And now, she's blogged about it! She writes about five libraries she's visited recently - in alphabetical order. So scroll down to the end for her lovely words about Wodonga Library.
Showing posts with label elsewhere online. Show all posts
Showing posts with label elsewhere online. Show all posts
Tuesday, 18 December 2012
Anita Heiss visits Wodonga
And now, she's blogged about it! She writes about five libraries she's visited recently - in alphabetical order. So scroll down to the end for her lovely words about Wodonga Library.
Friday, 2 November 2012
MyBloPoMo: Tech Support to the World
It's NaNoWriMo time (follow link for information) but this year I just don't have the time to participate. I have too many other things that I need to be concentrating on instead of working with entirely new idea, etc.
But, because my alternate plan will not cause problems (I hope) with those other tasks, I'll be trying to post to one of my blogs each day. I might also keep an eye on the total wordcount, and see if I get anywhere near 50,000 for the month, but I won't be necessarily aiming for it.
I followed the #internetlibrarian hashtag on Twitter last week: it was a conference happening in Monteray, California. I found a lot of stuff from that conference interesting and other stuff from it really quite frustrating. But the one that has resonated for me was a comment about librarians now being "tech support to the world".
It's true, we are - but I'm not convinced that (as another tweeter from the conference said) if we're not prepared to be tech support to the world we're in the wrong job. And we're certainly not all *trained* to be tech support to the world, or even just to our users. Nor do our sponsoring bodies necessarily understand or embrace the whole "TSttW" concept to the point of helping us be trained as such.
A few examples:
But, because my alternate plan will not cause problems (I hope) with those other tasks, I'll be trying to post to one of my blogs each day. I might also keep an eye on the total wordcount, and see if I get anywhere near 50,000 for the month, but I won't be necessarily aiming for it.
I followed the #internetlibrarian hashtag on Twitter last week: it was a conference happening in Monteray, California. I found a lot of stuff from that conference interesting and other stuff from it really quite frustrating. But the one that has resonated for me was a comment about librarians now being "tech support to the world".
It's true, we are - but I'm not convinced that (as another tweeter from the conference said) if we're not prepared to be tech support to the world we're in the wrong job. And we're certainly not all *trained* to be tech support to the world, or even just to our users. Nor do our sponsoring bodies necessarily understand or embrace the whole "TSttW" concept to the point of helping us be trained as such.
A few examples:
- Of our staff we have one dedicated IT person, whose understanding of libraries is because he's had to gain it on the job, rather than because he loves what libraries do. There are two more of us who I would consider relatively techy, but it's not even at hobbyist level: more just what you learn by being either internet-fannish for the last fifteen years (me) or being part of Gen Y (the other staff member). Two of our staff are not techy at all. I have learned to run new backroom resources (Wiki additions, switching from iGoogle to Symbaloo when iGoogle's demise was announced) by them because they are the lowest common denominator when it comes to understanding tech. Until I learned to do this, I was getting frustrated by people not using the "perfectly good" Wiki I'd set up. My point being - can we expect our staff to be tech support to the world when we can't even be tech support to ourselves?
- We have two playstations here in the library. They are well used, but we do get kids come in to play on them that have never played before, and then they expect us to help them out. Resultant problems: Most of us don't know how to play most of the games. (For example, I have two of them at home, but on the Wii, I have no idea how the PS3 works.) Playing the games isn't seen as actual "work" (we did have a go on a particularly quiet day between Christmas and New Year, but we don't open at that time of year anymore), and most of the staff have no real interest in learning. (I don't particularly want to learn how to play the beat-em-up games or the car/dirt-bike racing games, for example.) If we're "TSttW" we should be able to show the five year old how to navigate the Toy Story game, but... what employer will support the time out for a full staff to familiarise themselves with the ins and outs of seventeen PS3 games?
- As part of Seniors Celebration, we were all geared up to offer "Master Your Gadget" sessions, wherein participants would let us know what gadget they wanted to master, and we would find a volunteer to assist them. Unfortunately, our prospective gadget masterers far outnumbered our volunteers, and they weren't always very good at telling us exactly what they wanted us to teach them. Or at turning up when they'd been booked in. All of which lead to us not necessarily having anyone on hand who knew anything about the object in question. In that instance we tried to be TSttW but overreached ourselves.
