Wednesday, February 18, 2009
In Shock News, The Daily Mail Lies About Muslims Again, (And Libraries)
Those Muslims eh? They come over here, live perfectly quiet and respectable lives, get jobs, raise families, WHAT ARE THEY UP TO EH? The Daily Mail, in an exercise to allow people who have left this country to complain how bad things are (ie: "I saw a person with dark skin sit down on the bus! This is political correctness gone mad! I'm moving to Spain!!!") regularly prints fictional articles, and today it's about how libraries are supposedly going to be told to put the Koran on their top shelves to avoid offending Muslims. Only, if you note that this guidance is coming from the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and do the literally seconds of work needed to find the report (PDF file) you'll find that Steve Doughty, the Daily Mail journalist, has lied. The MLA are not telling me, or any of my colleagues, to put the Koran above other things, they are reporting on Leicester City Libraries receiving a few complaints about the Koran not being on the top shelf. It wasn't even a campaign by a group of disgruntled Muslims, the Library Service went out and talked to such a group for their opinion. The report doesn't even mention whether Leicester followed the group's advice.
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
I suppose that what gets my goat is that when left-leaning journalists (or at least journalists that are defined as left-wing purely because they are not as right-wing as neo-cons and other Far-Right theocons) make a mistake they are rightly pilloried and often hounded out of their jobs, however, when those right-wing ideologues make similar mistakes (and let's face it, they assume their audience is so lazy that it won't take a minute to examine their logical fallacies or evidence) they have normally put their lies and misinformation within such a secure web of protective censorship that they can't be challenged. And they claim the largely non-existent 'left-wing media' doesn't allow for criticism!
Labels: Conservatives, Daily Mail, Islam, Islamophobia, journalists, Koran, libraries, Museums Libraries and Archives Council, Muslims, religion
Monday, February 02, 2009
My Life in the Snowdrift of Ghosts
So I went to work today. This is partly due to the fact that I didn't realise exactly how much snow had been snowed during the night until I was committed to the whole 'going to work' thing and it was too late to turn around. In previous years, even if there's a good amount of snow making each step an adventure with Mr Compound Fracture by the time we reach the heat sink that is Inner London we've normally reached gondolas and water-wings time. But not today, I emerged with the fear of a white planet, and it was only as I stood on the New Kent Road that I found out all Inner London's buses weren't being allowed out to play today. However, as I was resigning myself on a dispiriting squelch to work a very nice van driver stopped, unprompted and offered me a lift, demanding no payment except his quiet satisfaction at a job well done. Noble knight of the road, I salute thee!
Of course, being the person at our branch that has to travel the furthest to work it was fitting that I was there as all the other members of staff called to say they couldn't make it in. Well, to be fair, it was completely understandable, one had two young children that weren't now going to school and had no bus for her journey to work, one had no overland trains and no two buses to get to work and the last would have come in but was only working for half the day anyway. She was owed time back and I suggested she take it. After finding someone further up the managerial structure than I who had come into work I closed the building I'd barely opened and squelched off to another library to work the day.
With just the three biggest libraries in the Borough open today we had an all hands to the pumps atmosphere, as most of the staff weren't asstupid committed as us there were five members of staff where normally there would be a dozen at least. Needs simplify in this situation, as we are all thinking "Hey, I struggled to get to work today through adverse weather conditions, when are you going to reward that dedication by closing the library and letting me go home?" I also expected the bad weather would drive all the vagrants into our halls to piss on our chairs but hey, no more so than any other day of the year.
Watching TfL anxiously to see if the 'severe delays' on my one route home turned to 'minor delays' or 'hah hah not a fucking chance, why not look in the Yellow Pages for a doss house in which to spend the night?'we were let out at 2:00, at which point the snow had a strange dagger-like texture which ripped at the skin and clogged the eyes making it difficult to see where I was going. But getting home wasn't too traumatic and I'm now burning off the North Sea reserves in an attempt to stay warm. I have a tin of soup for dinner this evening.
Tomorrow? Well, officially I was told I should come to work, unofficially I was told I should come to work, which is the last time I speak to him. Madly I was told "Geroff! I've lost my knees! Garglegarglegargle pomegranates!" and that's advice I intend to always keep close to my heart. Our council has a rather interesting approach to IT, having an intranet which all staff can access but which staff who actually deal with the public, like us, (as opposed to a department like Communications who, as far as I have been able to deduce, don't communicate with the public but exist only to inhibit communication between different council departments and between those departments and the public, this is no joke, they are soulless packets of yak excreta in suits) can't access without going to work. So, when I got to work I saw a posting on the intranet advising that staff who really didn't need to, shouldn't travel in to work today. Which leads me to a fun conversation I'm going to have with my staff next week, how do they suggest they make up the time they didn't work today?
At the moment I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's been snowing fairly constantly, at varying consistencies, all day, so there's not been much chance for snow to start thawing, so we shouldn't have extra-slippery pavements tomorrow. But it has been snowing all day, and probably will all night and in to tomorrow. If my tube line decides to give in to the weather then I can't get to work, the overland trains are down and the buses aren't running, bendy-buses can cause more damage as they skid uncontrollably round corners, who knew? But if the tube is still running, do I go into work tomorrow?
Meanwhile, a tube driver explains just why the London Underground always breaks down on the one day of snow each year.
