It’s been a surreal week, a surprise album from My Bloody Valentine, the success of the squatters of Friern Library in winning a 2 year reprieve for the library, an 8-1 win from the mighty Stags and a return to writing on my blog.
Work wise – dare I say it – we’re over busy as usual and it’s one of the prime reasons why I’ve lapsed on my blog. We’ve been another person down since October and working on my blog in the evenings is the last thing on my mind. Just getting through the week in one piece is my aim!
Since I last blogged back in September, we’ve moved in to a new office in a completely different part of the building after 16 years of living with the frantic Customer Services. It’s quiet, in its own contained space which opens up loads of possibilities of doing things like running a regular reading group for staff and is next to the new braille and giant print library which has just moved down from Stockport. It’s probably one of the best things to happen at work since I’ve started! (I’m easily pleased). The downside is the lack of people to fill the office! We should be getting a couple of afternoon part time staff in a few months’ time though in reality we could have done with some extra cover in the morning – our busiest time! We also going to be extending our opening periods in the afternoon though, barring any disasters, the new staff will be picking this up. Looking on the bright side (as I always tend to do) – there may be an opportunity to have a break from the phones for the odd hour in the afternoons. We’re also will be picking up some of the braille and giant print duties which will be good, particularly for the customer so we don’t have to keep passing them on.
Our forthcoming new reading business system is still forthcoming! Unfortunately we had one of our not so finest hours by sending all our members a letter announcing the benefits of the new computerised system where you can select your own books and manage your own lists only to cause a massive panic from customers who thought they had to cancel their subscription as they didn’t have a computer and would therefore no longer be able to use the service. One positive thing that did come out of this fiasco was how the customers valued our services and the horror that they could no longer ring us up to help them choose their books.
Our stock familiarisation and book club meetings are still going strong. Claire Morrall (The Man Who Disappeared) received an almost record 8 out of 10 from everybody, which was pretty credible considering there were a number of members who prefer Crime Fiction. I’ve read a real mixture of authors for stock familiarisation, trying to mix it with books I really want to read and popular authors I keep putting on people’s lists but have never read myself. It’s really widened my horizons as I’ve been introduced to writers who I would not normally have considered such as E V Thomson and Sidney Sheldon.
I’ve finally braved it and sent in my revalidation (first cycle) in to CILIP. It’s gone very quiet so slightly worried that it’s failed! I’m busy collecting evidence and filling in my log for my 2nd cycle in the meantime. The first year is already nearly completed though so I’m going to sit down and write some objectives for the next 2 years – probably split them in to essential, realistic and nice to do goals again.
The newly merged CDEG committee continues to work well together and I feel quite excited and optimistic about the future. I’ve also taken on board the e-newsletter which has given me an opportunity to learn new skills – Constant Contact and Sharepoint - and a feeling of contributing something.
This was the article I contributed regarding the Library Camp (Birmingham) 2012 (slightly belated!)
Helped with a large flask of black coffee to cope with an early start and a freezing Melton Mowbray railway station, I made my way to Library Camp 2012 with some trepidation. Cheered by the sight of all those cakes and more caffeine, I soon forgot the inconvenience of getting up so early on a Saturday morning.
Despite arriving late, I managed to arrive just in time to find out more about the sessions which seemed to involve lots of people jumping up on the stage “selling their pitch” and someone armed with a flipboard and post-its madly trying to keep up with the day’s sessions on offer.
Clutching my library camp timetable, I hastily scribbled the pitches down in the allocated time slots and made my decisions on which ones I wanted to do. With 5 sessions running on the hour from 10.00 to 4.30, there was plenty of choice with topics as wide ranging as cataloguing, book repairs, the happiness index, starting a library from scratch and how to cope with users swearing at you.
My first session was Mental Health in the Library and was probably the best session I attended. We debated whether it was best to be open about your mental illness as people would be more understanding about your problems or whether this would lead to prejudice. The group then talked about however understanding the manager is, the attitudes of other staff could be problematic. Solutions suggested included buddying staff with mental health problems, getting mental health awareness as part of staff training such as a Mental Health First Aid Course (run by MIND) and incorporating mental health awareness in corporate policy. One participant, speaking from personal experience, found that her team were more accepting of her manager making reasonable adjustments to her work because of good communication within the Team.
I also learnt about a couple of interesting initiatives – Make Friends With A Book (Sandwell) – where participants of reading groups held read out aloud sessions and Health in Mind Project (Northern Ireland) which has also recognised the importance of mental health first aid training and read out aloud sessions. Online discussion groups for people with mental illness including http://www.facebook.com/mindelephant and http://www.blackdogtribe.com/ was also mentioned.