Tuesday, 6 March 2012
What is "chick lit" anyway?
Jane Green, Kerry Greenwood, Maggie Alderson, Jackie Collins, Sophie Kinsella, Jessica Rudd, Marian Keyes, Georgette Heyer, Cathy Kelly...
That's just a selection of authors mentioned by commenters to Natalia Jastrzab's Chick Lit post on MamaMia.com.au yesterday. I don't know that I'd put Greenwood, Collins or Heyer in the "chick lit" category, anyway, although I'm sure they have certain claims to the genre title. (Personally, I'd put Greenwood in crime, Collins in romance and Heyer in either romance or crime depending on which she was writing.)
My own post from Saturday, "A quick post on genre titles" has garnered some conversation. It was actually a post written rapidly on my telephone while we were out shopping, and as I thought about what it is we call the sort of books Anita Heiss writes. You see, I've always said that Anita Heiss writes the only "chick lit" I've ever really enjoyed, and certainly the authors that were named in the Mamamia post are not authors I tend to read (although Jess Rudd's two books are TOTALLY on my to-read list. On the other hand, I overdosed on Marian Keyes back when I was avoiding my honors thesis and now refuse to touch her work with a very large bargepole).
So, how do I define 'chick lit'?
The thing is, I'm not sure I define it at all. When I look at my Goodreads shelves, I have the following 'sub' shelves relating directly to fiction:
I took a tour of the library shelves today in an attempt to sort out how I define chick lit. Elizabeth Berg - no. Alexandra Potter - probably. Sandra Brown - no. Jodi Picoult - no. Judy Nunn, Di Morrissey, Fiona McGregor - no, no and no. As for the yesses... Linda Francis Lee, Christine Jones, the usual suspects of Alderson, Green, Kinsella and Keyes, of course... Fiona Walker, I suppose. When I think about it, for me it's all about the cover. There's a post on Dianne Blacklock's blog that shows the progression of cover designs for one of her books. It transitions nicely from pure chick lit to something that for me, isn't chick lit. Chick lit is brash colours, big print, and slightly cartoon-like pictures of women rather than photographs. Not-chick-lit is photographs, soft colours, and the sort of covers I now expect to see on a Jodi Picoult novel. Now obviously this doesn't entirely work: if it did, I'd put Janet Evanovich in Chick Lit rather than Crime. I don't particularly like the description of "women's fiction", (no one ever talks about "men's fiction"), but I tend to view chick lit as a subset of what might be termed 'women's fiction', along with romance, Mills and Boon (which is another whole subset of its own in my mind) and family saga.
And then I got to thinking about the point that there's no such thing as 'men's fiction' - and there isn't. There's Thriller and Mystery and Western and Sci-Fi - and it made me wonder whether the problem of 'chick lit' and romance is more along the lines of the difference between Governor and Governess; between the image you get in your head of a male secretary (Sir Humphrey Appleby, permenant secretary) and a female secretary (Peggy Olson of Mad Men). No matter what you call it, somehow the feminine version of the word will never sound as right or as powerful as the masculine version. We really are very well conditioned by society.
So maybe something like Juliet Madison's suggestion of "life lit" is what we need (except that the characters in these books never seem to lead lives that I recognise - they all have way more money than me for a start!). Does "life lit" cover Rebecca Shaw as well as Jessica Rudd and Anita Heiss?
I think I've only just begun my thinking processes about this genre labels thing. When I have the time at work (which won't be until AFTER this week's International Women's Day/Stella Prize panel extravaganza that is now only - eek! - two days away), I think I'll go through some shelves and mentally assign genres to *everything*, and see how that pans out.
I think I just created a blog series. Ooops?
That's just a selection of authors mentioned by commenters to Natalia Jastrzab's Chick Lit post on MamaMia.com.au yesterday. I don't know that I'd put Greenwood, Collins or Heyer in the "chick lit" category, anyway, although I'm sure they have certain claims to the genre title. (Personally, I'd put Greenwood in crime, Collins in romance and Heyer in either romance or crime depending on which she was writing.)