In other news, I went to the Oxford Street branch of Zavvi last week, in order to gloat at how, having changed their name from the fairly sensible 'Virgin Megastore', they were now aground on the shoals of bankruptcy ((c) Eric Idle). Looking for bargains in the sale I reached for Labradford but it was only when I got home that I realised that I'd picked up La Casa Azul. So, with nothing better to do I decided to have a listen today, to decide how revolting it was before seeing if Zavvi are currently doing swapsies on the stuff they are trying to unload. But, much to my surprise, I quite liked it and it's now on my iPod. I have no idea what the songs are about but it sounds like an upbeat bleepy nonsense of a kind that doesn't normally appeal, sort of early Beach Boys steal a bunch of synths and video games and make Spanish pop while Brian eats all the cake. So that saves me a trip.
Mmmm, soup.
Of course, being the person at our branch that has to travel the furthest to work it was fitting that I was there as all the other members of staff called to say they couldn't make it in. Well, to be fair, it was completely understandable, one had two young children that weren't now going to school and had no bus for her journey to work, one had no overland trains and no two buses to get to work and the last would have come in but was only working for half the day anyway. She was owed time back and I suggested she take it. After finding someone further up the managerial structure than I who had come into work I closed the building I'd barely opened and squelched off to another library to work the day.
With just the three biggest libraries in the Borough open today we had an all hands to the pumps atmosphere, as most of the staff weren't as
Watching TfL anxiously to see if the 'severe delays' on my one route home turned to 'minor delays' or 'hah hah not a fucking chance, why not look in the Yellow Pages for a doss house in which to spend the night?'we were let out at 2:00, at which point the snow had a strange dagger-like texture which ripped at the skin and clogged the eyes making it difficult to see where I was going. But getting home wasn't too traumatic and I'm now burning off the North Sea reserves in an attempt to stay warm. I have a tin of soup for dinner this evening.
Tomorrow? Well, officially I was told I should come to work, unofficially I was told I should come to work, which is the last time I speak to him. Madly I was told "Geroff! I've lost my knees! Garglegarglegargle pomegranates!" and that's advice I intend to always keep close to my heart. Our council has a rather interesting approach to IT, having an intranet which all staff can access but which staff who actually deal with the public, like us, (as opposed to a department like Communications who, as far as I have been able to deduce, don't communicate with the public but exist only to inhibit communication between different council departments and between those departments and the public, this is no joke, they are soulless packets of yak excreta in suits) can't access without going to work. So, when I got to work I saw a posting on the intranet advising that staff who really didn't need to, shouldn't travel in to work today. Which leads me to a fun conversation I'm going to have with my staff next week, how do they suggest they make up the time they didn't work today?
At the moment I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. It's been snowing fairly constantly, at varying consistencies, all day, so there's not been much chance for snow to start thawing, so we shouldn't have extra-slippery pavements tomorrow. But it has been snowing all day, and probably will all night and in to tomorrow. If my tube line decides to give in to the weather then I can't get to work, the overland trains are down and the buses aren't running, bendy-buses can cause more damage as they skid uncontrollably round corners, who knew? But if the tube is still running, do I go into work tomorrow?
Meanwhile, a tube driver explains just why the London Underground always breaks down on the one day of snow each year.
In other news, I went to the Oxford Street branch of Zavvi last week, in order to gloat at how, having changed their name from the fairly sensible 'Virgin Megastore', they were now aground on the shoals of bankruptcy ((c) Eric Idle). Looking for bargains in the sale I reached for Labradford but it was only when I got home that I realised that I'd picked up La Casa Azul. So, with nothing better to do I decided to have a listen today, to decide how revolting it was before seeing if Zavvi are currently doing swapsies on the stuff they are trying to unload. But, much to my surprise, I quite liked it and it's now on my iPod. I have no idea what the songs are about but it sounds like an upbeat bleepy nonsense of a kind that doesn't normally appeal, sort of early Beach Boys steal a bunch of synths and video games and make Spanish pop while Brian eats all the cake. So that saves me a trip.
Mmmm, soup.
Labels: libraries, personal history, snow, weather
Thursday, October 09, 2008
I despair for my chosen profession, I really do. My professional association, CILIP., the one that sounds like a speech impediment rather than the supposed organisation for librarians in the UK, has looked at the deprofessionalisation of the job in the UK, that increasingly employers in the public sector are not requiring staff at quite high levels not to have any experience, knowledge or even interest in libraries to work there, and decided their bold and innovative reaction to this is to hassle their members more to give them more time and money by being involved in Continual Professional Development and Re-accreditation. This is presumably so I feel good about myself when I've lost my job and the Government forces me to sweep roads in order to get the dole, while the library I currently work in is run by some fourteen-year-old who was able to text 'B∞kz' to the Council Job-Line.
It doesn't do much for my confidence when we get unrestricted bum-gravy like this from Andy Burnham.
"The popular public image of libraries as solemn and sombre places, patrolled by fearsome and formidable staff is decades out of date, but is nonetheless taken for granted by too many people,"...
People would be able to chat, drink coffee and watch videos in English libraries under a new government proposal, The Independent has learnt. Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, will today launch a consultation on changing the face of libraries which he believes are out of touch.