The second session I attended was on careers and was led by a couple of librarians who are part of #uklibchat at http://uklibchat.wordpress.com/. Although it was a supportive group though a little subdued, I didn’t really come out of this session feeling that I had learnt anything new. An experienced library camper would probably have left half way and tried a different session.
Next up was Media Literacy and Young People which started with a healthy discussion on young people interpreting media, grainy footage of rioting in Syria was given as an example. The discussion moved on to doing essays in the age of the internet and the problems this created such as plagiarism which concluded that information literacy needed to be embedded in the national curriculum. Somehow this led to a discussion on the Rucksack Librarians of Hammersmith where library staff went out in the community and found the families that wasn’t coming into the libraries to try and get the children to come to the library. Interested, I later looked this up and found out that they were referring to the Doorstep Library Network of Hammersmith and Fulham.
The debate moved on to libraries not stocking particular papers such as the tabloids and dis-encouraging young people in reading papers like the Metro. However, this view was questioned that surely it was better that young people were reading something and they may read other papers in the future and then start to question what they’re reading.
After a really good lunch of veggie bean chilli, couscous, salad and more cake, it was back to the afternoon sessions. Next one up was Living libraries: overcoming prejudices (Living Books Project) where the idea is that you borrow a person and lose a prejudice. This was a project that took place in Malmo, Sweden, back in 2005 as part of a festival on multiculturalism and featured people such as a Jew, Romany, transvestite, homeless person, ex-criminal, Muslim and an animal rights activist. Follow up projects included a female vicar, ex-addict, police man, middle aged straight white man and a senior citizen.
Variations of this were suggested and included borrowing experts of skills and hobbies, borrowing for history purposes ie people that have lived through certain periods ie holocaust and One World Week where you borrowed a person and learn about other cultures.
One problem that was raised was - who was doing the borrowing? Were they open minded already? Also how do we reach people that don’t have contact in the library?
Although people in the room thought that this was something new and hadn’t happened in the UK, I was sure that I had come across this before and later found this useful article http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2008/dec/03/living-library-communities.
The following session was working with volunteers which polarised the room in opinion. The lady who led the group had worked with volunteers for 2 years and, from experience, found that when she worked closely with staff identifying gaps where they didn’t have time to do the work themselves, it helped to alleviate the attitude “they’re here to take our jobs”.
One of the arguments was that using volunteers helped to involve the community with the library and allowed tasks/events to take place which wouldn’t normally happen; she cited the library being able to run a gardening show with the help of volunteers. Examples of uses of volunteers cited in the group included helping VI people to choose books, being computer buddies, chatting to users and summer reading challenge.
The invisible cost of using volunteers was also discussed including training, expenses including travel and that there were often situations that they may not want to do certain jobs, after all they’re not being paid so you couldn’t really force them to do something they didn’t want to do. Concerns were expressed that we needed to have the library service intact after the recession with library staff that were members of a professional body with professional ethics and values at the core of the service. In fact, somebody argued that she would rather see her local public library close than see it run by volunteers. This debate is continued on the following blog http://johannaboanderson.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/library-camp-pub-chat-dilemma-volunteering-would-you/
The last session was how to run a library camp where people shared their experiences of running camps in the past and inspired others to have a go next year.
More details on Library Camp 2012 can be found at http://www.librarycamp.co.uk/p/librarycamp-2012.html or http://librarycamp2012.wikispaces.com/.
Here are some other perspectives of the day.
http://rachel-s-b.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/library-camp-2012.html
http://neonlibrarian.wordpress.com/2012/10/21/library-camp-2012/
http://bumsonseats.wordpress.com/2012/10/15/my-notes-on-libcampuk12-playing-games-organising-your-own-library-camp/
There’s a lot to like about the Library Camp. It’s on a Saturday which makes it easier to attend, it’s free apart from my train ticket, there’s a distinct lack of suits, the majority of the people are on the same level as me so no awkward faux pas conversations about management, it’s up to the participants to decide on the day and it’s a great opportunity to eat lots of cake.
Saturday 9 February 2013
Tuesday 18 September 2012
Lots of eyes rolling and lip biting, catch up for September
It’s been a long time but I better try and get back into the swing of trying to resurrect my weekly blog about work. It goes without saying that the phones have been busy as usual. A high percentage of the calls have been about not receiving their books, the books have been particularly slow in reaching the readers or in some cases just don’t seem to have reached their destination at all. There must be a black hole somewhere in the postal service full of our Talking Books. Production Department have reported no problems with the burners and we haven’t yet had any more red-faced emails from Royal Mail who recently decided to return our post back to us instead of sending it out to the customers, obviously didn’t understand the concept that they need to look at the different addresses on the CDs instead of the return to sender address!
