Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Thanks Caitlin, I really enjoyed your post. I also participated in the Twiiter Chat, but somehow I missed out on some of the points you noted (or it could be that my brain has turned to mush with assignments 😂) . One of my friends has been dealing with Centrelink and he learned that they only give full-time employment to the staff in the call-centres, everyone else is on contracts, in order to encourage employees to work in the call centres as it is such a horrible job. I wonder how this will work will e-Government. Will there still be people in the system when the algothrims lock you out? Also doesn’t think also make the system an easy target for hackers?
Thanks Patricia, I really enjoyed your post. I know you work in an academic library, so this is probably a topic that you have considered many times. I’m just going to play the devil’s advocate (because secretly I agree with you 100%) and argue that academic libraries do provide enough support for their students leisure reading. Many libraries share leisure reading resources through Bonus. Also many academic libraries are very close to public libraries, the University of Queensland is close to Towoong and Indooroopilly Libraries. Queensland University of Technology is located near the Brisbane Central library, Griffith University is near the West End Library. It is hard to justify a leisure reading collection when academic universities run out of money to support the purchase of related material, especially when there are public libraries in such close proximity.
Of course Robynne, thank you for your kind words. It was really an incredible feeling listening to a language that has been spoken for thousands of years in Melbourne.
Thanks Debbie, I really enjoyed your post. I agree. I think, as you write, public librarians are in the ideal position to educate and empower the public. How do you think this translates into school, academic and even the State libraries? What are they responsible for individually? Many libraries make commitments to lifelong learning, but the reality of which literacy classes they actually provide seems very different.
Thanks for your post Chris. I was wondering whether the class you went to was during business hours? If we have an ageing population and people are having to work until an older age so I wonder if the people who would have like to attend this class might have been at work? I think it’s hard for libraries to have to cater to a diverse set of needs, especially outside business hours. I do agree with your comment that when there are more librarians than students it makes it seem like the librarians have nothing better to do, which is often not the case.
Great reflection Tracey! Barry Trott’s comment is applicable to many cultural/ education organisations, isolation is problematic and collaboration is beneficial on a number of levels, not just readers advisory. The next generation catalogue sounds excellent and after seeing Alice Steiner’s Fashion Libguide in IFN617 I think that the Libguide is ripe for collaboration too!
Thanks Paola! I also didn’t know about the prevalence of Twitter as a Readers Advisory Tool. I thought your point about one of the benefits of Twitter is that the conversation can continue was quite pre-emptive, especially in relation to what we are learning about this week, the participatory library. I think it’s a nice way for librarians to talk to one another too 😃.
Yes I agree, it’s an excellent idea. I’ve noticed that campuses/ libraries that have education/ creative writing students studying there have the best leisure reading collections, like the Kelvin Grove Library at QUT. I guess it is hard to justify a leisure reading collection at say a Law Library when resource budgets are so tight. I know at the academic library I work at many of the Bonus books that are requested are leisure reading books.
Thanks for all the comments. In response to your question Katherine, I didn’t need to present any kind of research credentials which was really nice. I was able to just send through an email Caitlin. I didn’t need to setup any kind of account. From my experience, i don’t think that this kind of service is available at all research libraries in publicly funded institutions but it would be nice if it was.
Cool Will! This sounds amazing. I really enjoyed your trend reflection. I agree that retaining our humanity is such an important aspect of interacting with cyborgs or AI. Have you seen ‘Ex Machina’ at all? I think that maybe humans need to come to terms with the idea that maybe humans won’t physically exist in the future, our legacy will be our humanity which might continued by robots or AI. What do you think is more important?
Thanks Tracey, I really enjoyed your post about subject guides. I’m a huge fan of subject guides too. The one thing that I wish subject guides included is more imput from students. I think that the subject guides could be hacked to form a more collaborative space/ wiki where peer-to-peer learning is encouraged and trends can be explored. Do you think that subject guides could be improved by being more collaborative or would it be detrimental?
Thanks for your post Robynne. I agree that reference work should include some information literacy skills. I would extend your argument that information literacy skills are best taught face-to-face, but most reference work is easier online. I work in an academic library and the example that comes to mind is the question I get asked once a week: What is a call number? There are students that wander up and down the stacks because they have no idea how to find books in the catalogue. I wish at some point before they reached university they had badgered a reference librarian to teach them how to fish. This question is actually quite awkward to answer online, you can send them a link to Wikipedia about the Dewey decimal system and hope that they work it out from there. In person, it is much easier. You can show them how to find it. Helping students access a journal article they can’t find is easier online, because you can send them the steps (websites) you used to get there and they can follow in real time. It isn’t as easy in person because they have to repeat your steps later. I agree with Chris that library classes would help, but if people don’t know that they have the capabilities to fish, and they aren’t hungry because the fish keeps being given to them, how can you teach them to fish?
Hi Kate,
I do, it is http://www.ruthmcconchie.com. Thanks for asking 😊