Under the proposals, libraries could install coffee franchises, book shops and film centres. Noise bans will also be reviewed. Mr Burnham will tell the Public Library Authorities conference in Liverpool that libraries must "look beyond the bookcase and not sleepwalk into the era of the e-book".
Maybe it's bad copy on the Independent's part, but if there are any legal restrictions on talking, drinking or any other behaviour in public libraries currently they are rarely enforced. There are already libraries with coffee franchises and libraries in proximity to book shops and cinemas. Telling us to 'look beyond the bookcase' betrays an ignorance of what the profession has been doing in partnership with Burnham's own government for the last ten years, let alone wider trends.
And who is he planning on starting a consultation with? Library managers who are busy doing real work? Library users? Or maybe he plans to take a leaf out of the Home Office's book? Just as a lot of Government crime policy is driven by the Daily Mail readers who don't experience crime but are always afraid of it, maybe he'll ask people who have no idea about what libraries actually offer for what they want libraries to be. New Labour consultations never achieve anything. We need public education that we are here, and perhaps if the Government can find money to bail out bankers from their own cock-ups they can find a bit more loose change so that services that actually help the public don't have to cut jobs and close branches that would be a help too. We already do what most people who never use a library actually want us to do already, we could do with being able to tell people that we do it.
Not that I expect anyone who sups at high tables to say that today. Libraries are in the middle of their Five Year Plan so we're probably on course to start the purges of the people holding back the grand vision of the future. I'll see you before the firing squad.
It doesn't do much for my confidence when we get unrestricted bum-gravy like this from Andy Burnham.
"The popular public image of libraries as solemn and sombre places, patrolled by fearsome and formidable staff is decades out of date, but is nonetheless taken for granted by too many people,"...
People would be able to chat, drink coffee and watch videos in English libraries under a new government proposal, The Independent has learnt. Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, will today launch a consultation on changing the face of libraries which he believes are out of touch.
Under the proposals, libraries could install coffee franchises, book shops and film centres. Noise bans will also be reviewed. Mr Burnham will tell the Public Library Authorities conference in Liverpool that libraries must "look beyond the bookcase and not sleepwalk into the era of the e-book".
Maybe it's bad copy on the Independent's part, but if there are any legal restrictions on talking, drinking or any other behaviour in public libraries currently they are rarely enforced. There are already libraries with coffee franchises and libraries in proximity to book shops and cinemas. Telling us to 'look beyond the bookcase' betrays an ignorance of what the profession has been doing in partnership with Burnham's own government for the last ten years, let alone wider trends.
And who is he planning on starting a consultation with? Library managers who are busy doing real work? Library users? Or maybe he plans to take a leaf out of the Home Office's book? Just as a lot of Government crime policy is driven by the Daily Mail readers who don't experience crime but are always afraid of it, maybe he'll ask people who have no idea about what libraries actually offer for what they want libraries to be. New Labour consultations never achieve anything. We need public education that we are here, and perhaps if the Government can find money to bail out bankers from their own cock-ups they can find a bit more loose change so that services that actually help the public don't have to cut jobs and close branches that would be a help too. We already do what most people who never use a library actually want us to do already, we could do with being able to tell people that we do it.
Not that I expect anyone who sups at high tables to say that today. Libraries are in the middle of their Five Year Plan so we're probably on course to start the purges of the people holding back the grand vision of the future. I'll see you before the firing squad.
Labels: CILIP, deprofessionalisation, Government, libraries
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Noisy row breaks out in libraries over fines
< sigh >
Well, I suppose I should be grateful there's none of those oh-so-funny references to severe old ladies in tweed and half-moon spectacles at least.
Library fines could become a thing of the past if a group of librarians get their way. A fiery debate has been raging for the past week between librarians, with anti-fine campaigners describing the charges as punitive, old-fashioned and creating a negative impression of libraries.
That first bit is a slight exaggeration. On a small email list for librarians, which most of the year just has spam for management courses, a discussion has sprung from something I can't even remember on to the subject of fines. Less fiery, more aromatherapy candle-y, but that doesn't make a story does it?
"Libraries are facing competition from television, magazines, the internet, e-books, yet they have this archaic and mad idea of charging people money for being slightly late," said library consultant Frances Hendrix - a loud voice in the debate which has been taking place on an online forum for librarians. "It's all so negative, unprofessional and unbusinesslike; like any business, libraries need not to alienate their customers."
Well, that seems reasonable, who could disagree with that?
Librarian Loz Pycock
< David Tennant > What? < /David Tennant >
asked how libraries that want to ditch fines would go about retrieving their books from negligent readers. "We never have enough copies of Driving Theory Test manuals or the Life in the UK citizenship books on the shelves. How do we stop borrowers from keeping the books for the months up to their tests and depriving other users? I don't believe the public are all selfish but it only needs a very small percentage of bad apples to cause problems."
I am very amused to find myself quoted in the article as Alison Flood e-mailed me clearly hoping I'd be willing to lead the charge in favour of burning late-returners in a wicker bibliography. This was due to a negative response I sent to Frances. However, I'm also not a huge fan of fines, though I'd rather make libraries free at the point of access to reserve books and keep fines for people who can't organise themselves to return material on time. When I didn't play ball in her attempt to write an article that has as much of a relationship to reality as a David Batty article about transgendered people I naturally assumed I'd be deleted out of the picture.
