A Green Tree

The ancient art of bonsai reminds us that it's the little things we do everyday that provide our lives with shape and form.

I was given this lovely little tree for my birthday and I am loving the idea of looking after it for many years. The tree is a juniper and it is already seven years old. Admittedly I don't have a good track record of taking care of plants... but I've got a good feeling about this one and hope that it will thrive under my care.

"Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come."
- Chinese Proverb

The Practice of Sustainability in the Library

I recently completed a TAFE course called "Participating in Sustainable Work Practices" and the course content heightened my awareness of the need to reduce waste. Early in the course all students were directed to watch the online animated video called "The story of stuff". The video takes you through the life-cycle of a product and makes you aware of the amount of resources that are consumed when a relatively insignificant item is produced and eventually ends up in landfill. Anyway, it certainly got me thinking about the amount of 'stuff' I consume and how I can reduce it.

When analysing the way that I worked I found that there was an amazing number of ways that I could reduce waste - particularly paper waste. My colleague and I are now continually coming up with ideas to reduce the amount of paper that we need to use in the Library by redesigning work flows, and storing information on the computer instead of printing and filing it. It's quite a fun game when you really get into it!

Librarians talk to a lot of people in society and we can teach ecologically sustainable practices to those we interact with. Let's teach ourselves to be as economical as possible and help to change attitudes about waste.

Appreciating our 'Freedom to read'

We are very fortunate in Australia that we don't notice very much censorship occurring in our country - I suppose that means that the Classification Board is doing it's job well. However, we should never be complacent about this issue as censorship affects writers and readers both in Australia and in many parts of our world.

I was reminded of this issue and the censorship that has occurred in Australia during a ALIA Hunter event Freedom to Read. Would our lives be the same without novels such as Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, and other fantastic reads? The ideas in those books challenge assumptions and make us think, providing alternate viewpoints. Important stuff and extremely valuable in a free-thinking society!

SciTech Library at Sydney University

I visited the impressive new SciTech Library on Saturday. It was beautifully light and the space had a 'fun' kinda feel. All the furniture is very funky, with chairs in interesting shapes, study 'booths' with white-board tables, and lots of tables and chairs that can be moved about as needed. The designers were obviously focused on collaborative learning, as well as aiming to inspire the students in their studies through design. The Library includes a kitchen with microwave, and encourages students to see it as a "third place" where they can study, socialise, create, and eat too!

There's no reference collection, as the good stuff is all online and interfiled into the collection. But there is a stage area where ideas can be showcased. Loved the unimposing reference desks so that students can feel more at ease when they need assistance with the resources.

The Global Village

In 2009 the HSC English course will include Wikipedia as a text. I think that this is an interesting turn in education - particularly as many schools ban wikipedia as a reference for assignments, etc. This is the first time that wikipedia has formally been included in a syllabus in Australia. It's fascinating to see a collaborative site formalised in the education system.

Clay Shirky reckons that society wastes huge amounts of the 'cognitive surplus' watching television - passively consuming other people's collaborative works.

"And television watching? Two hundred billion hours, in the U.S. alone, every year. Put another way, now that we have a unit, that's 2,000 Wikipedia projects a year spent watching television."

I wonder if studying wikipedia as a text will encourage students (and teachers!) to take online collaborative projects more seriously, and to spend some time participating in them.

'Break' the boundaries

I went along to the last session of the conference "Reference @ the Metcalfe Seminar", which was organised by the NSW Reference & Information Services Group. Great stuff!

The last session was a presentation by the people who created "Inside Break" - the fabulous HSC resources website provided by Manly, Pittwater and Warringah Council Libraries. This site is an excellent resource for all students in NSW completing their HSC and is a testament to the power of collaboration.

It would be fantastic if more libraries could produce collaborative projects like Inside Break. Now that this group of libraries has produced such an excellent site, there's no need for staff from other libraries to pore so much effort into creating another website of resources for HSC students. Although, to ensure that it remains an amazing resource/tool for students, other libraries should continue to offer suggestions for improvement to this team's product. The best thing, however, is that now staff time at other libraries will be freed up to produce other magnificent projects for their client groups (and shared by other libraries). This is the true power of collaboration - efficient and effective and shared – that results in everyone benefiting.

Answers and social networking

Librarians are excellent at finding information: "I don't know the answer to that (yet) but I know how to look it up". So I was not surprised that librarians were slamming the boards to promote their skills. I was surprised at the amount of questions out there!

I've been adding the books that I'm reading and have recently read to LibraryThing - I've always liked the idea of keeping a reading journal but never got around to it. This could definitely work for me.

And I am still loving delicious. I'm continually returning to my bookmarks to revisit a site when I can't remember the url (for example to the Learning 2.0 site). And it's a fantastic tool when you stumble across a website that you know will be useful for future reference questions.