LIANZA #Open2017 – Future Sound of Libraries / B-sides and rarities

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This is the final part of a series on the LIANZA #Open17 library conference.

So you’ve seen how we planned a keynote where the main speaker keeps their mouth taped shut for nigh-on an hour. Seen what happened over the course of that hour. And even seen the consequences of the event.

This is the last post in this series setting out our process, so you can think about how to run such an activity, and push the boundaries even further than we did.

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In this entry I’m just going to focus on all the stuff which remained below the waterline – songs which didn’t make it to the final session, videos which inspired us but whose inspiration might not be very visible in the finished product. Read more →

Artists Ettamodern & Scribbletronics visit University of Southern Queensland

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As part of this week’s Astronomy Festival at the University of Southern Queensland, we’re joined by Melbourne artists Wendy Catling and Peter Miller, aka Ettamodern and Scribbletronics.

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Wendy is an artist, designer and teacher who employs light to create works on paper and fabric – particularly blueprint-style ‘cyanotypes’. Her prints are held in the collections of Warrnambool Art Gallery, the Australian National Gallery, and private owners.

Peter is a composer, sound designer, and audio-visual artist whose work includes sound design for films The Ring and Rango and additional design for Mad Max: Fury Road, as well as a sound installation in the Qantas first-class lounges in Sydney and Melbourne.

I’ve previously worked with Ettamodern and Scribbletronics on the Time Travel Detectives roleplay, which was built around two of Peter’s digital artworks. This children’s event blended steampunk adventure, optical illusions, and tablet technology to help kids explore Australia’s past and the scientific method.

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On this visit, Wendy and Peter will join USQ staff, students, and the wider community to explore new opportunities to work at the meeting point of art, science, and community engagement. Find out more at the University of Southern Queensland’s website.

LIANZA #Open2017 – Future Sound of Libraries / The Process, pt. 3

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This is part three of a series on the LIANZA #Open17 library conference, and my alternative keynote at that event. These blog posts should help you find ways to create your own participatory sessions, and to maximise their impact.

Last time, we went through everything that happened at the LIANZA Open 17 keynote, culminating in Rachael Rivera and Hamish Noonan’s excellent presentation on the services they have devised and delivered for homeless people in central Auckland. (You can read about their stupendous and internationally recognised work here).

I had approached Rachael to conclude the keynote so that it ended with a local voice and a speaker who was delivering practical front-line services to a New Zealand community. Rachael is a great example of a library branch manager whose teams are finding new and compelling ways to engage their community, from services for the homeless through to personalised one-to-one music sessions.

What happened next? How did this little library conference end up making national news in New Zealand? Read more →

LIANZA #Open2017 – Future Sound of Libraries / The Process, pt. 2

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This is part two of a series on the LIANZA #Open17 library conference, and my alternative keynote at that event. These blog posts should help you find ways to create your own participatory sessions.

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You can also watch a Youtube Playlist based on the LIANZA keynote here.

So, it’s the afternoon of Sunday 24th September, 2017, at the Addington Raceway in Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand. Laurinda Thomas has just given an excellent talk about librarians’ professional identity and I’m invited to the stage.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and say a few words in te reo Māori.

Then this appears on the conference screens: Read more →

LIANZA #Open2017 – Future Sound of Libraries / The Process

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This is part one of a three-part series on the LIANZA #Open17 library conference.

In August last year, the organisers of LIANZA Open 2017 invited me to be a keynote at their conference, the national gathering for the librarians of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Last week, it all happened – I taped my mouth shut for an hour and led an adventurous conference session which brought the audience onto the stage, delivered a working library service within the keynote hall itself, and got us coverage on New Zealand’s national news.

So what exactly took place over in the city of Christchurch, how did we get here, and what can we do with the experience? If I share with you not only the product, but the process, could you see your way to trying something like this…or even going beyond what we achieved in New Zealand?

Read more →

LIANZA Conference 2017

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I’m just leaving Christchurch, Aotearoa New Zealand, after a fabulous few days with Kiwi librarians at their national conference LIANZA 2017.

There were workshops and a participatory, playful keynote, and other adventures besides. That keynote also made the national news.

More on all those things soon but for now, here’s a video with one or two highlights.

 

Marvellous, Electrical: That One’s On The House

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September’s Marvellous, Electrical newsletter tells the story of Jay, who found himself running the sole pub in a country town of twenty thousand during a year of renovations.

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Photo by Gimboid13,  CC BY-SA 3.0

Hear about face-offs with the locals, midnight car chases, and the grim ballad of Scooter and the Teddy Bear, over at Marvellous, Electrical.

A Romance on Three Legs: The Ivory Archives / @IAMLaustralia

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Is a library just a machine for making knowledge?

In such a place, can a piano be a research tool?

Why did a Kindertransport refugee from the Nazis acquire Glenn Gould’s favourite instrument for the National Library of Canada?

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Photo by National Arts Centre Archives, Canada

In advance of Australia’s 2017 IAML conference of music librarians, you can read the story of Gould’s beloved Steinway CD 318 over at Library as Incubator.

Check out “A Romance on Three Legs: The Ivory Archives” now.

Decolonising reading: the Murri book club of Townsville, Queensland

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The brilliant Janeese Henaway of Townsville Libraries has just co-written an academic paper with researcher Maggie Nolan.

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The paper, ‘Decolonising reading: the Murri book club‘, explores the project to create and support an Indigenous book club in a regional Australian city, led by Janeese in her capacity as Indigenous Library Resources Officer.

If book clubs are an overwhelmingly white phenomenon, through which members ‘maintain their currency as literate citizens through group discussion’, what does it mean for Indigenous people to create and run their own book club? How does it differ from other clubs and activities? What are the tensions, concerns, opportunities, and expectations when Indigenous people reshape the book club format for their own purposes?

Janeese and Maggie explore decolonization of the book club as a social, cultural, and political institution. They ask how this project might address white ignorance and explore empathy across ethnic groups, and they consider the tension between oral and written traditions for Indigenous people living in the Australia of 2017.

Read ‘Decolonising reading: the Murri book club’ in Continuum Journal of Media & Cultural Studies today.

Surfing to Salford: @Mozlandia and The Long Fetch

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“We look to Los Angeles
For the language we use
London is dead, London is dead…”

I never really listened to a lot of Morrissey, thinking about it. I mean, I had a bit of a Smiths phase at university and I put ‘Last of the International Playboys‘ on the mixtape for a stag do once — that’s about it.

Then Ziba Zehdar-Gazdecki, a cool librarian from Los Angeles, shared photos from a book event on social media.

Mozlandia? I had to find out more.

Read more →