For several years now I have observed the increasing success of the Virtual International Day of the Midwife (an online conference for midwives) — Sarah Stewart’s “baby” so to speak.

Now there is one for anyone interested in the library world. Library 2.012 Worldwide Virtual Conference October 3 – 5, 2012. It is a free conference held online, in multiple time zones, over 2 calendar days (three if you take all the time zones into account.

It looks to be a much larger affair than VIDM with several strands of presentations being planned. The School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at San José State University (http://slisweb.sjsu.edu/) is the founding conference sponsor. Opportunities for commercial sponsorship, and conference partner organisations are available.

The call for presentation proposals is open.

Sarah Stewart taking part in last year’s VIDM.

Image : Virtual International Day of the Midwife 2011 by Sarah M Stewart. Reproduced under a Creative Commons Licence.

Definitely worth a look…

And have a play with the ngram viewer. I used the terms ‘libraries’ and ‘librarians’. There was a peak in 1970s and a decline since then. Uh oh! Or does this just mean that those topics are now being written about in non-book formats?

A is for the artists who make up rant’s top 5

B is for the Birkenstocks that keep Hoi’s feet alive

C is for the conferences and industry gatherings

D is for the dinner that Jo wished she didn’t have to cook

E is for the evening out, the sun set, take a look

F is for the friendship when opposites attract

G is for the great company and drinking chocolate hot

H is for the handlebars featured in Mal’s shot

I is for the iPhone app the Farmers market has

J is for the jamming folk rock duo, no not jazz

K is for the Kolding Bibliotek

L is for the Little Women memories

M is for the mutterings about the literacies

N is for the noisy places in which busking can occur

O is for the Olives for which JayGee has a cure

P is for the Peter, Lord Wimsey is his name

Q is for the question should I stand or should I go

R is for the rules to which staff discretion might say no!

S is for the Significance, degrees of which unknown

T is for the travelling when time has really flown

U is for the Urban conservation studies in Kew

V is for the Voice, Jenelle’s a fan of you

W is for the two Wes Moores by the grace of God they go

X is for the cross reference – would this cookbook help for Jo?

W is for the Webby’s revealing keepmeout

Y is for the Yesterday in which the posts were all let out

Z is for the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz a lazy day includes

I can’t be bothered making sure they all scan and rhyme,

Any guesses, gentle readers, which tune is in my head?

On weekends our thoughts turn to food, hobbies and entertainment for the most part, but there are still a few serious posts in this lot.

Kitchen Capers

• Spam Spam Spam (just kidding about this category)
• Timing
• Turkey and coriander balls in tomato sauce
• Turkey and coriander balls (Yep those meatballs go a long way)

Crafty Work

• Learning to Crochet
• Stash Plans – Man Socks
• Stash plans – cowl neck scarf
• Friday Scrap Class
• Saturday Crop Day

Up Close and Personal

• Book Review : Winning after Losing by Stacey Halprin
• Diabetes and Me

Crowd Sourcing – your thoughts wanted

• A Pending Purchase
• Saying no away from work

Cultural Pursuits

• Film Review – Super 8
• Red Riders on Stage for the last time at OAF (Image)
• Bayerische Staatsbibliothek – Bavarian State Library
• fear
• This Busker at Penn was Amazing (Image)

Concerning Books

• This is how two designers organise their bookshelves (Image)
• Stupid Stupid Stupid
• Have eReader will Travel

This week there will be no tag cloud, but there will be apologies to William Shakespeare…

To meme, or not to meme: that is the question:
Whether ’tis nobler on rice to suffer
the quirky things our borrowers do,
Or to take arms against a gratuitous pet blog,
And by travelling through the sense of home? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by gamestorming to say we end
The podcasts and collective innovation
That flesh is heir to, ’tis a book review
Devoutly to be wish’d.
To blah, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance sweater p()rn:
ay, there’s the rub;
For in that Pondering Pentecost what dreams may come
When you’re sick in 2011,
Must give us price: there’s the respect
That makes calamity of Too lazy to Post;
For Glenti would bear the overdrive(n) to despair,
The information architecture, and digital libraries,
The progress of despised love, the new blowtorch
The rock star life and the spurns
That patient merit of what are you selling,
When he himself might op shop holiday make

I wanted to provide a different way for us to explore the posts from yesterday. This has not turned out as well as I’d hoped, but I thought another text-filled post might be hard to digest given the totally awesome response to this year’s challenge of blogging each day of June.

So, here it is. It kind of works. Have fun exploring …

I used Tagul (beta) to create the tag cloud. I also created a custom search engine in Google to search across the blogs taking part in the challenge. The search engine is linked into the tags, but the date range and indexing of posts is not quite what I was hoping for.

BTW – I’m not actually taking part in the challenge over at Inn0vate.

This is great. The Auslan version of Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clement – made available by the Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) for National Simultaneous Storytime 2011 (NSS).

The simultaneous bit starts at 11.00am AEST today.

Today is the first day of Library and Information Week in Australia and there are plenty of events and initiatives kicking off.

ALIA has teamed up with the Wiggles to launch two community announcements to ‘make Australia a reading nation’. Here is one to share with parents of young children and babies.

image by iandeth (Creative Commons License: Attribution)

National Simultaneous Storytime is on Wednesday and the chosen book is Feathers for Phoebe by Rod Clement. 11:00am at libraries all over Australia.