I don't think charges in libraries are something that will ever be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. The charges you can expect to find in libraries these days are mainly those that the original Government Acts didn't proscribe, which is why books are free but it's not free to request them (usually) or take out a DVD. Things are quietening down on this discussion forum again but expect it to flair up again wherever you find more than three librarians in a room.
< sigh >
Well, I suppose I should be grateful there's none of those oh-so-funny references to severe old ladies in tweed and half-moon spectacles at least.
Library fines could become a thing of the past if a group of librarians get their way. A fiery debate has been raging for the past week between librarians, with anti-fine campaigners describing the charges as punitive, old-fashioned and creating a negative impression of libraries.
That first bit is a slight exaggeration. On a small email list for librarians, which most of the year just has spam for management courses, a discussion has sprung from something I can't even remember on to the subject of fines. Less fiery, more aromatherapy candle-y, but that doesn't make a story does it?
"Libraries are facing competition from television, magazines, the internet, e-books, yet they have this archaic and mad idea of charging people money for being slightly late," said library consultant Frances Hendrix - a loud voice in the debate which has been taking place on an online forum for librarians. "It's all so negative, unprofessional and unbusinesslike; like any business, libraries need not to alienate their customers."
Well, that seems reasonable, who could disagree with that?
Librarian Loz Pycock
< David Tennant > What? < /David Tennant >
asked how libraries that want to ditch fines would go about retrieving their books from negligent readers. "We never have enough copies of Driving Theory Test manuals or the Life in the UK citizenship books on the shelves. How do we stop borrowers from keeping the books for the months up to their tests and depriving other users? I don't believe the public are all selfish but it only needs a very small percentage of bad apples to cause problems."
I am very amused to find myself quoted in the article as Alison Flood e-mailed me clearly hoping I'd be willing to lead the charge in favour of burning late-returners in a wicker bibliography. This was due to a negative response I sent to Frances. However, I'm also not a huge fan of fines, though I'd rather make libraries free at the point of access to reserve books and keep fines for people who can't organise themselves to return material on time. When I didn't play ball in her attempt to write an article that has as much of a relationship to reality as a David Batty article about transgendered people I naturally assumed I'd be deleted out of the picture.
I don't think charges in libraries are something that will ever be sorted out to everyone's satisfaction. The charges you can expect to find in libraries these days are mainly those that the original Government Acts didn't proscribe, which is why books are free but it's not free to request them (usually) or take out a DVD. Things are quietening down on this discussion forum again but expect it to flair up again wherever you find more than three librarians in a room.
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Picador books plan to stop printing new titles in hardback. Well, they might do limited prestige runs for serious bibliophiles, but for you, me and the plebs in W.H. Smiths, it's paperback time. My feelings are numerous and mixed about this.
I do like hardbacks. Providing you're not in a situation where the size and/or weight is an issue then the hardback is your friend. It's sturdy and more difficult to damage which, speaking as someone who winces whenever anyone bends a book's spine or turns the corner over to mark their place, matters. The binding is often better on a book which also matters. When J.D. Robb suddenly rose to prominence a few years back we had a rise in demand at our libraries. The paperbacks of her work (which my Mum read and said were full of spelling mistakes) which were presumably rushed out to meet the sudden demand were incredibly poorly made, and a lot of our stock was unusable after three or four issues. Admittedly, the books were probably taken out by spine-benders and corner-turners but they were cheap and shoddy and, in a market which is apparently moribund (despite getting rid of the Net Book Agreement a decade ago), are publishers not looking for ways to cut costs? A paperback book is designed to last long enough to be read by one person and then put on their bookshop until Judgement Day, where presumably you get in to Heaven based on a Q&A on A Suitable Boy.
The size of the book is also a factor. Something chunky like the aforementioned Vikram Seth or Michael Palin's chunky Seventies Diaries work better with a sturdier cover, in paperback they look like someone trying to fit into clothes a size too small, leaving the reader at risk of a bibliographic wardrobe malfunction.
Paperbacks are nice and cheaper though. And the book market is an oddity, being the only market where something is released, then after a period released again in cheaper packaging, with no extras. At least when albums or DVDs are re-released they give you bonus tracks or deleted scenes goodies (perhaps that's an alternative the books market might like to investigate?) And there are a hell of a lot of authors out there who don't deserve the extra cash that people spend on the hardback. That this is considered standard rather than optional seems crazy. I'd quite like the option of reading a book from the library, perhaps in paperback, and if I like it, ordering a hardback from the publishers that has extra annotations and material, the In Rainbows Boxset approach to novel production you might say.
Still, a positive thing is that Picador isn't pulling a music industry and blaming the falling sales on piracy and are doing something that doesn't involve claiming it's the public's fault. That's a definite plus point.
I do like hardbacks. Providing you're not in a situation where the size and/or weight is an issue then the hardback is your friend. It's sturdy and more difficult to damage which, speaking as someone who winces whenever anyone bends a book's spine or turns the corner over to mark their place, matters. The binding is often better on a book which also matters. When J.D. Robb suddenly rose to prominence a few years back we had a rise in demand at our libraries. The paperbacks of her work (which my Mum read and said were full of spelling mistakes) which were presumably rushed out to meet the sudden demand were incredibly poorly made, and a lot of our stock was unusable after three or four issues. Admittedly, the books were probably taken out by spine-benders and corner-turners but they were cheap and shoddy and, in a market which is apparently moribund (despite getting rid of the Net Book Agreement a decade ago), are publishers not looking for ways to cut costs? A paperback book is designed to last long enough to be read by one person and then put on their bookshop until Judgement Day, where presumably you get in to Heaven based on a Q&A on A Suitable Boy.