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week with the theme being the vague read something you’ve been meaning to read or something you would not normally read. Luckily, this bought a good sample of books to talk about it such as Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex which turned out to be more readable than previously thought, Emma Donoghue’s Room where they didn’t like the subject matter and cracking reviews for Jonathan Barnes’s The Somnambulist and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. My two offerings were Andrea Levy’s The Long Song which has been on my pile of must reads and didn’t disappoint and one of the Jack Sheffield Teacher series which I would not normally have read and was as I envisaged – cosy reading and Sunday tea-time fare. I’m surprised this hasn’t been picked up for a TV series – someone is going to tell me now that they have!
Book selection starts again in earnest this month so I managed to spend some time looking through The Booksellers to catch up with the news. Some good new releases coming through which will attract a lot of customers including titles from J.K. Rowling, Kate Morton, Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver. We’re already getting customer interest for Bradley Wiggins and Claire Balding autobiographies. The two non-fiction books that stood out for me and I think will appeal to a lot of our customers are Clare Mullroy’s The Spy Who Loved and Catherine Bailey’s The Secret Room.
Requests for 50 Shades Darker keep coming in and we’ve now have a record of over 150 requests. I think our customers will be pleased to see the Erotica titles in the bestseller charts though when trying to pick one for book selection, the reviews were quite poor, particularly Eighty Days Yellow. In the end, I went for Porta De Costa’s In Too Deep, I think the Librarian receiving the erotic notes and what happens afterwards did it for me! Talking about bad reviews, it’s worth going on Amazon and reading the reviews for 50 Shades of Grey, Oh my with lots of eye rolling and lip biting, they’re more entertaining than the book itself!
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week with the theme being the vague read something you’ve been meaning to read or something you would not normally read. Luckily, this bought a good sample of books to talk about it such as Jeffrey Eugenides - Middlesex which turned out to be more readable than previously thought, Emma Donoghue’s Room where they didn’t like the subject matter and cracking reviews for Jonathan Barnes’s The Somnambulist and Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall. My two offerings were Andrea Levy’s The Long Song which has been on my pile of must reads and didn’t disappoint and one of the Jack Sheffield Teacher series which I would not normally have read and was as I envisaged – cosy reading and Sunday tea-time fare. I’m surprised this hasn’t been picked up for a TV series – someone is going to tell me now that they have!
Book selection starts again in earnest this month so I managed to spend some time looking through The Booksellers to catch up with the news. Some good new releases coming through which will attract a lot of customers including titles from J.K. Rowling, Kate Morton, Zadie Smith and Barbara Kingsolver. We’re already getting customer interest for Bradley Wiggins and Claire Balding autobiographies. The two non-fiction books that stood out for me and I think will appeal to a lot of our customers are Clare Mullroy’s The Spy Who Loved and Catherine Bailey’s The Secret Room.
Requests for 50 Shades Darker keep coming in and we’ve now have a record of over 150 requests. I think our customers will be pleased to see the Erotica titles in the bestseller charts though when trying to pick one for book selection, the reviews were quite poor, particularly Eighty Days Yellow. In the end, I went for Porta De Costa’s In Too Deep, I think the Librarian receiving the erotic notes and what happens afterwards did it for me! Talking about bad reviews, it’s worth going on Amazon and reading the reviews for 50 Shades of Grey, Oh my with lots of eye rolling and lip biting, they’re more entertaining than the book itself!
Wednesday 5 September 2012
Catch up about all things except work - August 2012
I'm having huge difficulties in getting my thoughts together after a huge break from my blog (made worse that I've just lost an hour's work already and I'm not sure what I've pressed). Also slightly worrying that I'm feeling more inspired to write about non-work related things rather than work.
Firstly, after a month off from formula one, the Spa Grand Prix lived up to expectations and my crystal ball was right that the 2 worst drivers Grosjean won't make it to a lap and Maldanado will crash/incur some kind of penalty and the world's most boring driver (yes I'm criticising a fellow Brit) Di Resta will eek out a point without bothering to overtake anybody and letting quite a few cars overtake him. Yes, I know he gets the car home in one piece but so can Joe Bloggs get their car from one place to another in one piece. Take your rosy-tinted glasses off BBC!
