Workshop on Web 2.0 -- London

This was a really great workshop. More later. Organised by CILIP (the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, the professional body for librarians, information specialists and knowledge managers) this workshop was called Web 2.0: building on the basics. The programme covered: An introduction to the range of Web 2.0 resources available Doing more with blogs – images and audio and more Using storage/filing services and webpage creation tools. What these are, how they can be used and a practical exercise in creating start pages and collaborative websites. Using bookmarking services, web monitoring tools and group search engines, including practical exercise Introduction to wikis and how these can be used to disseminate/alter information within an organisation or group. Social networking services such as Facebook - how do these fit in? Latest developments in the field

Oxford

My final library visit was to The Bodleian Library (the main research library of the University of Oxford, and one of nearly 40 libraries within Oxford University Library Services). Web site - http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley

Outisde Oxford University's Bodleian Law Library

Now this is what our library needs -- bicycle storage at the Law Library



My contact was Ruth Bird (left in the photo) at the Bodleian Law Library (http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law). You can see details of the law library staff at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/about_us/staff. Ruth is a close in law of Peter Bird and an ex colleague of Kerry Vickers. She was asking when Peter Bird would be in Oxford.

Helen Garner (not not the author) and Angela Carritt in the Law Library staff room (yes they have one -- and any staff member who has been on holidays brings back a treat for all to share. I had some chocolate biscuits that Ruth brought from France).
Angela demonstrated some useful web 2.0 applications, as well as Primo and Metalib. You can see a blog at http://lawbod.wordpress.com and see the use of pageflakes at http://www.pageflakes.com/law.library/24255815

Oxford’s libraries are among the most celebrated in the world, not only for their incomparable collections of books and manuscripts, but also for their buildings, some of which have remained in continuous use since the Middle Ages. Among them the Bodleian, the chief among the University’s libraries, has a special place. First opened to scholars in 1602, it incorporates an earlier library erected by the University in the fifteenth century to house books donated by Humfrey, Duke of Gloucester. Since 1602 it has expanded, slowly at first but with increasing momentum over the last 150 years, to keep pace with the ever-growing accumulation of books and papers, but the core of the old buildings has remained intact
You can read about the history of the library at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/bodley/about/history
The library room was taken over by the Faculty of Medicine in 1556 but it (the library) was rescued by Sir Thomas Bodley (1545–1613), . He married a rich widow whose husband had made a fortune from trading in pilchards and, in his retirement from public life, decided, in his own words, to ‘set up my staff at the library door ..."

The Library offers an online "Ask a librarian" service at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/ask
This involves an online form with fields for name, enquiry etc. Enquiries can also be emailed directly to reader.services@bodley.ox.ac.uk
Some online self paced guides for database use have been developed at http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/training/database_guides. These tutorials provide instructions on the use of specific databases and the user progresses through them by clicking on a continue button. At the end of the instruction the user clicks on close this unit.
Students are welcome to use their laptops in the Library and are advised to buy a lock to secure their laptop whilst here. The Library has both an ethernet and wireless network so that they can access the WWW -- see http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/computing/laptops
The library specifies some minimum service standards for weekends and evenings. See - http://www.ouls.ox.ac.uk/law/services/service_standards
For example staff are expected to answer catalogue enquiries but are only able to offer help with such things as computers and printing at the discretion of the Assistant Librarian in charge on the day. Term Time Opening Hours are Monday - Friday 9am - 10pm, Saturday 10am - 6pm, Sunday 11am - 6pm.
Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

South Birmingham College

This photo shows South Birmingham College librarian Jan Hillier with myself. Thanks Jan for hosting an interesting visit, the coffee and the map!!

South Birmingham library staff Jan Hillier and Steve Spence.

My latest visit was to South Birmingham College library (website http://gateways.sbc.ac.uk/gateways/index.php?menu=2&submenu=1)

This college library is similar to ours in size and faces similar challenges to us in terms of noise v quiet, computers v social learning, external access to electronic databases, attracting trade apprentices etc. One interesting point I discovered was that disabling a student's computer account had a remarkable affect on the return of overdue books. The client population is much more multicultural than ours and resources for English as a second language are important.

Although now organisationally separated the library and the Virtual Learning Environment (Moodle) seem to have a good level of integration.

Uni of Huddersfield

This photo shows Lynn Barrett (Academic Librarian), Dave Worboys (Academic Librarian), myself, Dave Pattern (Systems Manager), and Graham Stone (Electronic Resources Manager) at the University of Huddersfield.