The size of the book is also a factor. Something chunky like the aforementioned Vikram Seth or Michael Palin's chunky Seventies Diaries work better with a sturdier cover, in paperback they look like someone trying to fit into clothes a size too small, leaving the reader at risk of a bibliographic wardrobe malfunction.
Paperbacks are nice and cheaper though. And the book market is an oddity, being the only market where something is released, then after a period released again in cheaper packaging, with no extras. At least when albums or DVDs are re-released they give you bonus tracks or deleted scenes goodies (perhaps that's an alternative the books market might like to investigate?) And there are a hell of a lot of authors out there who don't deserve the extra cash that people spend on the hardback. That this is considered standard rather than optional seems crazy. I'd quite like the option of reading a book from the library, perhaps in paperback, and if I like it, ordering a hardback from the publishers that has extra annotations and material, the In Rainbows Boxset approach to novel production you might say.
Still, a positive thing is that Picador isn't pulling a music industry and blaming the falling sales on piracy and are doing something that doesn't involve claiming it's the public's fault. That's a definite plus point.
Labels: authors, books, bookshops, libraries
Sunday, July 22, 2007
Harry
Yes, even Alan Moore is enjoying the last Harry Potter book.
Oh shut up , that's the last time I'll be able to use that joke...
So, the boxes turned up at work on Friday, with strict instructions that we weren't to open them or put the books out until Saturday, so we were stricken by existential doubt, what if we opened the boxes and the books weren't there? Still, on Friday night I slept the sleep of the just, unlike the poor sods who had to work at midnight at another library for the Potter party for the children who wanted to be the first to get the book at a minute after midnight. I heard one child, on receiving his book, turned immediately to the back page to find out what happened. Well done J.K., six hundred and six pages of work and the child is going to ignore six hundred and five of them. Mind you, in order to see how many pages my copy had I've just mini-spoiled it for myself and now know at least one of the major characters that's making it to the end of the book. Damn. Still maybe he/she has all their limbs chopped off along the way.
So we had a dozen copies of the children's edition of The Deathly Hallows and three copies of the adult version. Personally I've never seen the point of the adult versions with their deliberately boring and non-specific covers. If you are ashamed to be seen in public with a copy of the book with the cover for children then you shouldn't be reading it! And what, you think people aren't going to see the words J.K. Rowling and Harry Potter and the Final Cash-In on the boring cover of your 'adult version'? Or perhaps, has J.K. Rowling edited the adult version so that Harry is actually a smack addict who can't get it together to fight Lord Voldemort because he thinks the carpet is trying to eat him? Is Hermione unable to help him because Ron got her pregnant during the Summer holiday and she's now down the Muggle housing office?
Anyway, I've got my copy, of the Children's Edition natch, and will see if I can finish it before some insensitive bastard tells me the end (I was going to say 'ruins it for me there' but then realised that would imply that I actually care about this at-best competently written kid's story). All our copies in the Library were issued by the time we closed yesterday.
Labels: books, Harry Potter, libraries
Saturday, July 14, 2007
The EnnWiiTee has an article on the Arizona Library that's dropped Dewey and wouldn't you know it, the manager is becoming an anti-Dewey evangelist. I do wish the article spent a little less time mentioning out-dated stereotypes that don't apply anyway to the library (how long is it since most public libraries relied on card catalogues as their primary method of locating books?) and more time on how stuff is ordered, it does suggest that when books are returned they are just dumped on the first empty shelf in the relevant area, which will make looking for guide books for certain countries fun.
Actually, I would suspect that bookshops like Barnes and Noble do classify their stock so that people working in the shop can find them, what they don't do is tell the public what the classifying is, so that you just have a row of shelves with the travel books in order, so this is potentially just the spirit of Dewey without the numbers on the spine of the book.
Still daft though.
Actually, I would suspect that bookshops like Barnes and Noble do classify their stock so that people working in the shop can find them, what they don't do is tell the public what the classifying is, so that you just have a row of shelves with the travel books in order, so this is potentially just the spirit of Dewey without the numbers on the spine of the book.
Still daft though.
Labels: books, bookshops, Dewey, libraries
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A link that's been doing the rounds at work is to a BBC report saying being a librarian is an incredibly stressful job.
Librarians are the most unhappy with their workplace, often finding their job repetitive and unchallenging, according to psychologist Saqib Saddiq. He will tell the British Psychological Society that one in three workers suffer from poor psychological health. The study surveyed nearly 300 people drawn from five occupations. They were firefighters, police officers, train operators, teachers and librarians and were intended to cover the spectrum, with the librarians first-thought to be the least stressful occupation.