The start of the football season has been an anti-climax for the ever-frustrated Stags fan. I was expecting better things with lots of interesting new signings with footballers that had good reputations of being able to play football, I was going to think that Paul Cox had had lessons from Billy Dryden, Steve Parkin and Keith Curle over the summer and they had all shown him how you can get your team to play good football. Unfortunately Paul continues to study the John Beck manual of football - pinching players from the local rugby team, intimidating the opposition and stopping them playing and missing the middle of the pitch out in play (at least most of the pitch will still be in pristine condition at the end of the season as it doesn't get touched) though even worse this year, he's forgotten 2 crucial elements - to win, teams have to score goals and stop other teams from scoring. Hopefully he'll continue in this vein and get the sack soon. I can't even make any Lincoln jokes at the moment.
What else can I talk about before I have to think about work? I managed to catch some of the Reading/Leeds Festival last week. Favourite parts - Crystal Castles, Sbtrkt and before I get accused of being a dance freak - Mark Lannegan Band, At the Drive-In and Black Keys. Least favourite - toss up between The Vaccines and Florence and the Machine (just plainly awful), also quite a few non-descript indie-bands which all sound the same.
It feels like an end of an era as probably our most well known reader to all of the RNIB passed away last week. He used to ring up most days so it's like losing an old friend. It was sad that he spent his last weeks in hospital and none of us had a chance to speak to him there; I think his closest friends in his latter years were the RNIB Library Staff and Customer Services.
50 Shades of Grey has divided the readers, although achieving the largest waiting list for a book by reaching 126 requests, some have eagerly phoned back and made enquiries about the rest of the trilogy, others have been just as quick to say no more. One lady thought it was called 50 Shades of Green and it was going to be a nice family story set in Ireland. Couldn't get further from the truth! I think the best positive comment was from one customer who was just pleased to be able to get hold of this book in an accessible format and being able to join in the conversations with their friends and family. A nice example of social inclusion!
Firstly, after a month off from formula one, the Spa Grand Prix lived up to expectations and my crystal ball was right that the 2 worst drivers Grosjean won't make it to a lap and Maldanado will crash/incur some kind of penalty and the world's most boring driver (yes I'm criticising a fellow Brit) Di Resta will eek out a point without bothering to overtake anybody and letting quite a few cars overtake him. Yes, I know he gets the car home in one piece but so can Joe Bloggs get their car from one place to another in one piece. Take your rosy-tinted glasses off BBC!
The start of the football season has been an anti-climax for the ever-frustrated Stags fan. I was expecting better things with lots of interesting new signings with footballers that had good reputations of being able to play football, I was going to think that Paul Cox had had lessons from Billy Dryden, Steve Parkin and Keith Curle over the summer and they had all shown him how you can get your team to play good football. Unfortunately Paul continues to study the John Beck manual of football - pinching players from the local rugby team, intimidating the opposition and stopping them playing and missing the middle of the pitch out in play (at least most of the pitch will still be in pristine condition at the end of the season as it doesn't get touched) though even worse this year, he's forgotten 2 crucial elements - to win, teams have to score goals and stop other teams from scoring. Hopefully he'll continue in this vein and get the sack soon. I can't even make any Lincoln jokes at the moment.
What else can I talk about before I have to think about work? I managed to catch some of the Reading/Leeds Festival last week. Favourite parts - Crystal Castles, Sbtrkt and before I get accused of being a dance freak - Mark Lannegan Band, At the Drive-In and Black Keys. Least favourite - toss up between The Vaccines and Florence and the Machine (just plainly awful), also quite a few non-descript indie-bands which all sound the same.
It feels like an end of an era as probably our most well known reader to all of the RNIB passed away last week. He used to ring up most days so it's like losing an old friend. It was sad that he spent his last weeks in hospital and none of us had a chance to speak to him there; I think his closest friends in his latter years were the RNIB Library Staff and Customer Services.
50 Shades of Grey has divided the readers, although achieving the largest waiting list for a book by reaching 126 requests, some have eagerly phoned back and made enquiries about the rest of the trilogy, others have been just as quick to say no more. One lady thought it was called 50 Shades of Green and it was going to be a nice family story set in Ireland. Couldn't get further from the truth! I think the best positive comment was from one customer who was just pleased to be able to get hold of this book in an accessible format and being able to join in the conversations with their friends and family. A nice example of social inclusion!
Monday 16 July 2012
Rhubarb Pickle, The Reader and Revalidation (again) - 18th June-16th July 2012
It’s been a while since I’ve had a chance to sit down and blog. It’s that time of the year when the garden takes over and as well as doing some mass weeding, I’ve spent the weekend making spicy rhubarb pickle and summer fruit mixture for the freezer with the excitement of spending my evenings this week freezing cabbage and broad beans. I could also do with some ideas of what to do with red currants. One site that I have discovered recently that looks pretty handy for garden produce is http://www.allotment.org.uk/recipes.
