Vast Active Library and Information Science blog. From a recent library science graduate in Wellington, New Zealand. A focus on reference and current awareness tools and issues, especially free, web-based resources.

 
Have taken up Laurie's offer of a room in his flat, with him and Julie, the 30-year-old Manchester United fan (actually, that sentence describes me perfectly, as well, but you know what I mean). He says she's good company, and given that all Reds fans are great, I'd agree. Two weeks till I move in. Then it'll be five minute walks to work or university, and all the "sitting around on the deck in the sun drinking wine and talking about football" I can handle. Well, once summer's here, anyway.

| posted by Simon at 9:14 pm

 
I know Blogger has something like 1 million members, and they're a small-scale operation (OK, were a small-scale operation till Google took over), and it's clear they never expected to be this popular, and they're obviously having problems with scaleability. But I do pay for this and I'm getting a bit annoyed that it's taking several minutes for each screen to load in their help section. Especially as it's not the best organised help section anyway.

Rant over. If I can ever get into the help screen to work out how to ftp, I might achieve something tonight.

| posted by Simon at 9:10 pm

 
Actually, I'm doubly happy because tonight is True Colours, a mini New Zealand music festival featuring one of my all time favourites (the Chills), along with a reformed Blam Blam Blam and Newmatics (legendary lost punk/new wave bands from back in the day), Salmonella Dub, Fat Freddy's Drop, Shapeshifter and more (dub and drum and bass for all tastes). Should be a good good night. Laurie and Anthony will provide my company for the night....

And Laurie has suggested I move into his flat....which is located conveniently between work and the university, and has a deck which gets plenty of sun and has a harbour view....mmmm.....

| posted by Simon at 5:01 pm

 
Final assignment for LIBR525: Information Technology is to write about an application of a new technology which interests you (with a scenario that you are writing a report for your manager in your first job after graduating from the MLIS). I chose to write about RSS, and it's starting to come together, but it was a fair struggle. Not that I don't understand it (well, I've got the basics) but how to express that on paper in a non-techie way without going into long-winded explanations about what XML is and how RSS relates to it, etc.

On the positive side, my real manager has said he wants to read the report, and he's keen for us to run a feed from here to the New Zealand government portal. And one benefit of the research I've been doing is that I found Hubmed, an interface for Pubmed that enables you to create an RSS feed of a search query, and read it in your newsreader. That's going to be incredibly useful. And here was me thinking that the RSS of Reuters Health was going to be useful (well, it will, but not compared to this).

I'm happy.

| posted by Simon at 4:58 pm

 
Well, I've been officially diagnosed as "hearing impaired". (actually, that's not technically true - but they didn't tell me I was deaf, and I'm not, so I think hearing impaired is appropriate. I need to wear hearing aids (one for each ear). My hearing is pretty much messed up in the upper-mid frequencies (threshold of 50-60db, where 20 is normal). Luckily I can get my aids absolutely free through some charity, because I'm working full time. (I don't quite understand the logic of that - you'd think that full-time workers wouldn't need help. I have a feeling that it's part of some programme to help the 'disabled' into jobs. Funny. I don't feel 'disabled' but I guess I am.

Reaction has varied from: 'ah, I wondered why I kept having to repeat myself and you never heard me' to 'pardon?' (ha ha)

More interesting was the reaction from a woman at an organisation for the deaf, who sent me an email (at work) and apologised for not using the phone - I wrote back saying that I preferred email too, due to not hearing so well...she wrote that it was great that [my employer] were employing me (implying 'with a disability'). As I said, I don't feel 'disabled'.

What I guess I'm expecting is that people will change the way they perceive me when they see the hearing aids - Mary has told me she already experiences similar things when people see her stick. The assumption that she's incapable. I guess I fear being thought stupid, being patronised.

| posted by Simon at 10:23 pm

 
As part of the Information in Society paper we are required to keep a diary detailing what we think are the key points of each week's reading and discussion, to describe a study we could conduct to aid our understanding of these issues, and to identify two other sources which are relevant to the topic. So I thought I might as well type 'em up here.

Week 8: Access to Official Information
I guess one of the key issues in this topic for me is the level of understanding of the Official Information Act in New Zealand. I think both the general public, and the staff of government agencies, need to be better informed about their rights and responsibilities under the Act. The actual legislation seems to be well thought out (Snell, 2000; Review of the Official Information Act 1982, 1997) and to work well where it is understood.

The problems that do exist seem to relate to human factors - poorly framed requests ("give me everything you have on...."); a lack of advice and training; and an inability of agency staff to respond to requests within the required timeframe (Review of the Official Information Act 1982, 1997). The work of Clemens (2000) provides additional support for the view that agencies themselves lack knowledge about the workings of the Act. From my own experience working with a Crown Entity, I'd agree- it isn't a lack of desire to help that leads to delays in dealing with OIA requests, but a combination of poor information management and a lack of awareness of the Act's requirements.

What questions could be asked about this issue?

1. What is the level of awareness of the OIA among members of the general public?
2. What is the level of awareness of their responsibilities among agency staff?
3. What training is provided to crown agency staff regarding the OIA?

My study is about the relationship between OIA training received by agency staff, and their level of compliance with OIA legislation.

Additional sources

Sprehe, J. Timothy, Charles R. McClure, and Philip Zellner (2002): 'The role of situational factors in managing U.S. federal recordkeeping'. Government Information Quarterly ,19(3):289-305

Relevant because it discusses different problems faced by government records management staff in terms of how to manage and classify information, especially electronic information. Shows that training they recieve is somewhat haphazard, and discusses how resources, leadership, and organizational culture impact on the effectiveness of record-keeping.