My 6th visit was to The University of Huddersfield West Yorkshire, England. It has around 20,000 students. The Chancellor is the actor Patrick Stewart, who is originally from Mirfield. See photos of Patrick Stewart opening the refurbished library.

The people here gave us a very hospitable welcome and a great gift pack which included a phrase book for Yorkshire English (very useful) -- thanks for everything.

The library has been extensively refurbished. See photos from 2007 and 2008.
The library provides an "ask a librarian" service (online).
The University of Huddersfield Repository is an electronic archive of the University's research output. See http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/
RSS feeds for this are set up.
The library catalogue is at http://webcat.hud.ac.uk/ipac20/ipac.jsp?profile=cls#focus
This is a Sirsi/Dynix Horizon System. You can subsribe to an RSS feed for a particular search. The most popular keywords are displayed in a "tag cloud". There have been various Web 2.0 add ons to the catalogue.

The Library Systems Manager here is Dave Pattern -- He is well respected in the library world. His blog is at http://www.daveyp.com/blog/ -- See his Library 2.0 ideas.
His "published" works included Are you happy with your OPAC
He was also the bass player in a band "The Headmen"
http://www.daveyp.com/blog/archives/category/the-headmen
Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Finally the weekend

Michael Schack (left) with John Lennon outside the Cavern in Liverpool. John looks a bit darker than I remember.

Facebook symposium

Thanks to the staff at JMU Liverpool I was able to attend a symposium "Facebook -- a network, a research tool, a world". Great presentation by Jane Secker of the LASSIE project (not the dog) --Libraries and social software in education. Tell you more later.



This wasn't on my original schedule but was a great opportunity while in Liverpool (who said I am not seeking out extra work activities?

Visit to University of Liverpool

Photo of Sydney Jones Library http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/
My fifth library visit was to the University of Liverpool. Amazingly this library is open 24 hours a day -- they have check in/check out machines and is staffed only by a warden in the wee hours of the night.

At the University gate

With Systems Librarian Joe Schulkins -- thanks Joe for the very informative demos of web 2.0 applications.


The University of Liverpool was established in 1881 as University College Liverpool, admitting its first students in 1882. In 1884, it became part of the federal Victoria University. Following a Royal Charter and Act of Parliament in 1903, it became an independent university with the right to confer its own degrees called the University of Liverpool. The University has produced eight Nobel Prize winners, from the fields of science, medicine and peace. The Nobel laureates include the physician Sir Ronald Ross, physicist Professor Charles Barkla, the physiologist Sir Charles Sherrington, physicist Sir James Chadwick, chemist Sir Robert Robinson, physiologist Professor Har Gobind Khorana, physiologist Professor Rodney Porter, and physicist Professor Joseph Rotblat. Sir Ronald Ross was also the first British Nobel laureate in 1902. The term red brick was first coined by a Liverpool professor to describe the red brick built civic universities that were built in the UK, mostly in the latter part of the 19th century; these were characterised by Victorian buildings of red brick, such as Victoria Building, which was historically the administrative heart of the University.

The Cafe at the library entrance -- this operates as a franchise

The library has made available a number of search applications that can be placed on an individuals facebook or igoogle or similiar page. See http://liv.ac.uk/library/web_apps.html . A useful web site called Widgetbox was pointed out to me. I was also shown "Question point" -- an OCLC product.

Library users can also use mobile phones and other hand held devices to search the library -- see http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/airpac.html . This is done through a product called AIRPAC. There have been some functionality issues. It was suggested that mini browsers suitable for phones may alleviate some problems with accessing library web pages etc.

The library sells pens, Cds etc at its information desk - see http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/info/libinf15.html

The library has a news page at http://www.liv.ac.uk/library/news/libnews.html They also produce RSS feeds for subject or location related reports from their catalogue. This is done through an Innovative interfaces product.

The process of check RFID tagged items on the shelf was described.

Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Visit to John Moores University Liverpool

Photo of the Avril Robarts LRC at John Moores University Liverpool (Library web site: http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lea/)

Photo of the social learning zone at the Avril Robarts LRC -- a place where students can socialise and work in groups on academic pursuits. This photo was supplied by the university. It was full of students while I was there -- very popular.



