Well! It's Wednesday! I haven't posted since last Friday!
My wife came down and stayed on the weekend - well she came down after work on Saturday afternoon and lefty after lunch - a very, VERY late lunch on Sunday. She came down with my daughter, son in law and two grandchildren.
Searching for provenance is fascinating. I've sent off for information to aq number of university libraries in England and Europe as well as the British National and the British Museum. They have been quite gracious in replying but I am more and more coming to realise that they often don't have much more than I have based on my skim read of the text - unless it's in Latin, Danish, German, etc - and an intricate search of the title page and any hints throughout the text which may give me a hint of dates, foldings (size), etc.
I am becoming gradually more and more conversant with the Voyager software but I certainly won't be competent with even the small section I'm using by the end of the fortnight. The collection that I'm exploring and, hopefully, cataloguing, is by a Professor Arthur (I think) from England. I don't know how the NLA got it.
Tomorrow I'm joining the public tour of the library at 11am in the foyer. It runs for an hour and at the end I will have more of an idea as to where everything is in the library - indeed what is in the library!
I look like spending an extra day here as my supervisor wants to see what schools might be looking for in a re-vamped web site. I don't know that I'll be of a great deal of use but I'll certainly try to advocate something worthwhile. In the unlikely event that someone out there isa actually following this blog, if you have any ideas, put them in as a comment and I'll include those ideas. She wants two half-days early next week so I'll have the weekend to come up with some sort of a plan.
I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but I'm finding this so interesting that I am becoming engrossed to the extent that I lose all track of time. My lunch break happens by accident of noticing the digital numbers on the bottom right of the screen, usually any time between 2pm and 4pm. Morning tea may happen; but only if I need a 'loo' break somewhere between 10.30 & 12.30. Today, for the first time, I actually left before 5.20pm.
I'm loving it but I don't know that I'd want to make it - or Canberra for that matter - my life's work: it's too narrowly based. I prefer the broader based role of the school librarian.
I'll get out of your hair now.
noel
Hi Noel,
ReplyDeleteYour blogs are always so interesting...you sound like you're enjoying your time at the NLA!
In terms of a new blog...if I am not too late, students these days are very much into Twitter, Facebook or Myspace and I would be looking at how they might make a library and its' site look more inviting/up to date. (I know these things are aimed at the 18 + age group, however, plenty of under 18s seem to being accessing the technology as well.) Communication is an important part of the digital age, especially when it is instant...possibly look at promotion of events, exhibitions etc through these mediums?
The current site is fairly dry to me (public and schools sections), so perhaps somehow encourage the staff make it more lively? Has lots of information to wade through with all the dropdown boxes etc ...possibly too much for the first page?
I tried to look at the Questacon site to see if they do things differently, however, my computer froze, which means that this comment is draft 2.:-;
Hope I was able to help!
Louise S
Dear Louise,
DeleteA very, very, very belated thanks for your comments. I've just caught up with it as, at the time, I didn't know about "Comments".
I wish I had read it at the time as I may well have incorporated those Social Media modes. Unfortunately, well - fortunately from my personal point of view, I've been retired now for just over two years.
Social Medium platforms could well have given our library a slightly higher profile.
Like many others, I'm saddened to report that I was not replaced by a qualified TL.
Ah, well!