedia opposition of “right to be forgotten”, as introduced by European legislation against Google and the statement that Wikipedia hardly ever has been asked to take down articles about people because generally they are fair and accurate articles. The point about this issue that was not stated is that search engines such are Google are indiscriminate about the things that appear there, but there are so many levels of editing and moderation, that a certain amount of censorship of articles occur before they are generally read. For example, if an editor wrote something slanderous about an individual, or added something spiteful, untrue or exaggerated, then the general rules of proving the veracity of the article apply and these statements will be removed. On the other hand, if an individual has a chequered past that they do not wish to be exposed it will be perfectly legal to add facts about their previous life to Wikipedia it can be done in an objective manner. Jimmy believes that Wikipedia is really really powerful and should have an influence on open policies.

The most thought provoking keynote speech, however, was Salil Shetty Secretary General of Amnesty International, who talked about their principles and the similarity in the main tenets of  Amnesty International and Wikipedia. Amnesty International was started in the 1961 by Peter Benenson, a British lawyer to campaign for the human rights of individuals. They are carrying on fights against the death penalty and torture across the globe. They do not take money from governments or corporations so that they can preserve their impartiality. Members are from Europe and N America, and Amnesty international know that they need more in India and S Africa, the developing world. Therefore, staff are moving out to these other world.  It is  mainly a letter writing organisation but it has started to use modern technology to help detect where there are problems in the world, for example,  a panic button app for those under threat; satellite imaging to look at prison camp development and oil spills, so that they can give independent evidence of in humanities. 





Here I am at the Wikimedia UK stall, holding a Welsh flag with Robin from the Welsh Wicipedia.

Looking at my collection of Bookmobile and Children's Mobile Library Alerts

It may seem that I have totally abandoned children's mobile libraries and have switched camp to Open Access, and certainly the Full Time Job gets in the way of doing just what I want to do, but amongst the intellectual bother of writing papers, applying for permanent jobs and not getting them and keeping OpenDOAR (www.opendoar.org) as up to date as I can, I am still gathering as much information as I can about children's mobile libraries. Here is a link to an article in an American local paper about a mobile library that was axed and has been re-instated. Strictly it is a general bookmobile, but the staff comment about the importance of reaching out to children, amongst other groups that are hard to get into a static library. The staff feel that running the library is worthwhile if it gets children reading.

http://magicvalley.com/news/local/twin-falls-library-brings-back-bookmobile/article_c31456bb-14ce-5890-b3e9-61f4ba7bb390.html

Here is another example of an American bookmobile bringing books, excitement and literature and literacy to children as this Author/Attorney remembers.

http://patriciareding.booklikes.com/post/564126/the-bookmobile-is-here-

It does make me wonder whether she would just be an attorney if she had not had her imagination stretched by the visit of the bookmobile.

Just for good measure today, here is a link to another blog about the potted history of bookmobiles across America. I have added it here as somewhere safe to keep it!

http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2013/10/09/derek-attig-on-the-history-of-bookmobiles/

I will write some more posts when I have finished trudging through my accumulation of alerts and picked out the best ones.