It's not been a bed of roses, I've commented here on the odd occasion about difficult and sometimes scary situations I've been in that are job-related. I am surprised that librarians are worse off than police officers or fire-fighters, I can only assume that those two careers have better medical and psychological support for their members or that they looked at librarians in the worst parts of Glasgow and police officers in somewhere like Sandford. However, libraries can end up in the middle of sink estates and staff can, without any training at all, can be sent to work in them, I've not been in the situation of me or the staff I work with being attacked but once or twice it seemed like a real possibility. Police patrolling the same area have had training on how to deal with dangerous situations.
Librarians complained about their physical environment, saying they were sick of being stuck between book shelves all day, as well as claiming their skills were not used and how little control they felt they had over their career.
There's a lot of old library buildings out there. Horrible strip-lighting that does your head in and makes your eyes ache, staff areas which are often cramped and just on this side of being unsanitary... it all adds up.
Librarians are the most unhappy with their workplace, often finding their job repetitive and unchallenging, according to psychologist Saqib Saddiq. He will tell the British Psychological Society that one in three workers suffer from poor psychological health. The study surveyed nearly 300 people drawn from five occupations. They were firefighters, police officers, train operators, teachers and librarians and were intended to cover the spectrum, with the librarians first-thought to be the least stressful occupation.
It's not been a bed of roses, I've commented here on the odd occasion about difficult and sometimes scary situations I've been in that are job-related. I am surprised that librarians are worse off than police officers or fire-fighters, I can only assume that those two careers have better medical and psychological support for their members or that they looked at librarians in the worst parts of Glasgow and police officers in somewhere like Sandford. However, libraries can end up in the middle of sink estates and staff can, without any training at all, can be sent to work in them, I've not been in the situation of me or the staff I work with being attacked but once or twice it seemed like a real possibility. Police patrolling the same area have had training on how to deal with dangerous situations.
Librarians complained about their physical environment, saying they were sick of being stuck between book shelves all day, as well as claiming their skills were not used and how little control they felt they had over their career.
There's a lot of old library buildings out there. Horrible strip-lighting that does your head in and makes your eyes ache, staff areas which are often cramped and just on this side of being unsanitary... it all adds up.
Sunday, June 03, 2007
Excuse me while I have a professional moment.
New Arizona Library drops Dewey decimal cataloguing scheme.
Yep, it's another library that has got confused and thinks it's a bookshop. Everything will be arranged within sections, then subsections. I wish them well, but it won't solve the perceived problem, that library users can't find books. The problem in full is actually this: 'Library users can't find books, and are too scared to ask staff for help'. This reordering of books isn't foolproof, it won't help the scared people, it's not dumping THE cataloguing system it's dumping A cataloguing system. Of course, as library guy I'm biased, but by using a cataloguing system it at least meant that of the higher proportion of library users who are either not stupid or not afraid to ask library staff for help, there was at least one member of that staff/public team who should know where the book is without needing to have experience working in that library. (I've moved from one workplace that just ordered it's non-fiction by Dewey to one that organises it's books by subject areas and then Dewey within those subject areas. This takes staff longer to acclimatise to because you now have to know your way around the stock by heart, it doesn't help the public that much because presumably the numbers frighten them all away. In my old workplace I could go and start work at any library and, as long as I knew where the non-fiction started I could start looking for books straight away, now each time I'm somewhere new I have to spend some time working out where all the different sections are. Plus I have to look at the catalogue each single time to see which subject section a book is filed in.) If you've been told to get a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you don't know what it's about and you don't want to ask a member of staff, is this subject ordering really going to help much?
Oh, and I've tried visiting bookshops. Obviously I'm biased, but it takes bookshop staff longer to find the place on the shelf where the book should be than it takes library staff to do the same because with Dewey we can tell exactly where it should be. And people are actually still asking for help finding books in bookshops, which rather suggests it's not an ideal solution to those people trying to solve the difficulties of finding what one wants from one's local library.
This seems to be pandering to those people who think they should be able to sail through life without any intellectual engagement at any stage whatsoever. And those people can't be pleased.
Yep, it's another library that has got confused and thinks it's a bookshop. Everything will be arranged within sections, then subsections. I wish them well, but it won't solve the perceived problem, that library users can't find books. The problem in full is actually this: 'Library users can't find books, and are too scared to ask staff for help'. This reordering of books isn't foolproof, it won't help the scared people, it's not dumping THE cataloguing system it's dumping A cataloguing system. Of course, as library guy I'm biased, but by using a cataloguing system it at least meant that of the higher proportion of library users who are either not stupid or not afraid to ask library staff for help, there was at least one member of that staff/public team who should know where the book is without needing to have experience working in that library. (I've moved from one workplace that just ordered it's non-fiction by Dewey to one that organises it's books by subject areas and then Dewey within those subject areas. This takes staff longer to acclimatise to because you now have to know your way around the stock by heart, it doesn't help the public that much because presumably the numbers frighten them all away. In my old workplace I could go and start work at any library and, as long as I knew where the non-fiction started I could start looking for books straight away, now each time I'm somewhere new I have to spend some time working out where all the different sections are. Plus I have to look at the catalogue each single time to see which subject section a book is filed in.) If you've been told to get a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and you don't know what it's about and you don't want to ask a member of staff, is this subject ordering really going to help much?