I’ve also had to concentrate on my revalidation portfolio as my 3 year cycle is now complete. I’m slightly worried that my development seems very lacking with my limited role and lack of opportunities in projects and attending courses. I’ve decided to put a paragraph in my statement about my intention to do a management course to acknowledge a gap in that area. It’s been quite hard trying to decide what to include in my appendices, so far I’ve seem to have a pattern - new skills ie social networking and cataloguing, an example of a project I was involved in, development of my core skills needed for my current job and my committee work with CDEG and participation in EMBOC events. I’m also finding that I’m all right writing about what I’ve learnt from an activity but it’s the bit where you have to talk about how you’ve used this knowledge for your job which is proving to be more difficult. I’m also going to have to start filling in my audit sheet for my 2nd cycle.
I’ve been entertained by our forthcoming new reading business system with the constant booking and cancellation of dates for testing the functuality of the circulation module. Now, things have now been put on hold which is a bit of an anti-climax. I’ve had my initial training of how we should be carrying out the testing, the question which remains on everybody’s lips, when will we see this new system? I guess it is better that the data’s correct than rush it through regardless and the system is unusable.
It seems a month for cancellations. We’re being treated to a new carpet, it’s our first one since the building was built well over 20 years ago and with nearly 100 people in the office, it’s well used as you can imagine. We had a mad couple of hours clearing cupboards and filling the skip and shredding box today only to be told late this afternoon that there’s been a delay! We’ve just got to remember where we put the various cupboard contents for the next few days.
I don’t know if it was just me but I thought the Update was particularly dull this month and I struggled to find anything of interest. I keep meaning to go through the Phil Bradley’s column and trying some of the sites but it’s just finding the time.
We had our book club meeting last week. This time it was The Reader to go under the spotlight. On the whole, the book was well received, mainly getting 8’s and 9’s though it did get a 4 from one of our members. There wasn’t much fondness for Hannah except for the bit when she asks the judge “What would you have done?” and perhaps the beginning when she takes Michael home after he falls ill. Some of us couldn’t quite work out why she considered it more of a crime to be illiterate than the atrocities that she was accused off when she was an SS guard and that she preferred to go to jail rather than say she can’t read or write. There was also some confusion about when Hannah and Michael first met, some of the group thought that this had happened before she was a guard while others thought it was after the war. There was a thought that Hannah has a vicious streak in her, the fact that she hit Michael with her belt and cut his lip when he off to get some breakfast and left her a note and also her behaviour on the tram. This was a book that raised lots of questions – why did Hannah suddenly stop looking after herself once she had learnt to read and write, Michael’s relationship with his father that he had to make an appointment to see him, should Michael have told the judge that Hannah could not read or write so could not have written the report and had Michael really betrayed Hannah?
We had to do 3 month’s book selection pick this month to take into account of the forthcoming upheavals with the Stockport staff relocating into a drier place that isn’t falling down around their ears (a bit of an exageration here!) and the braille and giant print books coming back down to Peterborough. There’s a real good mix of new titles with highlights including a bit of true crime Midnight in Peking, Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Way, Hilary Mantel’s follow up to Wolfhall and A Cat Called Bob (including scarf of course). Collection Development titles concentrated on minority sports and include biographies on Barry Sheene, Nadal and Colin Montgomery’s latest autobiography. The imports more or less picked themselves and include new novels by Joanne Harris and Michael Frayn, the latest autobiography by David Essex and Ann Patchett’s A State of Wonder. Missing series is also a good mix from Colin Forbe’s A Savage Gorge (the only Tweed one that we haven’t got), Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments as we bizarrely only had the third one in the Barrytown series and the usual 3 favourites – Lee Child, Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin - that we’re trying to fill in. We’ve also discovered that Donna Leon and Harlan Coben isn't an Import, always a big excitement when one of the big crime favourites hasn’t succumbed to Isis, Audiogo or Oakhill.
We’ve now reached a record 55 requests for people waiting for 50 Shades of Grey to be completed. Hope the studios aren’t going to be too long!
I’ve also had to concentrate on my revalidation portfolio as my 3 year cycle is now complete. I’m slightly worried that my development seems very lacking with my limited role and lack of opportunities in projects and attending courses. I’ve decided to put a paragraph in my statement about my intention to do a management course to acknowledge a gap in that area. It’s been quite hard trying to decide what to include in my appendices, so far I’ve seem to have a pattern - new skills ie social networking and cataloguing, an example of a project I was involved in, development of my core skills needed for my current job and my committee work with CDEG and participation in EMBOC events. I’m also finding that I’m all right writing about what I’ve learnt from an activity but it’s the bit where you have to talk about how you’ve used this knowledge for your job which is proving to be more difficult. I’m also going to have to start filling in my audit sheet for my 2nd cycle.