This photo shows Sarah Pumfrey (Systems librarian), myself and Sue Hodges (Technical Services Manager) at the Technical Services Unit of JMU.



Many thanks for the warm welcome and informative presentations by Stephe, Pam, Sheila, Sarah and Sue (and for the lunch at the British Conservation Centre)



Liverpool John Moores University is a modern university in Liverpool, England. It is named after John Moores and was previously called Liverpool Mechanics' School of Arts and later Liverpool Polytechnic before gaining university status in 1992. On 14 April 2007, Dr Brian May CBE was inducted into the university as the fourth Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. He replaced outgoing Chancellor Cherie Booth QC, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Honorary fellows in attendance at the ceremony included Sir Patrick Moore and Pete Postlethwaite. There are currently three Learning Resource Centres (LRCs) based at the three campus sites operated by LJMU. The two largest and more modern LRC facilities are the Avril Robarts LRC which is based on the City campus and used mainly (but not exclusively) by students studying on the city campus and The Aldham Robarts LRC (which is based on the Mount Pleasant campus). There are more than 68,500 books in the LRCs' collections, with 1,630 work spaces available for students. In addition to this there are over 16,000 e-books and 5,000 e-journals available. Each LRC operates a booking system to ensure that patrons can always get a slot on a PC. Other PCs are available on a first come first served basis. There is Wireless Network Access at each site to allow the use of personal laptops.


The library uses an Rss feed http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lea/LEA_Docs/LISNewsFeed.xml for the latest news.





Opening hours are available via a calendar - http://www.ljmu.ac.uk/lea/83095.htm


The library system is Aleph (provided by Ex Libris)





The Library service is integrated with the Blackboard virtual learning environment. There is a learning support section, with links to the library catalogue, and a link to the library services news.


Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Dublin student demo

Before leaving Dublin I honed my demonstration skills by joining in a student demonstration against the introduction of tuition fees. "No way we won't pay" was the chant. I initially thought it was an aged persons' demo against the withdrawal of health care cards for the over 70s, but they're all good causes.

DIT

My third library visit was to Dublin Insitute of Technology. The website for the Dublin Institute of Technology library is http://www.dit.ie/library/. Great visit and thanks to all -- too bad I had to leave to get to the airport!

With Senior Librarian (Systems) -- Ursula Gavin

With serials/acquisitions librarian -- Margaret Field (okay -- my eyes are shut, but I am awake!!)

The Sentry entry system to the Library -- very interesting in its ability to get stats on who is coming in -- more later

With librarian Israel Chidavaenzi and Faculty Librarian Anne Ambrose.

The Dublin Institute runs courses from apprenticeships to graduate and post-graduate degrees.
There are seven libraries within the Institute. During term most of the libraries are open from 0930 to 2130 Mondays to Thursdays, 0930 to 1730 on Fridays and from 1000 to 1700 on Saturdays. DIT Library currently stocks more than 250,000 books and other items and subscribes to nearly 20,000 journal titles. The entire holdings of the DIT libraries, their locations and current status are displayed on the Library WebOPAC. This can be accessed in each library and via the Internet at http://library.dit.ie/. The DIT libraries provide study spaces, networked PCs, textbooks and other course materials, reference works and journals to support the programmes offered by DIT and to facilitate research. Information is available in many formats besides books e.g. videos, CD-ROMs, maps and music. Many electronic resources can be accessed from any networked PC. Photocopiers and printers are also available. Some areas of interest at the library are: Blogs -- The Library service home page has a library news column that uses blogs. Virtual reference desk -- You can e-mail your reference enquiries to any DIT library
Wireless services -- Wireless access to Library Services is now available at most DIT libraries This allows staff and students to connect their laptop or PDA to the DIT network without the need for cables. The only requirement is a standard wireless network card in your computer. Google custom search has been applied to the DIT website.
The Library has purchased an institutional license for EndNote (a bibliographic software package that allows you to record and organise personal files of searchable references to books, journals articles,) so that the program is available on every DIT computer. This license also permits staff and students to buy personal copies for laptops or home PCs at a reduced rate. The current cost is €113.97 without a manual or €128.68 with a manual.
Electronic journals have access controlled by the INNOPAC ILMS
Reading lists from the library opac
Book jackets are displayed in catalogue

Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Dublin City Library

Although not on my original schedule, I met Eddie Byrne from Dublin City Libraries at the Conference and made a brief visit there. He seems a leader in the field of Web 2.0 applications and he showed me too much in an hour for me to take in in detail. He has generously offered to converse with me on future projects we may try

.

