Blogging Librarian

Just saw the announcement of CC Singapore on my feedreader from Creative Commons blog. Currently, the draft of CC BY-NC-SA is put for public discussion. So, do go over to CC Singapore to join in the discussion. CC Singapore is hosted by the Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy (CAPTEL) and is lead by Anil Samtani and Giorgos Cheliotis.

The launch event is planned for 27 July 2008 with the completed licensing suite.

Just read on the Encyclopaedia Britannica blog that they have decided to move their entire works into a wiki platform.

Very interesting news indeed! I think Encyclopaedia Britannica is getting a little worried about the increasing influence of Wikipedia although many academic institutions still disallow its use for citation purposes in the students’ papers.

For me, I actually use Wikipedia quite a bit when I’m providing advisory service. I use it as my preliminary search, but then branch off to look for relevant information through our books, e-resources and the Web.

Well, will definitely keep an eye open for the Encyclopaedia Britannica wiki.

The shortlist of Best of the Bookers award has been announced and it pits six past winners of the Booker Prize to determine which novel is the best winning one since the prize began in 1969. It is a one-off celebratory award to mark the 40th anniversary of the Booker Prize.

The books in the shortlist were chosen by a team that comprises biographer Victoria Glendinning, broadcaster Mariella Frostrup, and John Mullan, professor of English at the University of London. However, the best book will be decided by a public vote that started yesterday on The Man Booker Prize website with the winner to be announced on 10 July 2008.

The shortlist of books are as follows:

• Pat Barker’s The Ghost Road (1995) (Call No.: English BAR)
• Peter Carey’s Oscar and Lucinda (1988) (Call No.: English CAR)
• JM Coetzee’s Disgrace (1999) (Call No.: English COE)
• JG Farrell’s The Siege of Krishnapur (1973) (Call No.: English FAR or here)
• Nadine Gordimer’s The Conservationist (1974) (Call No.: English GOR)
• Salman Rushdie’s Midnight Children (1981) (Call No.: English RUS or here)

Remember to go read the books and vote at the website!

(via BBC News | Entertainment and The Guardian)

- “Libraries Aren’t Just Buildings Where Books Are Kept”

(via The Shifted Librarian)

- Just One More Book
Just One More Book is a podcast about children’s books. It is run by a husband and wife team and the podcasts are recorded in their favorite coffee shop somewhere in Ottawa, Canada. The podcasts are posted about 3 times per week and they range from 5 and 25 minutes in length. The topics for the podcasts cover favorite books and interviews with authors as well as literacy issues. To date, there are more than 300 podcasts that have been archived. Do go check it!
(via LibrarianInBlack)

- Lexicographical Longing
The Oxford English Dictionary (O.E.D.) seems to be going the way of the dodo bird. The publishers, Oxford University Press, has decided not to publish a new print edition. So, the last printed edition of O.E.D. was done in 1989 and was in 20 volumes. At the moment, the editors at O.E.D. are slowly transferring all the content onto the Web. You can register for an account at OED.com though it costs money (US$300 a year or US$30 a month).

The shortlists for James Tait Black Memorial prizes for non-fiction and biography have been announced yesterday.

The James Tait Black Memorial prizes were founded in 1919 by the widow of Edinburgh publisher James Tait Black. The book award is also quite unique as it is the only one that is judged by scholars and graduate students of literature. The literature graduate students assist in compiling the shortlists by writing reports on the books submitted. The prize advisory committees will then decide on the awards. The awards are hosted by the literature department of the Edinburgh University.

The shortlists are as follows:

Fiction shortlist
Our Horses in Egypt by Rosalind Belben
The Devil’s Footprints by John Burnside
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
A Far Country by Daniel Mason
Salvage by Gee Williams

Biography shortlist
Hand Me My Travelin’ Shoes: In Search of Blind Willie McTell by Michael Gray
God’s Architect: Pugin and the Building of Romantic Britain by Rosemary Hill
Edith Wharton by Hermione Lee
Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
John Stuart Mill: Victorian Firebrand by Richard Reeves

The prizes will be awarded in August at a ceremony at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

Last year’s winners were Cormac McCarthy for The Road and Byron Rogers for The Man Who Went into the West: The Life of RS Thomas. Some other past winners include DH Lawrence, LM Forster, Graham Greene, Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, and Zadie Smith.

So, what is a “Living Library”?

From this Times Online article, a “Living Library” is one that loans out a real person rather than a book for 30 minutes.

Depending on availability, the line-up of the human “books” are different. This seems like quite an interesting way to acquire knowledge. But I guess this might be a more effective method for some people rather than just reading a book.

“Living Library” first started as an experiment by Ronni Abergel at the Danish Music Festival in 2000 and it has toured most parts of Scandinavia.