I’ve been entertained by our forthcoming new reading business system with the constant booking and cancellation of dates for testing the functuality of the circulation module. Now, things have now been put on hold which is a bit of an anti-climax. I’ve had my initial training of how we should be carrying out the testing, the question which remains on everybody’s lips, when will we see this new system? I guess it is better that the data’s correct than rush it through regardless and the system is unusable.
It seems a month for cancellations. We’re being treated to a new carpet, it’s our first one since the building was built well over 20 years ago and with nearly 100 people in the office, it’s well used as you can imagine. We had a mad couple of hours clearing cupboards and filling the skip and shredding box today only to be told late this afternoon that there’s been a delay! We’ve just got to remember where we put the various cupboard contents for the next few days.
I don’t know if it was just me but I thought the Update was particularly dull this month and I struggled to find anything of interest. I keep meaning to go through the Phil Bradley’s column and trying some of the sites but it’s just finding the time.
We had our book club meeting last week. This time it was The Reader to go under the spotlight. On the whole, the book was well received, mainly getting 8’s and 9’s though it did get a 4 from one of our members. There wasn’t much fondness for Hannah except for the bit when she asks the judge “What would you have done?” and perhaps the beginning when she takes Michael home after he falls ill. Some of us couldn’t quite work out why she considered it more of a crime to be illiterate than the atrocities that she was accused off when she was an SS guard and that she preferred to go to jail rather than say she can’t read or write. There was also some confusion about when Hannah and Michael first met, some of the group thought that this had happened before she was a guard while others thought it was after the war. There was a thought that Hannah has a vicious streak in her, the fact that she hit Michael with her belt and cut his lip when he off to get some breakfast and left her a note and also her behaviour on the tram. This was a book that raised lots of questions – why did Hannah suddenly stop looking after herself once she had learnt to read and write, Michael’s relationship with his father that he had to make an appointment to see him, should Michael have told the judge that Hannah could not read or write so could not have written the report and had Michael really betrayed Hannah?
We had to do 3 month’s book selection pick this month to take into account of the forthcoming upheavals with the Stockport staff relocating into a drier place that isn’t falling down around their ears (a bit of an exageration here!) and the braille and giant print books coming back down to Peterborough. There’s a real good mix of new titles with highlights including a bit of true crime Midnight in Peking, Robert MacFarlane’s The Old Way, Hilary Mantel’s follow up to Wolfhall and A Cat Called Bob (including scarf of course). Collection Development titles concentrated on minority sports and include biographies on Barry Sheene, Nadal and Colin Montgomery’s latest autobiography. The imports more or less picked themselves and include new novels by Joanne Harris and Michael Frayn, the latest autobiography by David Essex and Ann Patchett’s A State of Wonder. Missing series is also a good mix from Colin Forbe’s A Savage Gorge (the only Tweed one that we haven’t got), Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments as we bizarrely only had the third one in the Barrytown series and the usual 3 favourites – Lee Child, Peter Robinson and Ian Rankin - that we’re trying to fill in. We’ve also discovered that Donna Leon and Harlan Coben isn't an Import, always a big excitement when one of the big crime favourites hasn’t succumbed to Isis, Audiogo or Oakhill.
We’ve now reached a record 55 requests for people waiting for 50 Shades of Grey to be completed. Hope the studios aren’t going to be too long!
Tuesday 19 June 2012
Lake District, The Savage Garden and Congratulations to England - 1st – 17th June 2012
I always seem to suffer from writers block when I haven’t written on my blog for a few weeks. I've spend the first ½ an hour typing, deleting, retyping and redeleting until I get in the swing again.
I met up with one of my best friends in Nottingham on Saturday. I hadn’t seen her for quite a few years so we had quite a bit of catching up to do. Most of it was done in Pret a Manger. We spent nearly 2 hours there. It’s put me in a good mood and spending the Sunday doing the usual chores didn’t seem quite so arduous as normal.
The month has flown by. We took avoidance tactics for the Jubilee and hid in our tent in Chapelstile (Lake District) until it was safe to come out again. We didn’t get flooded out this time, in fact it stayed dry though it got progressively colder as the competition on who could wear the most layers in the evening became more fiercely fought as the days went by. The only trouble with camping is that you always feel that you need a holiday afterwards to get over the ordeal. You always feel that you are on a fitness fanatic outbound break as you end up going on about ½ dozen walks a day excluding the numerous treks to the toilets and the water tap.