My own post from Saturday, "A quick post on genre titles" has garnered some conversation. It was actually a post written rapidly on my telephone while we were out shopping, and as I thought about what it is we call the sort of books Anita Heiss writes. You see, I've always said that Anita Heiss writes the only "chick lit" I've ever really enjoyed, and certainly the authors that were named in the Mamamia post are not authors I tend to read (although Jess Rudd's two books are TOTALLY on my to-read list. On the other hand, I overdosed on Marian Keyes back when I was avoiding my honors thesis and now refuse to touch her work with a very large bargepole).
So, how do I define 'chick lit'?
The thing is, I'm not sure I define it at all. When I look at my Goodreads shelves, I have the following 'sub' shelves relating directly to fiction:
- Australian
- Children's
- Crime
- Fantasy
- Girlsown
- Historical
- Middle Grades
- Religious
- Sci-fi
- Sexualities
- Short stories
- Steampunk
- Young Adult
I took a tour of the library shelves today in an attempt to sort out how I define chick lit. Elizabeth Berg - no. Alexandra Potter - probably. Sandra Brown - no. Jodi Picoult - no. Judy Nunn, Di Morrissey, Fiona McGregor - no, no and no. As for the yesses... Linda Francis Lee, Christine Jones, the usual suspects of Alderson, Green, Kinsella and Keyes, of course... Fiona Walker, I suppose. When I think about it, for me it's all about the cover. There's a post on Dianne Blacklock's blog that shows the progression of cover designs for one of her books. It transitions nicely from pure chick lit to something that for me, isn't chick lit. Chick lit is brash colours, big print, and slightly cartoon-like pictures of women rather than photographs. Not-chick-lit is photographs, soft colours, and the sort of covers I now expect to see on a Jodi Picoult novel. Now obviously this doesn't entirely work: if it did, I'd put Janet Evanovich in Chick Lit rather than Crime. I don't particularly like the description of "women's fiction", (no one ever talks about "men's fiction"), but I tend to view chick lit as a subset of what might be termed 'women's fiction', along with romance, Mills and Boon (which is another whole subset of its own in my mind) and family saga.
And then I got to thinking about the point that there's no such thing as 'men's fiction' - and there isn't. There's Thriller and Mystery and Western and Sci-Fi - and it made me wonder whether the problem of 'chick lit' and romance is more along the lines of the difference between Governor and Governess; between the image you get in your head of a male secretary (Sir Humphrey Appleby, permenant secretary) and a female secretary (Peggy Olson of Mad Men). No matter what you call it, somehow the feminine version of the word will never sound as right or as powerful as the masculine version. We really are very well conditioned by society.
So maybe something like Juliet Madison's suggestion of "life lit" is what we need (except that the characters in these books never seem to lead lives that I recognise - they all have way more money than me for a start!). Does "life lit" cover Rebecca Shaw as well as Jessica Rudd and Anita Heiss?
I think I've only just begun my thinking processes about this genre labels thing. When I have the time at work (which won't be until AFTER this week's International Women's Day/Stella Prize panel extravaganza that is now only - eek! - two days away), I think I'll go through some shelves and mentally assign genres to *everything*, and see how that pans out.
I think I just created a blog series. Ooops?
Saturday, 3 March 2012
A quick post on genre titles
In thinking about women's representation in the literary world - and the commercial world - we really badly need a better genre title than "chick lit". ("Commercial Women's Fiction" as Anita Heiss' work was described at Write Around the Murray last year, just doesn't quite cut it.)
Thoughts?
ETA: So now there's a post about this on mamamia.com.au - well, not on the name of chick lit but whether one should feel ashamed of reading it. Which, on the one hand I understand - I've written about my enjoyment of romance fiction, but not about the fact that my girlfriend has a tendency to tease me about every romance I read. On the other, I've read girl's school stories on the Melbourne trams, without hiding the book cover. I have little sympathy for the publication of "adult" covers for John Marsden's' "Tomorrow" series and the "Harry Potter" books. I have a high tolerance for public comment on my reading tastes.
Thoughts?
