I’ve grown up using ABC Radio National as an intellectual lifeline and social touchstone. It’s probably affected my personal politics. It was certainly good company during long hours of sitting on the couch breastfeeding.

Last week, my friend Radio National spoke to me of libraries. Library buildings and design on the By Design program, and on Australia Talks Back, the topic that is on every regular person’s mind – the place of referencing and plagarism.

I get very little time to listen at the moment, so I wonder how many other library related topics they broadcast. What else would one expect from an organisation who lists their librarians in the closing credits of their national current affairs flagship, Four Corners?

Enjoy the links below, but soon, as they usually are taken down after about a month.

Library Design

1. From By Design , broadcast Saturday 7th October 2006

Listen Now – 07102006 | Download Audio – 07102006

Close your eyes and conjure up an image of a library.Rows upon rows of dusty books. Presenting your order card to a matronly-looking librarian in a cardigan behind a counter and an assistant ready to disappear into what was commonly referred to as “the stack” – some vast basement space where the book you are seeking has sat unopened for half a century?Or perhaps this description from Germaine Greer’s is more in keeping with your image of the library: ” Libraries”, says Greer,” Are reservoirs of strength, grace of wit, reminders of order, calm and continuity, lakes of mental energy, neither warm nor cold, light nor dark.But the shape of libraries, and what their space, represents in the community is rapidly evolving.

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Intellectual Property, Plagiarism, and the Circulation of Ideas

From Australia Talks Back, broadcast Tuesday 3 October 2006

Listen Now – 03102006 | Download Audio – 03102006

Intellectual Property, plagiarism, and whether footnotes are just a way for researchers to show they went to the library one day. With the internet comes more allegations of plagiarism and the stealing of ideas . . . but do we have the balance right, of policing deception and letting ideas circulate freely?