Tag Archives: Reading

Losing librarianship?

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Since my job change at the end of September, I’ve noticed that my professional interests and reading habits have shifted quite a bit. In particular I’ve noticed that most of the library blogs to which I’ve subscribed don’t seem as relevant any more. Consequently I’ve unsubscribed from most of them.  I wonder, am I losing librarianship? I’m proud to be a librarian, don’t get me wrong. And I’m not exactly thrilled about all aspects of corporate life and the silly pap that I sometimes need to consume as part of that. But I do really like my new, expanded role focusing on search and taxonomy, with the opportunities for learning new things and expanding my horizons. As part of that I’m looking around for other sources of information in the blogosphere and elsewhere that will help me keep well informed and current, and I don’t have as much time for keeping up-to-date with purely library-related things.

WordPress app for the iPhone and iPod Touch

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I’m lucky to own an iPod Touch but I can’t help longing for an iPhone 3G too :-) The main difference between them, for me, is that the iPhone 3G can truly be an “always on” device in terms of Internet access because of its dual wifi/cell capabilities. The iPod Touch can only connect via wifi, and I find that aspect of its functionality too limiting. On the other hand, I don’t want the additional service costs that an iPhone would require.

Just about every iPhone application also works on an iPod Touch, but with sometimes significant limitations. For instance, all of that cool location-based functionality that iPhone users get to have isn’t available for the iPod Touch since it is wifi only. When I’m at work, for example, there is no wifi access that I can use. Well, there is wifi access but I’m prohibited from using it. (Oh how I wish for ubiquitous, free wifi wherever I go!)

I’ve tried quite a few of the free apps in the Apple App store and like most of them, but I was particularly excited to read this a.m. of the availability of a WordPress app. This app is free and it works quite well from what I can tell so far. If you are an iPhone or iPod Touch owner and also manage a WordPress blog then this software is a must-have.

Other apps that I particularly like so far include the Facebook app, Twitterific, WeatherBug, and Stanza (a free ebook reader that I think is quite functional). Another free app that I think is really cool but is more of a geeky showpiece than something practical and useful at this point, is PangeaVR.

Some other library bloggers have pointed out the lack of library-oriented applications for the iPhone/iPod Touch platform. I agree that this is unfortunate and I look forward to reading about new developments in this space soon. I wish I was smart enough to develop something myself, but I’m not.

Great article on LibraryThing

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Great article (found via Steven Cohen’s Library Stuff blog) on LibraryThing. While some competitors have recently entered the same type of niche (such as Shelfari), noone does it better than Tim Spalding, Abby Blachly, and others at LibraryThing.

Link to A Cozy Book Club, in a Virtual Reading Room – New York Times

Fun stuff from The University of Chicago Library

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The other day I ran across a newish blog published and maintained by colleagues at The University of Chicago Library. The blog in question is entitled Maroon Opinions and contains a record of suggestions made by users of the libraries at Chicago. First of all, I think this is a great way to put blogs to use in libraries. Second, though, I found a lot of humor in reading the entries at Maroon Opinions. It’s a bit of a stereotype, but in general, those who work or go to school at Chicago are nothing if not opinionated. It’s one of the things I remember most about working in that environment: the promotion of individual thoughts and opinions and the concomitant need (at times) to be ready to fiercely defend them in debate. Check out this blog; it gives a rare inside view of the relationship between one of the world’s premier academic libraries and the communities it serves.

Keeping track of books I’ve read

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I’ve mentioned before how much I like LibraryThing, one of the best Web 2.0 type services anywhere. Yesterday I decided to use it to begin tracking the books I’ve read recently. I started using the tag ‘read’ and then used the handy blog widget LibraryThing provides to create a feed of those books tagged as ‘read’. You can see the most recent five books I’ve read in the sidebar of this blog. So if you really care to know, you can check up on what I’ve been reading. You will see that I have been reading a lot of mysteries, especially historical mysteries. I go through phases of different tastes and sometimes I don’t feel inclined to read much at all, but lately, I have enjoyed finding and reading books by authors whom I’ve never read before. Once the children are finally tucked into bed at night, or when I’m on the train going to and from work, it is great to just sit and read a good book!

A side benefit of starting to keep track of books I’ve read via LibraryThing is finding out how many I actually read in the course of a year, something I’ve never done before.

Procrastination

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I derived a lot of enjoyment from reading an article (available to subscribers only) in The Chronicle of Higher Education on the topic of procrastination. Misery loves company, I guess, because I felt comforted by the author’s description of his life of always being late with some project or another. My thoughts as I read about his techniques for not getting done what he should have already completed were something like: “Wow, he could be describing me.” I have failed, over and over and over again, to make writing deadlines. And yet I am tempted to say Yes again and again when asked to do this or that writing project. There is some weird psychological explanation here that fails me at the moment. Getting back to the article in The Chronicle, I thought the author summed things up nicely when he wrote:

“The best advice I ever heard is that life is what we do when we are avoiding something else. There are already too many books chasing too few readers, and, perhaps, the best thing for most us to do is take some time to play with our kids, talk to our students and colleagues, cultivate our gardens, and live well.”

Amen.

Fiji cyclone experience

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One of the highlights of my travel experiences was a trip to Fiji on the way back from New Zealand several years ago. My friend, Kevin, and I stayed in a small hut near the beach on the Coral Coast of Viti Levu, the largest island in the Fijian island group. The place we stayed at was Tambua Sands Resort. It was a beautiful spot. We enjoyed snorkelling in the reef, visiting with local people, and travelling around the island. Our idyllic trip was rudely interrupted, however, by the approach of a major cyclone, what we in the U.S. would call a hurricane. To make matters worse, Fiji’s only working radar system conked out and we were not really sure when the island would be hit. I was pretty scared, I can tell you! It all ended ok for us in that we got on the last flight out of Nadi before the cyclone hit. Below is an article about the devastation caused by the cyclone shortly after we left. I was recently going through some old files and ran across this clipping. Reading it reminds me of how serious our situation was. The takeoff of our flight was real interesting…we were in an Air New Zealand 747, heading out into a cyclone, with no radar telling the pilot where he should go. So he just flew around in low circles for about an hour until he could find a break in the clouds. I have seldom been so nervous.

Article on Cyclone Kina