Moving use of a still image

Yesterday I caught up on a lot of reading (mostly online) and one of the few things that has stuck in my mind today is the following, found via Paul McGovern's blog - McGovern Online:

Every now and then you come across something that totally inspires you both in it's simplicity, and the power of it's underlying purpose....It's only one image - and a digitised one at that, which has then been edited and given a really beautiful sound track.

I'm not going to embed or link to the image, because I'd like you to head over to Paul's post and read his commentary on this truly beautiful, moving digital object.

Mo-vember - week 2

The moustache is coming along slowly. This picture was taken yesterday at our Library 2.0: making it work professional development day with our Mo-brarians team captain Keil, who is so brave he shaved a mohawk for Movember!

Movember is all about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer.

To donate to our team you can either:

Click this link and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account,

or Write a cheque payable to

‘Movember Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1723631 and mailing it to:
Movember Foundation
PO Box 292
Prahran VIC 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.

The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.

Work / Life balance

This morning, in a conversation about work/life balance, a colleague said words to the effect of "you know, work/life balance is not something you get right and it carries on, it's something you have to make a decision about each and every day".
I've never thought about it like that before, and her comment really resonated with me for some reason...

Online reputation management

Found this morning via a Very Short List email:

Is your user name — the one you always register with online — unique? Use the Username Check to find out. The application searches Yahoo, eBay, Flickr, Tumblr, and 56 other popular websites, and tells you whether anyone else is using your favorite alias. If your name is available, sign up! — even if it’s a site you don’t use. (You don’t want to see some twit Twittering in your name, do you?)

Very handy for keeping track of where you have (or have not) registered.

Library service excellence is like making good espresso

Last week I enjoyed a three hour ‘espresso class’ – a wonderful birthday gift from my wife. I took our little espresso machine to a local coffee shop where the staff led us through the complexities of coffee making. My caffeine-fuelled brain was buzzing that night, and as I was thinking about the many steps of making a good espresso coffee, I somehow drew a correlation with library service excellence. In the cold light of morning, I think the link may be a bit of a stretch, but like a dog with a favourite tennis ball, I’ll run with the idea until it wears out!

A cup of coffee has many variables; type of coffee bean, origin of the coffee (altitude where it is grown, local soil characteristics etc), type of roast and blend of coffee beans in a roast, type and cleanliness of espresso machine, coffee grind, how the ‘basket’ is packed with coffee, pressure of hot water forcing the extraction, type of pump pressurising the water, length of extraction, texture and mix of the milk, plus a few more things I’ve probably forgotten. Get all of these things right, and you have an excellent cup of coffee. To earn a good reputation and loyal following, a barista has to get this mix right cup after cup, day after day. And that’s just the coffee. What about the café design and ambience, the cost of the coffee and the attitude of the staff. The morning after my espresso class, Timothy Greig tweeted this: hopes baristi realize their potential to change our world one coffee at a time: a short chat with Liz at Peoples' turned my :( upside down!

So how many elements are there to good service in a library – or any service/retail place? Location, design and layout, ambience, range and availability of stock, programs and events, wait times in queues, staff attitude, problem resolution, up-selling/value-adding etc. Like a good barista, library staff have the challenge of providing all of these elements, for every customer, every day, week-after-week. When all the elements are broken down like that, it almost sounds exhausting.

In helping to reach, then consistently keep high service levels, library staff face are a number of challenges.

• We can teach customer service skills, but can we teach people how to genuinely love serving people? This has implications for recruitment. Do we recruit for skills and experience or attitude?
• How do we keep experienced staff motivated and prevent staleness and boredom? Ground coffee is good for three weeks (I hope library staff last a bit longer than that!) but after a few years on a busy circulation desk, how ‘fresh’ is the customer service going to be? Perhaps there are opportunities for multi-tasking, job rotation, and self-governing teams.
• A good espresso coffee is a blend of coffee varieties, each type chosen for its unique characteristics. Can library staff keep ‘folding in’ the strengths of other professions like IT, teaching, public relations, marketing, retail, performance and museums into the library field to help perfect the ‘blend’ of service that a library offers?

Some other points...

• A barista constantly tweaks the coffee grind to suit the ambient temperature/humidity, the espresso machine and customer taste. How often do we tweak our collection development activities to match customer needs? Daily, weekly?
• It’s important to keep an espresso machine clean and functioning. It is of course critical to stay on top of the cleaning and maintenance of our library facilities (physical branches and virtual spaces).

I’m sure there are a whole heap more correlations to be made. Each time I enjoy a truly good cup of coffee, I won’t help but reflect on the mix of things that make a library service consistently great.

Movember 2008

During Movember (the month formerly known as November) I'm growing a Mo!

This picture is day 1 - no mo. I'll post updates through the month.

Movember is all about tackling men's health issues and being proactive in the fight against men's depression and prostate cancer.

To donate to my Mo you can either:
Click this link https://www.movember.com/au/donate/donate-details.php?action=sponsorlink&rego=1723631&country=au and donate online using your credit card or PayPal account, or
Write a cheque payable to ‘Movember Foundation', referencing my Registration Number 1723631 and mailing it to:

Movember Foundation

PO Box 292

Prahran VIC 3181

Remember, all donations over $2 are tax deductible.The money raised by Movember is used to raise awareness of men's health issues and donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation of Australia and beyondblue - the national depression initiative. The PCFA and beyondblue will use the funds to fund research and increase support networks for those men who suffer from prostate cancer and depression.
Did you know:
Depression affects 1 in 6 men....most don't seek help. Untreated depression is a leading risk factor for suicide.
Last year in Australia 18,700 men were diagnosed with prostate cancer and more than 2,900 died of prostate cancer - equivalent to the number of women who will die from breast cancer annually.

More information is available at http://au.movember.com/.