The Public service and official information : a paper in the guidance series. Wellington, N.Z. : State Services Commission, 1995.

Relevant because it shows what sort of training NZ government staff have been receieving already.

Both of these would be cited as background papers, not as ones which had answered the specific query.

| posted by Simon at 4:43 pm

 
Arsenal have won the FA Cup with a 1-0 win over Southampton. Certainly, no-one was really expecting anything different, but Southampton played well and created a few good chances. Seaman still looked good as a shot-stopper, and I can't believe they'd let him leave the club, even if he is getting too old to be the number 1 choice. Henry was glorious, one of the players I dream about having in the Man Utd side - never happen of course. That trophy should see them keeping their top players for next season, at least, though The Guardian suggests that Viera might not want to stay more than another season. Rea. Madrid mentioned as the destination, which makes sense - there aren't many clubs you can go to from Arsenal that actually represent a step up.

| posted by Simon at 3:25 pm

 
Tanja's step-mother died a couple of days ago. It wasn't unexpected - the doctors had said it was a matter of when, not if, and hadn't given her more than a year or so to live. But still a wrench. She was up visiting her family in Palmerston North, anyway. Drake has gone up for the funeral and to offer what support he can. Sigh. :-(

| posted by Simon at 3:18 pm

 
Just got back from a meeting of e-government types at the State Services Commission. I'm standing in as our agency representative. Anyway, there was a fairly sensible presentation on web design guidelines, including some good advice on accessibility (remember, not everyone uses IE/has a 56k modem or broadband/is able to access standard web pages). All good, straightforward stuff.

What really interested me was the presentation on RSS. The e-government unit appears to be right on top of their game regarding the potential of RSS to distribute government news and information. Basic plans call for each agency establishing its own RSS feeds, with their help, and these feeds being aggregated on the main government portal www.govt.nz. A new feed would be created from the portal, so people could read it using an aggregator. Very nice (and I liked the fact that Ferry Hendrikx, the presenter, used Amphetadesk as his example of an aggregator. Good to see freeware being promoted).

More at www.e-government.govt.nz

[edit - I was typing that last URL under time pressure and I accidentally typed .co.nz when it should have been .govt.nz - now corrected.)

| posted by Simon at 9:29 pm

 
Apparently, industry experts were expecting Apple to take a month to get there. What I like about this service is that songs can be played on more than one device - up to three Macs, unlimited Ipods, and be burnt onto CD. Seems like the model for the future, and with songs going for US$0.99 each, the price is broadly right. Not available for PCs yet (or outside the USA) but that will come. Via BBC Technology.

| posted by Simon at 10:03 pm

 
BBC News reports the growing viability of digital paper. It's now so thin and flexible that clothes with built in computers are a realistic possibility. Cool! I want one. I don't know what I'd do with it, exactly, but even so...

| posted by Simon at 9:56 pm

 
Main topic of debate in this week's 520 (Information in Society) class was whether librarianship can be considered a profession. The lecturers' party line was that it most definitely is, citing various authorities including the Australian Council of Professions to justify this. Problem is that librarians don't, IMHO, fulfill at least some of the requirements of the ACP. For example, crucial to their definition of a profession is that there exists a strong professional body, which enforces a code of ethics on its members. And I can't see where that happens in New Zealand. LIANZA membership is voluntary. They have no power to strike me off for poor reference service or inaccurate cataloguing, as a doctor or lawyer can be struck off.

Another part of the definition includes 'and are accepted by the public as possessing special knowledge and skills'. Sadly, I doubt that the general public does have this opinion of librarians. I think the image of us as dusters of the shelves, or (worse) control freaks who deny users access to 'our' collections, is still quite prevalent. My father's embarrassed to introduce me as a librarian, for those reasons. I don't think everyone recognises librarians as possessing a special body of skills and knowledge. (It's made worse by the lack of distinction, in most people's minds, between librarians and para-professionals. Even my classmate Bruce, who as a MLIS student should understand the difference, complained that a "librarian" at Wellington Public didn't know anything about cataloguing. Turned out that the librarian was really a library assistant, there do to shelving).

Rebellious currents are also surfacing in the class, led by Amy and Heidi, against the topic for our final assignment, which requires us to argue from the premise that librarianship is a profession. Neither agree with this.

| posted by Simon at 12:57 pm

 
Seen on Neat new stuff, Sitelines, a weblog to help web searchers stay up to date with search tools and developments.

On a lighter note, Marylaine also links to Library anecodotes, facitae, satire etc, a nice portal to the usual suspects (Laughing Librarian, Library Avengers) as well as weblogs (good to see the Male Librarian is there already) and bits and pieces (discussions of librarian porn, etc). Few things I haven't seen before, such as the Stripping Librarian (!?!) - sadly not worksafe so I can't investigate at the moment.

Also interesting: the history of things that never were a portal to various fan-generated timelines for fictional worlds (e.g. Tolkein, Dune, various comics and role-playing games). Quite geeky, but fun.

| posted by Simon at 1:40 pm

 
Got my first grades back for my first MLIS course (Information Technology). I did pretty damn well. 15 out of 15, in fact. I'm pleased. The assignments weren't exactly difficult though. For example, one of them involved building a mini webpage, but the only HTML required was < h 1 > and < u l > and < a href >. I've found creating and editing my weblogs, even using Blogger, about 5 times harder than that assignment. And the others involved things like searching Te Puna, the National Library's online catalogue. I've been using it for over a year, so no real difficulties there. I'm not complaining about easy grades, but its a pity the course isn't a bit more challenging.

| posted by Simon at 1:29 pm