Her life's work: conversations with five New Zealand women

“Pragmatism, humour, stubborn bloody-mindedness – what else does a woman need to carry her through the ups and downs of her life's work?"

This book describes and analyses the lives of five significant New Zealand women, through in depth interviews with historian and biographer Deborah Shepard. Although there are separate biographies and memoirs of these women, the interviewer is concerned here with the influences that have affected their careers; their education, their families, their self-image; their creativity; their aspirations and major events like the Land March of 1975, the rise of feminism and the Springbok tour. All have answered honestly about these influences and also about motherhood and domesticity and all make insightful comments on how they achieved the life balance needed to become such leaders in their own fields. The editor’s introduction and conclusion are also enlightening.

Shepard is a narrator rather than an interrogator and provides interesting details about the women's homes and surroundings. This book deserves a long slow read for its assessment of the way life unfolds for different people and the commitment of individuals to their own goals.

Did I get with it?

I think so. I set up alerts and RSS feeds and got some interesting results. I did the extra reading and learnt about more exciting technologies.

Take, for example, the longpen devised by Margaret Atwood for interacting remotely with her readers:

People stood before a TV screen showing Atwood sitting in Toronto. Up in a corner of the screen was a live feed of the person in Halifax. Atwood talked to the person a couple of minutes, got the name (and perhaps any dedication desired). In Halifax, someone put a copy of the book in a machine on the top of a filing cabinet-sized unit. The book was put in clamps (reminded me some of the wringer rollers used in old washing machines). Once clamped, a pen(?) attached to a moving arm, something like the arms which hold drills on a dentist's chair, moved across the paper as Atwood moved her hand on the screen (I could not clearly see the implement she used). Then the book was unclamped and handed to the patron.

 
What's next? We must be open minded about innovations and willing to learn - an online program like this one is a great help. Thank you team! :)
 

Evaluating websites

This is a very helpful topic and the information and readings offered are very useful for us in the Libraries. I thought the article: Web 2.0 Meets Information Fluency: Evaluating Blogs by Joyce Valenza was really enlightening and I lifted this whole quote from it:

"Blogs are essentially primary sources and can provide lively insights and perspectives not documented by traditional sources. They compare in some ways to a traditional interview, with the speaker controlling the questions. Ripe for essays and debate, blogs present not only the traditional two sides of an issue, but the potentially thousands of takes. And those takes take less time to appear than documents forced through the traditional publishing or peer review process. Blogs allow scholars and experts written opportunities to loosen their ties and engage in lively conversation."

As librarians we are detectives when searching for information, we do follow clues but the analogy of the fingerprint that the resource gives us is of real help when we need to verify what we find.

The helpsheets provided on Wikipedia would be useful for parents and students as we often hear that teachers do not want their students to use Wikipedia. Pretty useful for teachers too of course!


Putting the theory into practice
I looked critically at Library Thing using the given criteria and I found; about info, other links, help and FAQs. However it is still up to us as users to exercise our own judgement and discretion, remembering that the site is composed of input from all sorts of people. For example tags are created by each user without necessarily looking at previous tags; I noticed gentle fiction was not used as a tag for Remarkable creatures although the word and a rationale occured in more than one of the reviews. I know I'm a librarian but I do think that moderation or a controlled vocabulary would make Library Thing even more useful for people looking for their next best read.

Next I evaluated Beattie's Blog using the given criteria and it passed with flying colours (well yes it is a favourite of mine!). It has a full about me section, is very well organised and easy to read, has a search facility, a list of followers, lots of links and references to other writers, commentators, publications and websites. I got a link to a live screening of a talk by Tracey Chevalier. Just brilliant!


And it's available from The Reading Experience section of the North Shore Libraries website.

File converters

That was a fun exercise! Gmail offers to open an attachment as a Google document but I thought I should follow instructions and download to my computer and then upload into Google docs. Was still waiting an houir later! However when I automatically opened the file as a Google doc it had certainly changed some elements, bullets, spacing etc.

Using gmail and google docs together is a good way of sharing files and cutting some corners and may prove useful if people are having difficulties with attachments but it is not for everyone. Our half an hour time limit on the public internet stations affords us little opportunity to help with tough file conversion problems e.g. documents created in older programmes, and wps and png files. Knowing about Zamzar and Convert.files means at least we can explain these facilities to our customers.
Open Office is a good suite of open source programmes that can be saved as word, excel, ppt docs. I think it is important that we remember the formats we want when saving our docs to avoid having to convert later but sometimes you just want to push the button when you've finshed composing!

The Author's Perspective

There is a whole industry around the promotion of books by their authors; book launches, book tours, radio and television interviews, book festivals and book programmes. It is fascinating and enlightening to hear an author talk about the background to their book(s) and their writing lives. Audio books read by the authors themselves have a genuineness about them and interviews with authors can provide some depth to the reading experience. I love hearing authors speak - they usually choose their words carefully.
Sessions at our own Auckland Writers and Readers Festival in 2009 were recorded and replayed on NZ Radio and Christchurch City Libraries created audio blogs that were picked up from their website by people all over the country.
Yes, there is a place for information directly from the author and I think our customers would be really interested in listening too.