It seems like Australia caught on to the concept of the “Living Library” quite a bit and about 4 libraries have set up such a service. The most active is the Richmond-Tweed Regional Library’s Lismore’s Living Library, which holds one session per month and they have about 15-20 “books” per session. They even have more than a copy of the more popular topics. Other libraries include the Gosford City Council’s Living Library and Swinburne’s Prahran Library. There is also a Living Library in Sydney that runs only once a year in October as part of the Mental Health Week there.

In other parts of the world, Canada’s Douglas College has also started a Living Library where students can “borrow”. And now there’s one in London.

Some notes on the “Living Library”:
- Living Library Seminar by Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP)

- “Empty Pockets” PSA for Australian Libraries

YouTube Text Link
(via LibrarianInBlack)

- Carnegie’s shortlist takes children back in time
UK’s oldest and most prestigious children’s book award has just announced it’s shortlist. Interestingly, all the nominees have a common theme of world history and its conflicts. The shortlist is as follows: Elizabeth Laird’s Crusade, Tanya Landeman’s Apache, Philip Reeve’s Here Lies Arthur, Linzi Glass’ Ruby Red, Kevin-Crossley Holland’s Gatty’s Tale, Meg Rosoff’s What I Was, Jenny Valentine’s Finding Violet Park

- Darwin’s first draft goes online
The draft notes of Charles Darwin which eventually led to the writing of his theory of evolution has been made available online. These draft notes are part of the 20,000 archive items that have been made available as part of the Charles Darwin online archive.

Australian author, Sonya Hartnett, was announced as this year’s awardee for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial award for literature. The award comes with a 5m Swedish kronor prize (S$1.41m) and this is the sixth installment of the award. She would be presented with the award on 28 May by Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria at Stockholm’s open-air Skansen museum.

Hartnett, 39, has written about 18 novels for children, young people and adults. She wrote her first novel, Trouble All The Way, when she was only 15. Other books include Surrender, Stripes of the Sidestep Wolf, Forest, What the Birds See, Thursday’s Child, and Princes.

The award is given out by Swedish government to commemorate the creator of the popular Pippi Longstocking books. The purpose of the prize is to promote interest in children’s and youth literature around the world as well as to strengthen children’s rights on a global scale. Previous winners of the Astrid Lindgren Memorial award include Philip Pullman and Maurice Sendak.

- 100 books every child should read
A pretty long article that has been broken up into 4 parts. This first part is just an introduction into the joys of reading, particularly when you start at an early age. The other three list the books according to the age of the child: early years, middle years and early teens.

- Kerpoof
What’s this you ask? Well, this is the children’s version of Facebook without the deluge of ignoring application invites. The site is for children to communicate and collaborate with each other online. And the site only allows kids that know each other to interact online. Interestingly, the company that runs Kerpoof says that more and more schools are using it in the US. I guess teachers are also making of online tools as much as librarians in engaging kids.
(via Techcrunch)

- Bookchase®
Ever wanted to run your own little bookshop, but without laying out the actual capital? Well, now you can! A company in the UK has developed the world’s first board game about books. And it does look really interesting. The price is a little steep for a board game at S$90 before shipping, but I know who would be interested in playing it.
(via LibrarianInBlack)

- Gaming, School Libraries and Curriculum
Next time anyone asks you why you are playing so much video games, point them to this article. Just don’t quote me on it. Alternatively, you might also want to read Paul Waelchli’s article on the skills used to play popular videogames.
(via The Shifted Librarian)

- MCL Learning 2.0
Chance upon this site when I was doing some search on Web 2.0 usage in libraries. Very interesting and I’m sure we can use some of this to encourage more staff to dip their toes into the giant pool of Web 2.0 tools and technologies. I think I’ll also be using this to prepare for my talks to teachers on the use of Web 2.0 tools for schools.

- Librarians at the gates
Although this news article is about the striking library staff in Victoria, Canada, I particularly like the quote from one of the reference librarians, Peter Thompson, who says, “If you don’t like working with people, you won’t like librarianship.” How true!!! Read the article for more inspiring quotes from this same librarian.
(via LISNews)

- Public Transportation Meets Public Library
Very interesting concept to put book vending machines at BART stations (that’s like our MRT stations). However, the concept might not work in Singapore given that most libraries are at close proximity to the MRT stations. But maybe we can put it at, say, Changi Airport for travelers to pick up a book on their way out of the country.
(via Library Stuff)

With the final book of the JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, to be announced in a few hours’ time, the Guardian Unlimited has reported that ChildLine, a counseling service for children and young people in the UK, will be adding additional staff over the next few days to cope with the anticipated surge in calls from grief-stricken fans.

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