Not content with inspiring a 6 billion dollar (and counting) movie franchise, a band called Harry and the Potters ('We sing songs about books!'), and knitwear, J K Rowling has given the geocaching community the term muggle . Although I hadn't done any 'official' geocaching, I wouldn't say I was a muggle, as I was aware of geocaching as an internet phenomenon, and I have previously set-up GPS courses for others. Easter last year I organised an actual Easter egg hunt using GPSs . Participants had to correctly answer a question related to what they found at each waypoint, which lead them to the final location, which had the actual cache - the easter eggs.
Looking at the Geocaching Australia website, I found that there is only one geocache in the suburb of Mt Lawley. Moving on, I was intrigued by the GeGnome Project. It appears that Gnome Chomsky is currently hiding in the City of Swan. Hopefully one of the City of Swan library staff finds Gnome Chomsky and relocates him to one of the City of Swan Libraries.
Getting the library involved in geocaching could be part of a larger whole of council initiative. Hiding caches at significant local sites, including some of the libraries would be an interesting experiment. It could have been a great way to celebrate the 30th anniversary the City of Cockburn, but alas that was last year - why didn't someone think of that 18 months ago?
Does adding the library to foursquare.com count as the library participating in geocaching?
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
hear ye!
Sue Lawley presented Desert Island Discs on BBC radio for 16 years from 1988 - 2006. Unfortunately she retired from the show before the first podcast of the show was available, which according to wikipedia, was the 29th November 2009 episode which featured Morrissey. Podcasts of recent episodes can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/series/did. For an actual lawley related podcast, check out the audio tour of the library at ECU Mt Lawley.
Cockburn Libraries have just started on the podcast journey with an audio recording of a recent genealogy talk held at Colbellup Library. It was a bit like that Beck song - '...two turntables and a microphone' (minus the two turntables, and with the addition of a laptop). I see our podcast has been added to the week #9 course material.... right at the top of the list - thanks City of Swan Libraries. Technically, should we wait until the second event recording is out to say we are actually podcasting?
It seems, to me, like a no-brainer recording and podcasting events held at your library. You have already done the hard part; arranging the talent to appear, then it only takes a little more effort to record preceeding, thus allowing a whole new audience to experience the event. Sometimes it just not possible to get to the library at 11am on a Tuesday, no matter how interesting the event sounds.
Cockburn Libraries have just started on the podcast journey with an audio recording of a recent genealogy talk held at Colbellup Library. It was a bit like that Beck song - '...two turntables and a microphone' (minus the two turntables, and with the addition of a laptop). I see our podcast has been added to the week #9 course material.... right at the top of the list - thanks City of Swan Libraries. Technically, should we wait until the second event recording is out to say we are actually podcasting?
It seems, to me, like a no-brainer recording and podcasting events held at your library. You have already done the hard part; arranging the talent to appear, then it only takes a little more effort to record preceeding, thus allowing a whole new audience to experience the event. Sometimes it just not possible to get to the library at 11am on a Tuesday, no matter how interesting the event sounds.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
...and another (library)thing
My previous comment about library thing may have been a bit brief (or not actually a comment) so here is a bit more. All libraries should add Librarything for libraries to their online catalogues. These catalogue additions enhance the catalogue immensely, adding user generated tags to complement the existing subject headings and giving access to book reviews.
The Cockburn Libraries catalogue has the ability for users to add comments/reviews to the book records, however even if lots and lots of our members did this (so far the up-take isn't great, or good even), you would still be working off a very small population base. This is why librarything reviews are so much better, as you drawing for a huge population of readers to get your ratings, reviews and tags.
At Success Library we set up a librarything account for the book club so we could create a widget to display the book club books on the book clubs' page on the library website. Cockburn Libraries also have a staff current reading account, so we can display a widget of what staff are reading on the library's blog .
The Cockburn Libraries catalogue has the ability for users to add comments/reviews to the book records, however even if lots and lots of our members did this (so far the up-take isn't great, or good even), you would still be working off a very small population base. This is why librarything reviews are so much better, as you drawing for a huge population of readers to get your ratings, reviews and tags.
At Success Library we set up a librarything account for the book club so we could create a widget to display the book club books on the book clubs' page on the library website. Cockburn Libraries also have a staff current reading account, so we can display a widget of what staff are reading on the library's blog .
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