Specials @ Google

Google is doing a fine job of integrating new trends into its search facility and to keep competitive will continue to do so. And then of course the others will try to beat or improve on Google - can only be good for us end users if we can keep up!
The Google search for videos goes directly to Youtube but Blinx includes news and other sites and came up with a much more interesting hit list on Filey than Google or Exalead.
Google books is useful for finding a known publication when wanting full text for example I have searched for some hard to find works by Carl Jung for a customer.

All the magazines listed so far appear to be popular American titles and I couldn't get interested in exploring them. No marks for effort here.
Poetry is the perfect medium for digitisation and it is good to see the New Zealand electronic poetry centre has such an accessible site with clear pages, bibliographies and links.

A few words from old postcards by Elizabeth Smither

It's dark at 4.30pm. That's your
London cum continent trip in 1996.
I raise a glass to you. Paris, outdoors.
The latest kind of snow-resisting lamps.

Just come from evensong in the Abbey.
(Bath). You were descending through
the layers of tourism to antiquarian books and textiles.
If this sounds choleric I have a raging 'flu.

The British Library is efficient but not beautiful.
Your red scarf wraps your shoulders like a cloak.
Anxiety is simply us trying to control events
from a distance. Head bowed, I see you writing it.


Google maps is one facility that I use all the time - it takes the guesswork out of exploring new places but it does mean you can arrive on time! And anywhere around the world.

Places in fiction

I've been thinking about locations in novels. Somtimes books are clearly set in a particular place; for example Remarkable creatures has to be in Lyme Regis. Somtimes the place is completely fictional and sometimes there is a blending of the two. Kate de Goldi commented on this when she explained about the settings in 10pm question; although the boys started at the top of the zig-zag in Wellington by the time they got to the bottom they were in Christchurch! I have just read a book set in my old home town of Filey - a small seaside settlement in East Yorkshire. The book in question though was called Scawsby and it included elements from Filey; the cliffs, the bay, the brigg, the 2 carriage train that we all took to the Grammar school but it also included elements from other Yorkshire places to give depth to the story. Why was I so keen to read Scawsby? The book, a legal novel written in 1977, would not be a usual choice for me. I'm reminded of the debate televised for NZ Book month about 'the great New Zealand novel' - I think we do like to read about ourselves!

Read what Margaret Drabble wrote about Filey

Sites for readers and booklovers

We Read
Library Thing
Shelfari
Google books

How to choose which facility to use? I've tried them all and have lists in several! I publish my lists to my friends in Facebook. I also have several hand written booklists and book journals. But do you know the best way of spreading the word about good books is actually to talk to people? What an idea! Maybe the next wave of book sites will include audio and video facilities so that we can actually see and hear the people who are enthusiastic about books. Just a minute I'd better check Google to see if this is being done already................ and the answer is lots of hits of course. Various people and organisations are podcasting and publishers are providing booktalks especially for children's books, for example here is a list of podcasts. I do think that our own Kate de Goldi is best at this; listen to her with Kim Hill on Saturday morning
And the people I find who can talk best about books that I like are part of this oufit

Happy Reading and sharing

Google etc. searching

It seems that repeating searches (this is Montesquie Volvestre in France) in different search engines brings the same results; and there is a Googleopoly! In Exalead, which I really liked for its clear screens and the drop down menus, the ads are provided by Google.

All applications/vendors will follow the same general trends and bring out new features as they are created/developed/marketed.As users we will always have our own preferences regarding style, navigation, ease of use etc. and then as we become familiar with the options we become more efficient at searching. Using Google by default is reasonable in the Library setting. What is important is that we read the screens and follow the links and prompts to get the best out of any resource. And also that we keep up to date with new offerings (eg Wolfram Alpha, Google Squared) although their usefulness may only become apparent after some time.

In hovering flight by Joyce Hinnefeld

a novel about mothers, daughters, and art; about illness, death, and burial; about fragile eco-systems and tenacious human relationships—all explored through characters who are inspired by the lives, and particularly the songs, of birds. Find out all about it here http://www.inhoveringflight.com/index.html

Keeping up to date

Having explored the further reading and noted all the media tracking services available, I'm happy to wait for the breakthrough that can be understood by the ordinary library user - it all seems a bit geeky at the moment.
Just thought I'd add a reminder about using a public library and consulting books - both activities available world wide, photos are from Finland.

RSS Feeds

Yes, RSS feeds from websites and blogs are very helpful for keeping up with what's going on. Alerts from databases are essential for researchers needing to be up to date with current thinking and publications. There is so much information out there - any tools we can use to cut through the forest of words eases the feeling of overload. The most useful are those that come direct to us into email, facebook or twitter, the applications being used on a daily basis. Or maybe there is something yet to be devised that will be even better! Bring it on :)

Twitter and Libraries

Found this Library joke by searching for Librarians who twitter, seems that Librarians who twitter also blog!