Work has been busy as usual, lots of calls and never a full house in to take them. The latest batch of customer requests was a varied affair, including autobiographies by Sheena Byrom (a midwife), David Jason and Kenny Dalglish, some poetry from Auden, the classic Mary McCarthy’s The Group, A Daughter’s Secret - a saga from Anne Bennett and Louise Foxcroft’s Calories and Corsets which looks at the history of dieting over 2,000 years.
We had our first Committee meeting as the newly formed CDEG last week. I thought it went well with lots of plans for the Committee to work on including an Equal Opportunities Act Workshop, a Library Camp, Libraries Change Lifes, Umbrella, the Diversity Award and a Conference. One of the next big things we need to work on is the quarterly Newsletter though we didn’t come to a final agreement on how we should do this. It would be interesting to see how the other merged groups came to an agreement on this one.
There was an interesting bit in the latest CILIP Update. Hidden in the 60 seconds with…. was a mention to The 25 Research Things which looks similar to the 23 Steps CDP and might be worth going through to refresh myself on some aspects of Social Networking. The website is http://25researchthings2011.wordpress.com.
Another useful link for Librarians and related professionals is http://www.rin.ac.uk/resources/library-and-information-professionals.
We had our stock familiarisation meeting last week where we picked a book out the book cupboard for one of our work colleagues to read. I was given Mick Mills – The Savage Garden – which could be classed as a well written, atmospheric mystery book though some readers may find it a bit slow and lacking a thrill. Other authors reviewed included Sam Bourne’s The Righteous Men which was described as similar to Dan Brown, a page turner and one to take on holiday but weak characters and not very well written. Another book reviewed was Peter Carey’s Parrot and Olivier in America where although it was a well written funny book, it was too long and the reader had to work hard to work out what was happening. The Warrior’s Princess by Barbara Erskine was another book up for discussion. Again, this was another enjoyable readable book but was spoilt by being too far-fetched. The last book was Barbara Nadel’s A Noble Killing which again received positive feedback though took the reader a few chapters to get used to Turkey as the setting and they also thought that some readers may find the subject matter – honour killing - difficult to stomach.
Congratulations to England, the final whistle’s just blown and we’ve managed to win 1-0 with a struggle. We’ve got lady luck on our side at the moment – not played very well at times, Ukraine not been given a goal and Rooney getting a goal with about his only good touch of the game. Italy next!
Thursday 31 May 2012
Russian Grannies, Orange Prize and Gina - May 21st-May 31st 2012
Huge excitement as we had a Eurovision sweep stake last week, I thought I'll be in with a chance as I got the hotly tipped Russian grannies. Sadly, it was not to be as I got pipped at the post (only by a few hundred points) by the Swedish entry though I can't really see the point of this one being in the contest as it's got to number one in most countries anyway. It's only sour grapes as I didn't make my fortune. Mind you the time I've bought cakes for everyone with my winnings to celebrate, I will be out of pocket. I didn't come bottom either as there was going to be a special prize made by Phillip the Archivist for the loser.
What was happening in the league one play-off final to take all 11 players having to take a penalty. Did neither team want to get promoted? It was left to the goalies to decide the outcome and Huddersfield's goalie who had been having lessons from Bayern Munich's goalkeeper on how to outwit your opposite number in the art of penalty taking to decide the winner. We were all wondering what would have happened if the score had still stayed the same, would the fans then have to line up and have a go?
Talk about hero to zero awards, this must go to Pastor Maldanado. First in the Spanish Grand prix one week and then forgetting he had something called brakes in Monaco and spent most of his time riding into the back of everyone else. And good old Grojean, I was getting abit worried that he hadn't crashed for a while, back to unable to get one full lap in.
As you've probably guessed from my ramblings, nothing much has happened at work. The next batch of customer requests that made it through to the book selection meeting was a curious mix including the latest one by Martin Amis (Lionel Asbo) mixed in with A Tangled Summer by Caroline Kington (country life fiction) and a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. There were quite a good selection of general fiction titles requested but unfortunately Oakhill has snapped up a lot of good titles including Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Allison Pearson's I think I love you. The non-fiction selection is just as varied including Roger Deakins Wildwood, Rafael Nadel's autobiography, Kate Chisholm's recent biography on Samuel Johnson and the Countess of Carnavon's Lady Amina's Real Downtown Abbey.
It was the Peterborough Orange Prize's Reading Groups event last night. Anne Enright was a much better read than we all had anticipated after her gloomfeast The Gathering. Quite honest, insightful and at times funny. I personally liked the rambling style of writing as if the main character is putting her thoughts together. The book is told in the first person - Gina - but we agreed that we couldn't rely on her account of what actually happened nor get an accurate portrayal of the other characters. She was summed up as being delusional, self-centred and basically not a nice person. I gave it 8/10 with 2 other people from the group but a couple of people didn't enjoy the book at all and only gave it 5/10 which led to an average of 7/10. For the first time ever, all the groups enthused about their books and the scoring was high. As usual the Peterborough Reading Group's winner differed to the proper winner with Half Blood Blues being our winner. Madeline Miller actually came second from bottom, our book came bottom! Last year we would have won such was the dislike for all of the books in general.
