I’ll be running an interactive workshop, Library Island, at the 8th New Librarians’ Symposium in Canberra, Australia, this June.
There will be drama, there will be danger – and the freedom to reimagine librarianship in a whole new way.
Watch this space for more information nearer the time. Or sign up for the conference today.
My latest column for Library as Incubator explores the links between libraries and musicians, from Glenn Gould’s radio documentaries to English community choirs and digital experiments in today’s Australia.
The State Library of Queensland has a staff Christmas video competition – as I found out when I returned from my regional travels to be told I’d “volunteered” to shoot an entry for my new colleagues at the Regional Partnerships team…
Half an hour running around with a camera, and a bit of editing time later, Rogue One RAPL was born. It’s good for a laugh, and features some of the great people I’ll be teaming up with in the new year:
Of course, this is only the second best Star Wars related activity I’ve ever been involved with.
Or maybe even the third.
What links stone circles, public libraries, the seas of the Torres Strait, and 1980s pop band The Teardrop Explodes?
You can find out in my keynote from last week’s SWITCH 2016 conference in New South Wales – “Science Fiction Double Feature” is available to download from their website as a PDF.
I’m in the coastal town of Ulladulla to talk libraries with people from across the state of New South Wales at the SWITCH 2016 conference.
You can catch up with my keynote “Science Fiction Double Feature” from lunchtime (AEDT) Wednesday – try the #switch2016 hashtag on Twitter – and read the keynote paper on the SWITCH website (PDF download).
The paper will be up on the SWITCH website shortly after the event.
On Friday, I was guest speaker at South Australia’s Crawford Awards for Library Innovation.
It was a chance to explore how Aussie libraries ensure that they create services for and with their communities – and acknowledge the specific colonial history of this land.
It was also an opportunity to celebrate many of the friends and colleagues I’ve worked with during my residency at the State Library of Queensland.
The Award was given to the rural South Australian city of Murray Bridge for a project working with local Aboriginal elders, introducing the Ngarrindjeri language to a new generation through stories and song.
Congratulations to Tim Law, Georgina Trevorrow, and all at Murray Bridge who are working to acknowledge the traditional owners of the Murraylands and support their community.
I’m honoured to be guest speaker at the ceremony for the annual Crawford Award (no, not that one – the one for library innovation in South Australia). It takes place in Adelaide this Friday.
I’ve never been to Adelaide, and I’m doubly excited because it’s the home of one of the greatest Aussie television shows, Danger 5.
I’m sure that’s exactly what the Crawford Award show is going to be like.
I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be continuing my residency with the State Library of Queensland through to the beginning of April 2017.
In the new year, I’ll be working with the library’s Regional Access and Partnerships team to deliver programs, partnerships, and events for rural and regional areas in Australia’s Sunshine State.
Watch this space for the latest news!
Today, the State Library of Queensland released its interview with Janet Fielding, the actor who played Tegan in the BBC’s Doctor Who from 1981 to 1984.
I discovered that both Janet and Tegan were Queenslanders while researching for an instalment of my newsletter, Marvellous Electrical.
Brisbane-born Janet accompanied Peter Davison’s Doctor as they battled monsters, cyborgs, and spooky snake spirits. After her time on the show, Janet went on to a career as a theatrical agent and an advocate for women in film and television. Today, based in the UK, she is director of a community venture, Project Motorhouse.
To celebrate both Janet and Tegan as iconic Queenslanders, the State Library teamed up with Spencer Howson of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation to conduct a ninety-minute interview capturing her adventures across time and space. This will now form part of the Library’s lasting oral history archive.
Read more, and listen to the interview with Janet Fielding, at the State Library website.
This morning I gave the opening address at the annual conference of ALIA Queensland. The theme this year was “Library Hacks”.
Hacking’s such a funny term, still threatening and techy and futuristic, and yet also so familiar; the stuff of cheesy mid-90s techno-thrillers as much as today’s headlines about Wikileaks and massive DNS attacks.
The New Yorker tells us that the word originates in the house slang of MIT, way back in the 1950s:
The minutes of an April, 1955, meeting of the Tech Model Railroad Club state that “Mr. Eccles requests that anyone working or hacking on the electrical system turn the power off to avoid fuse blowing.”
Taking “hack” to mean tinkering with machines and procedures, not following the manual, I wanted to both hack the keynote and offer attendees an opportunity that wouldn’t exist at M.I.T.
So, we gave them craft materials, tinfoil and paperclips, food decorating kits, a basic electronics set…
…and Kinder Surprise Eggs.
matt finch / mechanical dolphin 