So many policy announcements, reviews, plans. And that’s just in one sector. Even in these days of RSS et al., it’s hard to keep track of what’s happening. Unless someone knows of a one-stop-document shop

Just read the MLA Blueprint. But now Tim Coates tells us it’s a dead letter anyway- that MLA has no role in public libraries. Now they will be managed as part of the government’s community strategy, putting them under the DCLG.
Quoting Tim, ‘PS - This is not the kind of change will be accompanied by [...]

Just had a quick run through some self-avowed conservative librarians- and for balance some liberal. Both US. Interesting reading. My conclusion is, everyone is an evil, self-serving godless/god ridden heathen/fundamentalist… but I jest.
I describe myself as a liberal/social democrat. In European terms. Mixed economy, avoidance of war where possible, creation of opportunity as the way [...]

Again from Les, an interesting link to a post on the future of libraries. What is most interesting are the ideas in the comments, two of which have been on my mind.
 The first is the idea of libraries as places to support production- ‘community publishing.’ The second is the idea that physical books have a [...]

Update- no, one of them isn’t a blook!
Update 2- the review of Walt’s book is here.
Walt Crawford has just issued his book Balanced libraries: thoughts on continuity and change, available from Lulu. It looks like an interesting synthesis of Walt’s writing in Cites and Insights, and chimes with a lot of my views on librarianship. I’ll post [...]

http://headrush.typepad.com/creating_passionate_users/2007/03/as_i_type_this_.html
 This came to me via library2pointzero
 I do not know Kathy Sierra- I don’t follow a lot of tech blogs- but the story told here is disturbing. Anonymity certainly lends people fearlessness, but not credence.
Was there a death threat? Reading through the comments, including Joey’s, I am not so sure.
What I am sure of is that [...]

How can you sum up your work, evaluatively, in 1000 words? I tell you, I’m not finding it easy. I can describe it in 1000 words, but talk meaningfully about it as well? Tough one.

Speaking with a colleague today about making our fiction more accessible. I had thought about subject headings and the like, and we will work on that. But, as my colleague said, what about those who browse? who don’t use the OPAC at all?
So, genres it will be- with genres as subjects too. Making some aspect [...]

Or, where we want them  to be?
I don’t think a lot of our users are Second Life users. Some may be involved in online worlds, such as WoW. But I’m not sure they’d want us to pop up there
We do need to have some understanding of the environments our users spend time in, [...]

Memory. That’s what has been in my mind these past few days. Libraries as memory. Places where the production of human imagiation is made available- poorly sometimes, but available nevertheless.
But other institutions/functions can act as communal memory, especially with storage becoming ever cheaper. Mass digitisation holds out the promise of maintaining current ‘memory’, and social [...]