Here come the Mo-brarians

Mo-brarian [moh-brair-ee-uhn] -noun

1. a male working in a library environment, who has hair growing on the upper lip, allowed to grow without shaving, and often trimmed in any of various shape


2. a person of either gender, trained in library work and dedicated to changing the face of men’s health

This coming Movember (the formerly useless and boring month of November) Australia's library workers are uniting for a common cause: changing the face of men's health.

Movember is an annual, month-long celebration of the moustache, highlighting men’s health issues, specifically prostate cancer and depression in men. Mo-Bros, supported by their Mo-Sistas, start Movember clean shaven and then have the remainder of the month to grow and groom their moustache. During Movember, each Mo Bro effectively becomes a walking billboard for men’s health and, via their Mo, raises essential funds and awareness for Movember’s men’s health partners – The Prostate Cancer Foundation and Beyondblue – the national depression initiative.

The Mo-brarians, our Movember team, need your help and support. Donate to us online or visit your local library where you can get more information about movember and men’s health issues. If you would like to join the Mo-brarians, or simply follow our Movember journey, then check out our online headquarters at http://mobrarians.wordpress.com/.

Library workers of Australia have united and are now asking you to put your money (just slightly above) where your mouth is – join us, and help change the face of men's health.

Research survey for Australian library workers

- Posted on behalf of Michael Stephens -

Dear Australian library colleagues,

You may have seen the announcement earlier this year where I was appointed as the 2009 CAVAL Visiting Scholar. My research, "Measuring the Value and Effect of Learning 2.0 Programs in Libraries" will evaluate the impact of Learning 2.0 programs in Australia and the perceived levels of openness, transparency and trust by staff in organizations that have completed the course.

Now it’s time for me to ask for your help!

If you have completed a 23 Things / Learning 2.0 program, I'd like to invite you to participate in an online survey.

Please take 10 to 15 minutes to complete this online survey: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=FKEc0Bnxl5mbWC091rrI_2bw_3d_3d

If you have any questions or concerns about the survey, please contact me (email is on front of survey).

If have been the person responsible for developing and/or implementing a 23 Things / Learning 2.0 program for your library (single library service or a consortia program), please email your contact details to Warren Cheetham at CityLibraries Townsville (warren.cheetham@townsville.qld.gov.au). I have a special survey which Warren will send to you, just for people who have lead a learning 2.0 program.

Thank you for your participation in my research. I am looking forward to my trip to Australia in October!

Best wishes,

Michael Stephens ~

Assistant Professor, Dominican University GSLIS
Tame the Web: Libraries & Technology: http://www.tametheweb.com/

Having a play with embedding videos, came across these clever library ads via Stephen Abram's blog

Next Gen OPAC

The National Library of Austalia has released the first prototype of its new Single Business Discovery Service for comment by key stakeholders.

From an email launching the prototype:

The prototype is available at http://sbdsproto.nla.gov.au/ and provides integrated access to over 42 million metadata and text resources from a range of the National Library's collaborative services and from elsewhere.

For this initial version there are a range of data sources including: the Australian National Bibliographic Database, Australian Newspapers, Picture Australia, the ARROW Discovery Service, and PANDORA. The new service will also provide the discovery interface for the People Australia initiative.

Additionally we have included some external sources of data such as OAIster, Open Library, the Hathi Trust, the Internet Archive and the Library of Congress tables of contents, publishers' descriptions and sample book chapters.

Prior to using this service it is worth noting that it is a work in progress and you’ll find the 'About' pages useful in determining what has been done to date and what we are still planning to do. We welcome your granular feedback in the form at the bottom of every page, and strategic discussion in the SBD Project topic at our Libraries Australia ning site. [Not on ning? Contact our Help Desk 1800 026 155.]

Lotsa' learning

My recent online activities have been focussed around running a Learning 2.0 program - our learning blog can be found at: http://citylibrarieslearning.wordpress.com/

Our Twitter account is: http://twitter.com/TownsvilleLib

My personal learning blog is: http://stainedglasswaterfalllearningblog.wordpress.com/

...and that doesn't leave much time for regular blogging or tweeting at the moment! :-)

The program is going really well, staff are responding and seem to be having a great time.

The Library vs. the Search Engine

I love this idea!

http://mosmanlibraryblogs.com/challenge/

From the website:

The Set Up
We're pitting Mosman Library’s online reference collection against what you can find from the search box on the world wide web! Each day during Library & Information Week we’ll be posting a question that represents the range of queries that we get at Mosman Library.

You decide who gives the best answers and wins the challenge.

The Players

Our Reference Librarian Jane B will represent Mosman Library. She’ll use only Mosman Library’s electronic resources to answer the question.
Our Internet & IT Services Librarian Ken D will represent the search engine. He’ll use only freely-available web resources to formulate his answer.

PLA/QPLA Conference 2009

(from the April edition of aliaPUBNEWS email alert)

Public Libraries Australia and the Queensland Public Libraries Association (QPLA) are happy to announce they will be holding a joint conference of national significance.

The conference will be held in Townsville, Queensland from 11 to 14 October 2009 with the theme being Change and Challenge.

In the near future a conference web page will be set up that will provide you with more information such as the program, sponsorship opportunities and registration details.
(Update 22/5/09 website is now available: http://www.pla.org.au/conferences.html)

In the meantime pencil this event into your diaries and please contact the undersigned if you have any questions.

Roger Henshaw [rhenshaw@pla.org.au / Tel: 0414 190 133]
Ron Store [ron.store@townsville.qld.gov.au / Tel: 07 4773 8819 or 07 4778 2424]