This is me photographed in the conference/events room in the Dublin City Library. Events are often recorded and converted into podcasts, streaming media etc.

Trinity College

My second library visit (and a very inspirational one) was to Trinity College
(Web Site address: http://www.tcd.ie/Library/)

Despite a nightmare car ride and taxi ride (I promise never to attempt to drive in Dublin again), I somehow managed to arrive at Trinity College. A student from Clare helped find the library





Here I am photographed with Jessie Kurtz, the Deputy Librarian. The picture between us is of the common room where we took coffee. (I have to say it is better than the SWTAFE staff room, but don't think I don't appreciate our home grown facilities). The library buildings and collections were amazing. Kerry Vickers would love it -- note Kerry that the reader services librarian is called Keeper (Reader Services). Many thanks to Jessie, Trevor, Pat, Romona and Anne-Marie and Robin for their informative chats and tours.


Note student asleep on couch in Trinity reading room.










Trinity College Library is the largest library in Ireland. Its collections of manuscripts and printed books have been built up since the end of the sixteenth century. In addition to the purchases and donations of almost four centuries, since 1801 the Library has had the right to claim all British and Irish publications under the terms of successive Copyright Acts. The bookstock is now over four million volumes and there are extensive collections of manuscripts, maps and music. The Library has a triple rôle. As a university library it serves the needs of the College's undergraduate and postgraduate students and of the academic staff; it is also a research library of international repute, making available much rare material to scholars from all parts of the world. In addition, it provides an information service to government departments, to research organisations and to technical, industrial and commercial bodies within Ireland.
One interesting aspect is the mode of providing off-Campus access to electronic resources - On your home computer, you have to specify the Trinity proxy server in the options or preferences of your web browser. When this is done, and the browser is launched, the Trinity server will send a dialog box asking for a User Name and Password - this checks if the user is really a College member. The password that is required is known as your ‘local webaccess’ password (not the usual network login password!). If the User Name and Password is successful, the browser is launched and the machine will appear to the rest of the world as if it is on campus. (http://www.tcd.ie/Library/resources/offcampus.php)
The wireless network at Trinity (http://isservices.tcd.ie/network/genreq.php#wireless) can be accessed by students and staff with their own laptops. A wireless network card is required.
The library regulations are at http://www.tcd.ie/Library/libraries/regulate.php
All readers are required to observe the terms of the Library declaration
'I,...., do solemnly promise that, whenever I enter the Library, I will treat the books and other furniture of the Library in such fashion that they may last as long as possible. I further promise that neither will I myself take away any book nor designedly damage or write in or badly treat in any way whatever any book, nor so far as in me lies will I suffer such things to be done by others. All and each of which things and all the Statutes of the Library, in as far as they concern me, I promise and vow faithfully to observe.
The Book of Kells is by far the Library's most famous book and is located in the Old Library, along with the Book of Durrow, the Book of Howth and other ancient texts.
The Book of Kells is the centrepiece of an exhibition which attracts over 500,000 visitors to Trinity College Dublin each year. Written around the year 800 AD, the Book of Kells contains a richly decorated copy of the four gospels in a latin text based on the Vulgate edition (completed by St Jerome in 384 AD). The gospels are preceded by prefaces, summaries of the gospel narratives and concordances of gospel passages compiled in the fourth century by Eusebius of Caesarea. In all, there are 340 folios (680 pages). The script is embellished by the elaboration of key words and phrases and by an endlessly inventive range of decorated initials and interlinear drawings. The book contains complex scenes normally interpreted as the Arrest of Christ, His Temptation, and images of Christ, the Virgin and Child, St Matthew and St John. Originally a single volume, it was rebound in four volumes in 1953 for conservation reasons. Two volumes are normally on display, one opened at a major decorated page, the other at a text opening.
Also incorporating the Long Room, the Old Library is one of Ireland's biggest tourist attractions, and holds thousands of rare, and in many cases very early, volumes.
Though the Book of Kells has been exhibited in other locations, damage caused on a loan in 2000 to an Australian institution has led to a policy of never allowing the book to leave Trinity again.
Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.

Visit to Southern Regional College (N. Ireland)

This post on SRC has been published before -- it is slightly updated to mention that college Librarian Liam O'Hare has been asked to write a small piece in the college's e-magazine.

