I’ll be speaking at ALIA Queensland‘s mini-conference “Library Hacks” in a couple of weeks.
American-style model railway. Photo by Graham Causer, used under a CC BY-SA 3.0 Licence
My keynote’s called Revenge of the Model Railway Club and it takes the form of a hands-on workshop. It should be fun – if you’re in the area, you should come!
Library Hacks runs 9am to 5pm at Brisbane Square Library on Wednesday 26th October.
This week, in Marvellous, Electrical: storytelling, town planning, sculpture, and the smell of first rain on dry stone.
Today sees the official release of the Ozofarm game and game development competition for Queensland’s public libraries.
As I discovered on my visit out to the cotton fields of the Darling Downs, digital technology is changing the way we farm. Cows are milked in robotic dairies. Drones are herding and surveying cattle from the skies. Self-driving machines are steering across Queensland’s fields, tending crops and baling cotton.
I worked with Eva Ruggiero and Tammy Morley of the State Library’s Regional and Public Libraries Team to devise a game which explored robotics in agriculture.
The British Library has bumped me up from a “project worker” to Creative/Researcher at British Library Labs.
Just words but it’s always nice to have a punctuation mark in your job title. You can take it out and use it to defend yourself in single combat if need be. Especially as it turns out the “/” mark is called a Solidus.
Read about my dual role over at the British Library Labs blog.
What’s it like to cook and clean for the soldiers and hospital patients of Brisbane?
How do you cope with split shifts on the city’s south side when you live in a northern suburb?
There’s evil eyes, paperclip pranks, and butter on the windows in Marvellous, Electrical: This Means War.
Tomorrow, Saturday 1st October, we’ll be playtesting the Scrub Turkey Sessions game (PDF download) devised as a collaboration between State Library of Queensland and Griffith University.
Urban ecologist Professor Darryl Jones and I made a cheap and simple game which lets people step into the role of a male scrub turkey trying to build a nest and attract a mate.
Librarians across Queensland have been experimenting with the game for weeks now, adjusting the rules and resources – now it’s your turn to get involved. Read more
The long-awaited Fun Palaces weekend has arrived.
After months of planning and preparation, communities across Queensland are gearing up to celebrate the arts and sciences in all their forms, partnered with a range of libraries and other institutions.
From the islands of the Torres Strait to the cotton fields of the Darling Downs, plus every library in the city of Brisbane, and of course our own State Library on the city’s South Bank, the first weekend in October will see a swathe of venues open their doors for community-led events celebrating the Fun Palace motto “everyone an artist, everyone a scientist.”
We’ve come along way since Parkes Library hosted Australia’s first ever Fun Palace back in 2014.
I’ll be with the State Library team on Saturday, supporting events including our Scrub Turkey Sessions devised with urban ecologist Professor Darryl Jones of Griffith University.
Wherever you are in the world, check the Fun Palaces website for your nearest event, or join in online with the Comic Maker built for Fun Palaces by the State Library. (We’ve also put the code behind the site online, if you feel like a bit of digital tinkering).
What does it mean to have a creative relationship with the past?
How do 21st century institutions manage our cultural heritage?
I asked Jacinta Sutton, Gavin Bannerman, and Laura Daenke of the State Library of Queensland.
Call them the Memory Squad.
I’m working in a library at the moment, so here’s three quick stories for Banned Books Week, the US-led celebration of our freedom to read what we want.
These all come from the research of the State Library of Queensland’s resident banned book specialist, Joan Bruce. Read more
“Dance, whatever you say, it’s mostly all about me: its own kind of hedonism. You look in the mirror and judge yourself. You entertain the audience, maybe you inspire one or two kids who’d like to be dancers themselves, but that’s about it. It can be overwhelming to focus on yourself that way.”
“What I do now, I don’t stop people getting sick, I don’t fix every problem, but at least I know I’ve helped.”
A classic Queensland amublance. Image from Queensland State Archives.
This week’s Marvellous, Electrical tells the story of a top-flight contemporary dancer turned Brisbane paramedic.
Read Curious, Mysterious, Marvellous, Electrical: Eustress here.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 