ETA: So now there's a post about this on mamamia.com.au - well, not on the name of chick lit but whether one should feel ashamed of reading it. Which, on the one hand I understand - I've written about my enjoyment of romance fiction, but not about the fact that my girlfriend has a tendency to tease me about every romance I read. On the other, I've read girl's school stories on the Melbourne trams, without hiding the book cover. I have little sympathy for the publication of "adult" covers for John Marsden's' "Tomorrow" series and the "Harry Potter" books. I have a high tolerance for public comment on my reading tastes.
Saturday, 4 February 2012
Unaccompanied Minors
Seen this post at the Australian blog Mamamia.com?
A mother drops off her three children, aged 5, 8 and 10 at the public library for 20 minutes while she goes shopping. She tells a friend, who remonstrates with her about leaving the children with the library staff who are not child carers, and who were not informed of the situation. Said mother blogs about it on mamamia.com. 640-odd comments later, not a single person who identifies as a librarian wholeheartedly approves of the situation. Many of those librarians point out liability issues, the realities of public library users (surely this isn't news?), and the fact that we've got policies about the age at which children are allowed to attend the library unaccompanied.
The OP, and Mia Freedman, publisher and proprietor of mamamia.com say things such as "it was only twenty minutes" and entirely ignore the comments of the library staff who have made their dislike of the situation pretty obvious.
Frustration ensues in your humble blogger.
Meanwhile, in the final few days of the school holidays, my own library has a sudden influx of underage minors not only spending from opening to closing (approximately nine hours) in the library, but these children spend what time they can wangle on the public computers (max 1 hour, but kids can and will play the change of staff on desk shift) on a "talk to strangers" website.
On Friday, when as far as I know every student, whether Victorian or New South Welsh should have been back at school, we had kids try to tell us that school didn't start until the "16th of February, miss!"
I don't entirely know what my frustration centres upon. The lack of any actual library-related legislation in Victoria - unlike in NSW? The fact that hundreds of commenters on a highly popular blogging site have decided that while teachers should be respected as professionals, librarians shouldn't? The simple fact that for the past 20 months I've been dealing with the public at large, and that doing so is not the most edifying experience, even when it is a fundamentally educational experience?
I'm not entirely sure.
I suppose, in the end, what I want to say is this: please consider, before leaving any child unattended in a public library in Victoria, that it's really no different in legal terms, to leaving that child unattended in a public park. If you wouldn't leave them there? Don't leave them in a public library.
A mother drops off her three children, aged 5, 8 and 10 at the public library for 20 minutes while she goes shopping. She tells a friend, who remonstrates with her about leaving the children with the library staff who are not child carers, and who were not informed of the situation. Said mother blogs about it on mamamia.com. 640-odd comments later, not a single person who identifies as a librarian wholeheartedly approves of the situation. Many of those librarians point out liability issues, the realities of public library users (surely this isn't news?), and the fact that we've got policies about the age at which children are allowed to attend the library unaccompanied.
The OP, and Mia Freedman, publisher and proprietor of mamamia.com say things such as "it was only twenty minutes" and entirely ignore the comments of the library staff who have made their dislike of the situation pretty obvious.
Frustration ensues in your humble blogger.
Meanwhile, in the final few days of the school holidays, my own library has a sudden influx of underage minors not only spending from opening to closing (approximately nine hours) in the library, but these children spend what time they can wangle on the public computers (max 1 hour, but kids can and will play the change of staff on desk shift) on a "talk to strangers" website.
On Friday, when as far as I know every student, whether Victorian or New South Welsh should have been back at school, we had kids try to tell us that school didn't start until the "16th of February, miss!"
I don't entirely know what my frustration centres upon. The lack of any actual library-related legislation in Victoria - unlike in NSW? The fact that hundreds of commenters on a highly popular blogging site have decided that while teachers should be respected as professionals, librarians shouldn't? The simple fact that for the past 20 months I've been dealing with the public at large, and that doing so is not the most edifying experience, even when it is a fundamentally educational experience?
I'm not entirely sure.
I suppose, in the end, what I want to say is this: please consider, before leaving any child unattended in a public library in Victoria, that it's really no different in legal terms, to leaving that child unattended in a public park. If you wouldn't leave them there? Don't leave them in a public library.
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