My first library visit was to Southern Regional College in Northern Ireland. (Web site of library -- http://www.src.ac.uk/lrc/lrchome.asp )

Thanks to Liam and his staff for hosting me.


A couple of points we could note -- no hot drinks in library, no fizzy drinks -- On the down side -- no time and and a half after 6.00 pm!!!!

On the Saturday before visiting the library Hannah and I entertained some folks at the Halfway House in Broughshane. Some Irish patrons appeared not to have adhered to the code of behaviour for responsible drinking, but most were very friendly and said what a good singer Hannah was (didn't seem to mention me!) (see photo below)




This is Danielle in the library at Southern Reg College -- she wants to work in Australian next year -- have we a vacancy? Anyone taking maternity leave?



This is me outside the College





This is the Kilkeel library (not connected in anyway to Southern Regional College) -- Marty Clarke the Collingwood footballer comes from a nearby wee village.


Southern Regional College
Southern Regional College was formed on 1st August 2007 when three of the provinces top further education colleges merged to become Southern Regional College. The new SRC comprises of the former FE colleges at Armagh, Newry and Upper Bann. There are a total of 6 campuses across the geographical region and the College incorporates four council districts.
Southern Regional College caters for approximately 50,000 students each year and has in excess of 1,100 members of staff. The College offers a wide range of courses: in excess of 100 courses for full-time further education; in excess of 80 courses on a full-time & part-time higher education capacity and; in excess of 1320 courses (not counting those courses offered in the community) on a part-time vocational & recreational basis. The College caters for the needs of all learners from the essential skills of numeracy and literacy through to degree studies and much more in between including First Diploma/Certificate; National Diploma/Certificate; NVQ and
City & Guilds/OCR qualifications. The College, offers an increasing range of Higher Education provision including Foundation Degrees, Higher Education Diplomas and Full Degrees
Foundation degrees are degree level qualifications designed with employers and combine academic study with workplace learning to equip people with the relevant knowledge, understanding and skills to improve performance and productivity.

Course subject areas -A/AS Levels and National Awards Adult Access Art and Design Beauty TherapyBusiness Childcare Construction Engineering Furniture Design Hairdressing Health and Social Care Hospitality and Catering Information Technology Learner Development Program Media Multimedia MusicPerforming ArtsPublic Services Science Secretarial and Administrative Sports Studies Travel and Tourism




The LRC (Learning Resource Centre) is a new facilty is the latest in design and innovation. It is equipped with over 130 PCs giving access to a wide range of software applications and the internet. The centre continues to have its extensive and ever expanding book stock along with a wide range of journals and reference materials. All library resources are catalogued and students can use the computerised LRC catalogue system to search for books by author, title or subject.




Hours: roughly 9:00 to 20:00 (17:00 Fridays) no weekends




Online databases:Childlink - Contains over 6000 papers and articles, providing information on legislation policies and practices on
health, education, benefits, welfare, youth affairs, justice and employment.
Kenote - Keynote Market Information offers 140 individual reports, and access to over 750 executive summaries,
covering a varied range of market sectors including Business Services, Computing, & IT, Education & Training,
Environment, Financial Services, Food & Catering, Lifestyle, Retailing and Travel & Tourism
Infotrac - This facility provides instant one-stop access to all Gale periodicals in an integrated database. It
currently offers 3000 full text titles.
Construction information service - A complete reference source for those needing rapid, reliable and up to date online access to British Standards, legislation and other guidance information related to construction, health and safety, and pharmaceuticals, in addition to product catalogues covering the construction, engineering, process and electronics industries.
Capacity builder -- Northern Ireland based Community web site providing an easy access support service to those
working in the community and voluntary sector.




Encyc. Britannica -- This is the online version of the renowned encyclopedia, an authorative source of information and an invaluable reference tool.
Emerald full text -- Emerald publishes the world's widest range of management and library & information services journals, as well as a strong specialist range of engineering, applied science and technology journals. Its electronic databases allow instant access to the latest research and global thinking. It provides the information, ideas and the opportunity to gain insight into your key management topics.
Film and sound online -- Film & Sound Online is a JISC-funded set of collections of film, video and sound material.
Several hundred hours of high-quality material are available for download, either in full or as segments, and can be used freely in learning, teaching and research. Journal of Sports Science Online -- The Journal of Sports Sciences publishes articles of a high standard on various aspects of the sports sciences covering a number of disciplinary bases, including anatomy, biochemistry, biomechanics, psychology, sociology, as well as ergonomics, kinanthropometry and other interdisciplinary perspectives.
Sports injury clinic -- Virtual sports injury clinic has a directory of over 100 sports injuries and conditions, 58 step-by-step sports massage guides and a virtual therapist for virtual diagnosis.
Tourism insights -- Tourism Insights , written by industry professionals, aims to help you monitor developments in the UK tourism market, analysing and interpreting trends to keep you completely up to date.