Oh, and I've tried visiting bookshops. Obviously I'm biased, but it takes bookshop staff longer to find the place on the shelf where the book should be than it takes library staff to do the same because with Dewey we can tell exactly where it should be. And people are actually still asking for help finding books in bookshops, which rather suggests it's not an ideal solution to those people trying to solve the difficulties of finding what one wants from one's local library.
This seems to be pandering to those people who think they should be able to sail through life without any intellectual engagement at any stage whatsoever. And those people can't be pleased.
Labels: libraries
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Had a couple of toddlers in the library. While their Mum chose books they were playing with toys and seemed obsessed with a toy shaped like an old rotary dial telephone. They were happy as anything 'making' and 'receiving' calls and, as I remarked to their Mum, it's odd that they seemed to know and recognise the toy as a telephone when telephones haven't looked like that for years, a good decade or two before they were born. Seeing as they had the handsets to their ears and were dragging the rest of the phone around, maybe the handset was what they recognised as the phone rather than the rest of the toy.
Labels: children, libraries, toys
Friday, March 09, 2007
The humble suburban library takes on a whole new meaning in the ABC TV's new comedy-drama The Librarians... The six-part series centres on the trials and tribulations of Frances O'Brien, a devout Catholic and head librarian. Her life unravels when she is forced to employ her ex-best friend, Christine Grimwood - now a drug dealer - as the children's librarian. Frances must do all she can to contain her menacing past and concentrate on the biggest event of the library calendar - Book Week.
Sometimes being over the other side of the planet doesn't seem far enough. Anyway, I'm off to write my script that I'm submitting to BBC Drama, it's called We Know Major Tom's a Junkie, in which a librarian is hit by a car, wakes up in 1980 and finds it surprisingly easy to fit in at his place of work.
Sometimes being over the other side of the planet doesn't seem far enough. Anyway, I'm off to write my script that I'm submitting to BBC Drama, it's called We Know Major Tom's a Junkie, in which a librarian is hit by a car, wakes up in 1980 and finds it surprisingly easy to fit in at his place of work.
Labels: libraries, Television
Thursday, March 01, 2007
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Sunday, January 28, 2007
Troubling news from the fountain of all knowledge in the United Kingdom: The British Library is facing a shortfall in cash and so will have to close and cut down on the services it offers. There's nothing on the British Library website yet, so hopefully this is one of those scare stories famous institutions run to try and influence an ongoing discussion rather than a statement of what the actual truth on the ground is (remember when Number 10 came up with that ridiculous story about Saddam Hussein having WMD? Oh how we laughed afterwards...).
Labels: British Library, libraries
Monday, December 18, 2006
Over in Camden Library users are demanding the council spend more of the library budget on books.
Alan Templeton, chairman of Camden Library Users Group (CPLUG), told its annual meeting at Belsize Library that in the past year just under £380,000 is estimated to have been spent on books, out of the borough’s estimated £7.6 million libraries budget. Mr Templeton said: "Camden spent five per cent of its budget on books – the national average is nine per cent."
the best quote though, which should win some award, is the next paragraph:
"Almost 21 per cent of Camden’s budget goes on support services but what are they? We don’t know. Something is very wrong there and we need to take it further. There’s a possibility of transferring money from support services."
Obviously, if Mr Templeton doesn't know what something is then it can be shut down with no adverse effect on the service.
Alan Templeton, chairman of Camden Library Users Group (CPLUG), told its annual meeting at Belsize Library that in the past year just under £380,000 is estimated to have been spent on books, out of the borough’s estimated £7.6 million libraries budget. Mr Templeton said: "Camden spent five per cent of its budget on books – the national average is nine per cent."
the best quote though, which should win some award, is the next paragraph:
"Almost 21 per cent of Camden’s budget goes on support services but what are they? We don’t know. Something is very wrong there and we need to take it further. There’s a possibility of transferring money from support services."
Obviously, if Mr Templeton doesn't know what something is then it can be shut down with no adverse effect on the service.
Thursday, November 09, 2006
If there's one aspect of the job of being a librarian that I find difficult to get people to understand it's that it's not all glamour, it's not all fast cars, loose women and the legal right to torture and kill anyone you don't like. There's boring things you have to do. For example, at the moment I'm having to buy a couple of thousand quidlingtons of what we call 'Family Saga' books. I'm not sure if they exist or sell so well outside of the UK but they follow a basic pattern, they're about 400 pages long, they have a generic cover in which a young girl stands in a working-class street circa 1932 and in the book someone goes through absolute misery in the period of time between the end of the Boer War and the start of WW2.
Normally the main character is a girl. Sometimes at least one of the parents is missing by the time she's born, maybe he went off to fight in the war. If Dad is still around he's usually an alcoholic and Mum is killed by him soon after giving birth. If Dad isn't around then Mum will be the alcoholic and blame the daughter for driving Dad away, until about five minutes before the vicious old bat dies of old age. If the little girl has any brothers and sisters then they'll all die of cholera or the lurgie and leave her alone, unless she has an older brother who's already sixteen, he'll be really nice to her and then go off and die at one of the big slaughters of the First World War. She'll celebrate puberty with a couple of rapes and get chucked out of home by any parental figure still around. The next thirty years will be a number of ill-advised liasons, any nice men will get killed before she has a chance for any real fun, she'll marry someone who'll use her as a punching bag but, if she can last until the Blitz then he'll get killed in a collapsing house that's been bombed by the Frtitz, leaving the way clear for our heroine, now in her forties, to get it on with the emotionally constipated Air Raid Warden. Only at this point she'll get cancer and die in one of those National Health Service hospitals that that nice Mister Attlee gave us.