I'm off camping in the Lake District for a long weekend. The weather looks suitably cold and wet, can't wait.
What was happening in the league one play-off final to take all 11 players having to take a penalty. Did neither team want to get promoted? It was left to the goalies to decide the outcome and Huddersfield's goalie who had been having lessons from Bayern Munich's goalkeeper on how to outwit your opposite number in the art of penalty taking to decide the winner. We were all wondering what would have happened if the score had still stayed the same, would the fans then have to line up and have a go?
Talk about hero to zero awards, this must go to Pastor Maldanado. First in the Spanish Grand prix one week and then forgetting he had something called brakes in Monaco and spent most of his time riding into the back of everyone else. And good old Grojean, I was getting abit worried that he hadn't crashed for a while, back to unable to get one full lap in.
As you've probably guessed from my ramblings, nothing much has happened at work. The next batch of customer requests that made it through to the book selection meeting was a curious mix including the latest one by Martin Amis (Lionel Asbo) mixed in with A Tangled Summer by Caroline Kington (country life fiction) and a fantasy trilogy by Tad Williams. There were quite a good selection of general fiction titles requested but unfortunately Oakhill has snapped up a lot of good titles including Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Allison Pearson's I think I love you. The non-fiction selection is just as varied including Roger Deakins Wildwood, Rafael Nadel's autobiography, Kate Chisholm's recent biography on Samuel Johnson and the Countess of Carnavon's Lady Amina's Real Downtown Abbey.
It was the Peterborough Orange Prize's Reading Groups event last night. Anne Enright was a much better read than we all had anticipated after her gloomfeast The Gathering. Quite honest, insightful and at times funny. I personally liked the rambling style of writing as if the main character is putting her thoughts together. The book is told in the first person - Gina - but we agreed that we couldn't rely on her account of what actually happened nor get an accurate portrayal of the other characters. She was summed up as being delusional, self-centred and basically not a nice person. I gave it 8/10 with 2 other people from the group but a couple of people didn't enjoy the book at all and only gave it 5/10 which led to an average of 7/10. For the first time ever, all the groups enthused about their books and the scoring was high. As usual the Peterborough Reading Group's winner differed to the proper winner with Half Blood Blues being our winner. Madeline Miller actually came second from bottom, our book came bottom! Last year we would have won such was the dislike for all of the books in general.
I'm off camping in the Lake District for a long weekend. The weather looks suitably cold and wet, can't wait.
Monday 21 May 2012
Not much to say except Drogba is a hero - May 14th-18th
Not much to report workwise except that I spent the week with the phone permanently glued to my ear as there were only 2 of us in for most of the week. It was just a matter of keeping on top of the incoming calls and checking the in-tray for anything that was urgent. It didn’t help that it was our third busiest week of this year. We've had a worrying amount of calls of readers complaining about the slowness of the service and books going missing in the post. Our manager looked into it but both Production and the Peterborough Sorting Office have reported back to say there’s no problems at their end. A complete mystery!
Quite surprised that Chelsea won the Champions League. Not sure how as they were outplayed and offered little as an attacking force but if they have a player like Drogba who’s able to pull something out of the bag and keep their cool anything can happen. Also thought it was nice that after the match while his team mates were celebrating, he was going round consoling the Bayern Munich players whether they liked it or not. Definitely hero of the week. Also congratulations to York City for winning promotion back into the football league after beating Luton 2-1.
Otherwise not alot more to say, my revalidation portfolio has ground to a holt and I haven't sorted out any plans for any form of professional development. I have been given permission to go on a mentor's course in Leicester next month but I'm still in 2 minds whether to go.
Quite surprised that Chelsea won the Champions League. Not sure how as they were outplayed and offered little as an attacking force but if they have a player like Drogba who’s able to pull something out of the bag and keep their cool anything can happen. Also thought it was nice that after the match while his team mates were celebrating, he was going round consoling the Bayern Munich players whether they liked it or not. Definitely hero of the week. Also congratulations to York City for winning promotion back into the football league after beating Luton 2-1.
Otherwise not alot more to say, my revalidation portfolio has ground to a holt and I haven't sorted out any plans for any form of professional development. I have been given permission to go on a mentor's course in Leicester next month but I'm still in 2 minds whether to go.
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