Some libraries are also holding morning teas as part of the Cancer Council’s The Biggest Morning Tea which is also on this week.

LIW also coincides with National Palliative Care week. The theme is ‘If only I knew… how to talk about dying’. The theme for LIW is ‘We find stuff’. Public libraries are a good place to find resources on death and dying (and any other subject under the Sun).

What are you doing to celebrate LIW?

It’s been a long time since we published a LINTerview, but last week Jo tweeted about a staff award her team had won, and one tweet led to another and to a blog post…

Jo is Youth Outreach Librarian at Logan Library Service in Queensland.  Logan has 280,000 residents, 63 suburbs, 9  libraries spread across a 960 km2 area, serves 185 ethnic groups and is growing by more than 2% each year.

PH – I saw on Twitter that your work team won a customer service innovation award for a program at Logan Libraries. Who’s on the team?JB - The Logan Libraries Young peoples team is made up of Young People’s Librarian Jenny Hall (Pictured), Youth outreach librarian, me (Jo Beazley pictured) and 8 YPLO’s (Young peoples liaison officers). 

PH – Tell us about the program.
JB – Technology for Toddlers is a hands-on computer and technology session held at Logan City Council Libraries for parents and carers and their children aged 2 – 5 years.  A training package and resources for the Technology for Toddler sessions were created by the Young Peoples Librarian in consultation with the Young Peoples Team.   Interested Young Peoples staff  were trained in implementing the sessions and using the resources at the libraries.   Staff have continued to roll out and further develop the resources for these sessions at the nine library branches.

The sessions were not just about educating the young children how to use the computers and learning software but they were about educating the parents and carers attending. Parents and carers are the first and most influential educators of children and these sessions were about putting quality free technology resources available from the libraries for the very young into the hands of these educators. Many adults are happy to explore technology resources with young children at home or at the library but there are many who need help to know where to start and what is available.

 
PH – What’s involved, how is the program delivered?
JB – The sessions involved staff demonstrating and leading participants in using a range of free online resources available to help develop literacy and computer skills in young children.  The aim of the sessions was to provide participants with opportunities to:

• Gain new knowledge and understanding of the ways technology (computers) can help their children learn.
• Discover the range of computer software in the library to support and enhance learning
• Build links between the home and the library
• Attain new skills to further develop a home learning environment
• Gain an understanding of why children should become familiar with technology
• Learn how young children can use computers
• Participate with their child/ren in activities exploring hands on use for computers, hardware and software available for parents learning alongside their children.

PH – What have you enjoyed most about it?
JB -  I personally loved watching the mums learn basic computing at the same time as their children are, and seeing both hands on the mouse.

PH – What challenges were faced in developing this program?
JB – Staff buy in.  Trying to convince staff that booking out a meeting room of PC’s for mums and toddlers is good use of the machines.

PH – How long as the program been going?
JB – A trial of the tech for Toddlers sessions commenced in February and May last year across the 9 Logan City Council Library branches.  Due to the program’s success the sessions continue to be held at various branches in 2011.

Thanks Jo, and congratulations to the team at Logan Libraries on their award and the success of the program.

Image by Jobeaz reproduced under a CC licence.

Been offline over the weekend? You may have missed the news on HarperCollins new licences for ebooks for libraries. This came to the attention of librarians via a message from Overdrive CEO Steve Potash, who did not actually mention the publisher’s name. HarperCollins confirmed it was the publisher in question.

Two key things to note is the limit of 26 checkouts of titles and tightening up on geographical use – who libraries are issuing cards to. There are around 25 Australian library services listed on the Overdrive site.

I won’t go into other details as others have written about this already. You can read:

• HarperCollins Puts 26 Loan Cap on Ebook Circulations – LibraryJournal.com
• Let’s Play Rent-a-Book – David Lee King
• Publishing Industry Forces OverDrive and Other Library eBook Vendors to Take a Giant Step Back – Bobbi L. Newman

To follow the Twitter conversation on this checkout #hcod on Twitter or Twapperkeeper archive

Responses ranged from the visceral to the satirical.

For some it was the proverbial straw provoking them to feelings of anger and disgust.

Others wanting to express their frustration and look for some light-hearted responses started tweeting satirical book titles using the tag #hcodtitles.

Like these…

@marinakastan RT @wawoodworth: Sense & Limited Useability #hcodtitles
Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:52:23 +0000 – tweet id 41359899837472768 – #12
tweet details

@LundeenLiterary ROFL!!! @michaelkpate One Thousand and One Nights Minus Nine Hundred and Seventy Five #hcodtitles
Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:29:37 +0000 – tweet id 41354172305510400 – #27
tweet details

@PMMcG My last #hcodtitles –> You don’t get to 26 friends without making a few enemies
Sat, 26 Feb 2011 04:53:38 +0000 – tweet id 41360215890862081 – #11
tweet details

If you are handy with the digital imaging, you might like to enter the LOLbrarians competition inspired by this news. Check out LOLibrarians: a Photoshop Contest at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

Image by rochelle, et. al, reproduced under a creative commons licence.