At http://www.src.ac.uk/lrc/support.asp the LRC makes available some Powerpoint presentations (Evaluate a website, Research skills ,Evaluate a book,Harvard Referencing), and some Word documents (Bibliography, Websearching, Essay checklist, Planning your essay)




At http://www.src.ac.uk/lrc/webresources.asp the LRC points to some services such as RSCNI (which supports Further and Higher Education Colleges in their development of Elearning Technologies and Resources), intute (a free online service providing you with access to the very best Web resources for education and research), and ni-library (Northern Ireland Libraries Network)





Needless to say the visit was extremely interesting and provided me with many valuable ideas.
































Note -- No hot drinks in library, no fizzy drinks -- no time and and a half after 6.00 pm!!!!

Conference day 2

Here is a photo of me attending the conference sessions. It was taken by a Swedish librarian with a Scottish name. Any suggestions that I look like I'm asleep will not be received favourably -- I am concentrating -- we were asked to close our eyes and think of what our next generation library would look like, feel like, sound like, smell like. How about that?

The second day's keynote address was The Shanachie report -- presented by 3 people from the Delft Public Library who and toured several countries, visiting libraries, interviewing librarians and filming the process.

Here is a photo of them -- they are coming to Melbourne on Dec. 6th. We should go. Recommendation for library -- 3 staff members to produce a road trip documentary on library best practice (perhaps Austin Texas as the starting point).

I also attended sessions on Web 2.0 applications in Denmark, Finland, Cairo and Singapore. I probably need to follow these up with visits as the accents of the presenters made it a bit difficult to grasp all points.

A couple things I did pick were that the person who created the Facebook page for the American University in Cairo was jailed for 2 weeks, and that that library developed a concept of a deskless library. How good would that be for the person doing the desk roster?

Here is a photo of last night's dinner with some young people we hooked up with (some are my friends on Facebook)

Video report

This video should work -- if not I am not up with this technology and may need another trip

Conference registration achieved

I have registered at the Conference and collected my bag.

Earlier I visited the Marylebone Library (see photo)

It was near the Registry Office where Paul (McCartney) married Linda and Ringo married Maureen. (see photo)

Workshop on blogging

The world has gone crazy. The first librarian I met was from Nashville and he told me country music was not his preferred type of music.

Prior to the actual "Internet librarian international" Conference I attended a workshop "Blogging effectively" led by UKOLN's Marieke Guy and University of Bath's Ann Chapman. For those who don't know (including myself until recently) UKOLN is a research organization that aims to inform practice and influence policy in the areas of digital libraries, information systems, bibliographic management, and web technologies. It provides network information services, including the Ariadne magazine, and runs workshops and conferences (see http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/).A BLOG is an online journal. The term BLOG comes from web log.www.emerge-solutions.com/learning_glossary.htmlThe aim of the workshop was to learn about up-to-date blog features and tools, to identify potential issues with the implementation of blogs within an institution, to outline policy considerations which best fit their individual or organisational purpose, to learn about tools for measuring blog success and to hear about and discuss examples of best practices to make use of in developing a sustainable blogging service locally.

The night after the workshop I performed with Gary Day at the Hammersmith Ram pub -- his mother is a librarian in County Down Ireland

See photo

Kuala Lumpur

The first stop on the journey has been Kuala Lumpur.

The National Library in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is a uniquely-designed building. Borrowing its design concept from the traditional Malay headgear known as the tengkolok, the building was built to symbolise pride in and respect for Malaysian culture. The tengkolok-shaped roofs join at a courtyard that serves as an open-air amphitheatre. Another interesting aspect is the roof's songket design, which symbolises the rich cultural heritage of the country. Within the building are various levels that house different divisions and faculties. Each floor is linked by a striking staircase. Well planned and laid out, the library is a vast network of rooms and facilities that is user-friendly, taking the needs of the disabled into consideration as well.