These books are very popular with women from late-middle-age onwards. I believe this is because they like misery porn and this is why such women are evil.
I'm also impressed that Sheelagh Kelly, one of these writers, can write books with a character called Probyn Kilmaster and get away with it.
Normally the main character is a girl. Sometimes at least one of the parents is missing by the time she's born, maybe he went off to fight in the war. If Dad is still around he's usually an alcoholic and Mum is killed by him soon after giving birth. If Dad isn't around then Mum will be the alcoholic and blame the daughter for driving Dad away, until about five minutes before the vicious old bat dies of old age. If the little girl has any brothers and sisters then they'll all die of cholera or the lurgie and leave her alone, unless she has an older brother who's already sixteen, he'll be really nice to her and then go off and die at one of the big slaughters of the First World War. She'll celebrate puberty with a couple of rapes and get chucked out of home by any parental figure still around. The next thirty years will be a number of ill-advised liasons, any nice men will get killed before she has a chance for any real fun, she'll marry someone who'll use her as a punching bag but, if she can last until the Blitz then he'll get killed in a collapsing house that's been bombed by the Frtitz, leaving the way clear for our heroine, now in her forties, to get it on with the emotionally constipated Air Raid Warden. Only at this point she'll get cancer and die in one of those National Health Service hospitals that that nice Mister Attlee gave us.
These books are very popular with women from late-middle-age onwards. I believe this is because they like misery porn and this is why such women are evil.
I'm also impressed that Sheelagh Kelly, one of these writers, can write books with a character called Probyn Kilmaster and get away with it.
Saturday, October 21, 2006
A Professional Whinge
If you're waiting for my opinion of Nirpal Dhaliwal's TV show the other week, Why Being Brown Fucking Rocks, I haven't watched it yet and I have a sneaking suspicion I'm not going to bother. It has Julie 'Tickle Me Elmo' Burchill on in the first five minutes for God's sake.
Anyway, on reading the latest dead tree publications from my professional association, CILIP I see they have rebranded their membership department as 'CILIP membership: an investment in your professional future'. Which is handy as it allows them to abrogate any responsibility for doing anything today.
How it was developed.
Step 1. Creation of a market research brief.
Step 2. Appointment of a professional market research company - Grimwood Associates.
Step 3. 30 in-depth interviews with members and non-members - testing reaction to various propositions; results analysed.
Step 4. Shortlist of propositions promoted in Gazette and feedback encouraged via web survey - 60 responses.
Step 5. Results analysed.
Step 6. Creative development of new concept based on the results.
(Reported in Library and Information Gazette, 20/10/2006)
Earlier this year, due to a shortage of cash, CILIP HQ had to lay off staff. It's good to see that they are using what they have left to good effect. 'CILIP membership: an investment in the school fees of the children of Grimwood Associates children'.
Anyway, on reading the latest dead tree publications from my professional association, CILIP I see they have rebranded their membership department as 'CILIP membership: an investment in your professional future'. Which is handy as it allows them to abrogate any responsibility for doing anything today.
How it was developed.
Step 1. Creation of a market research brief.
Step 2. Appointment of a professional market research company - Grimwood Associates.
Step 3. 30 in-depth interviews with members and non-members - testing reaction to various propositions; results analysed.
Step 4. Shortlist of propositions promoted in Gazette and feedback encouraged via web survey - 60 responses.
Step 5. Results analysed.
Step 6. Creative development of new concept based on the results.
(Reported in Library and Information Gazette, 20/10/2006)
Earlier this year, due to a shortage of cash, CILIP HQ had to lay off staff. It's good to see that they are using what they have left to good effect. 'CILIP membership: an investment in the school fees of the children of Grimwood Associates children'.
Labels: libraries
Friday, October 20, 2006
Xenu TV, for all your Anti-Scientology needs.
Line Rider. Not quite a game, draw a slope and watch a guy sled down it.
Doctor McNinja. He's a doctor, who's also a ninja.
How to Die.
Oh what a day. There are few things as enjoyable as finding out someone hasn't come to work ten minutes before you open the doors to the public than perhaps ten minutes after. And when my manager said that we had enough staff to cover, then not realising two of the members of the staff we had only started working for us last week... Still, I didn't mind working four hours without a break. No, really. And why is it the lady I helped that's going to make a complaint about me and not the guy I couldn't give an answer to? You'd think that after thirty years of hanging round I'd start to understand them just a little bit?
Line Rider. Not quite a game, draw a slope and watch a guy sled down it.
Doctor McNinja. He's a doctor, who's also a ninja.
How to Die.
Oh what a day. There are few things as enjoyable as finding out someone hasn't come to work ten minutes before you open the doors to the public than perhaps ten minutes after. And when my manager said that we had enough staff to cover, then not realising two of the members of the staff we had only started working for us last week... Still, I didn't mind working four hours without a break. No, really. And why is it the lady I helped that's going to make a complaint about me and not the guy I couldn't give an answer to? You'd think that after thirty years of hanging round I'd start to understand them just a little bit?
Labels: libraries, Scientology