In general Librarians use twitter to share information and ideas; Libraries use twitter to promote their resourses and services. One of the services provided by Vancouver Central Library is hosting weddings - well I would never have known that without twitter but I'm adding it to my list of places to visit around the world. Many of the tweets provided by Libraries (I looked closely at Rodney and Vancouver) do not actually answer the question "what are you doing" rather they inform people about events, provide links to websites with reviews, recommendations, news etc. and some individuals send topical messages e.g Happy Halloween.
Tweets do seem to be written in a new language; as a newbie I'm finding it hard to follow conversations and threads but I guess it will come with practice. I found the messaging from some of the Libraries using twitter to be one-sided; not many patrons following. I do wonder how widespread twittering really is? Or how widespread it might become ? Shall we worry about this tweet ?
 "stereotypical library dying." "hipster staffers . . .who . . .use twitter. . . Edging out old school librarians."

My tweets are likely to be old school e.g.

bookchat today 10.30am bring a recommended book bring a friend c u @ECBLibrary

read the help gr8 stories of real people in tough times, touching and scary at same time but hopeful ending Enjoy!

Searching Twitter

I searched for book groups and found readinggroupies who maintain that "Book groups are the new rock n' roll". Since I am part of 5 books, I must be doing lots of dancing :) This particular group is a network of reading groups in North London and they swap titles, trip details, event times and answers to quizzes.

In the same search I found Neighbours, a huge network of people across Dublin who run book clubs, tax evasion clubs, parties (halloween is next) and something to do with fire engines to name but a few.

The search engine was good because it found book groups, book clubs, reading groups and reading clubs - different names used in different countries; without me having to suggest alternatives.

For my third party search engine I chose Twoogle (loved its mashup name) and got 189 million hits. It looked just like an ordinary google search and only found the word twitter in the text of the website. At least in the first few pages of results there were no twitter sites. Adding twitter to the search string looked more promising and I found the Twitter Moms Book Club which is a webiste with a tweetboard but the book discussions happened on the website not by tweets. I guess 140 characters is not enough to really say what you think about a book.

Twitter and twittering

I chose to look at Margaret Atwood's Twitter link. http://twitter.com/MargaretAtwood 2 hours later I am ready to write my post. There was so much to look at and so many links to follow - there is some truth in the idea that twittering is time wasting, it can certainly be time consuming but I guess it's just like getting carried away while surfing the net!
I read an interview with Margaret Atwood during which she educated her interviewer about tweets and twitpics. She seems to use Twitter to tell people about her book tours, launches etc. and to have conversations with her followers ( she actually has 9,811 followers). Can't wait for my hold on Year of the flood to come up.

My second choice related to some information I was looking up for a customer http://thesalon.blogspot.com/2009/07/kiwinew-zealand-musicians-on-twitter.html is a list of NZ musicians who Twitter. I was so pleased to find it but it does not help my info search as I'm looking for classical or world music but it was interesting. The list is provided so that members can network with each other, do some promoting of and find out about gigs etc. Obviously this can extend to any group/category of like minded people. I think there is a librarians who twitter list somewhere.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

A story about civil rights in Mississippi in the 60s. A feminist, humanist perspective narrated by a white woman but writing the voices of black women maids. Touching, frightening, so many adjectives to use - are we making any progress on understanding each other?
A long and worthwhile read.

Syndetics summary

Three ordinary women are about to take one extraordinary step in Kathryn Stockett's New York Times bestselling debut, The Help . . .Twenty-two-year-old Skeeter has just returned home after graduating from Ole Miss. She may have a degree, but it is 1962, Mississippi, and her mother will not be happy till Skeeter has a ring on her finger. Skeeter would normally find solace with her beloved maid Constantine, the woman who raised her, but Constantine has disappeared and no one will tell Skeeter where she has gone.Aibileen is a black maid, a wise, regal woman raising her seventeenth white child. Something has shifted inside her after the loss of her own son, who died while his bosses looked the other way. She is devoted to the little girl she looks after, though she knows both their hearts may be broken.Minny, Aibileen's best friend, is short, fat, and perhaps the sassiest woman in Mississippi. She can look like nobody's business, but she can't mind her tongue, so she's lost yet another job. Minny finally finds a position working for someone too new to town to know her reputation. But her new boss has secrets of her own.Seemingly as different from one another as can be, these women will nonetheless come together for a clandestine project that will put them all at risk. and why? Because they are suffocating within the lines that define their town and their times. and sometimes lines are made to be crossed.In pitch-perfect voices, Kathryn Stockett creates three extraordinary women whose determination to start a movement of their own forever changes a town, and the way women - mothers, daughters, caregivers, friends - view one another.A deeply moving book filled with poignancy, humour, and hope, The Help is a timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don't.

Creative Commons

I love the CC iniative - it is in the true spirit of sharing.

a) The CC licence for this Get with it! programme means that readers are free to share and remix the contents.

b) This photograph, and others by Girolame of skiing in the Pyrenees, is available for copying and adapting
http://www.flickr.com/photos/girolame/3445288710/



CC fits the freedoms that Richard Stallman has been explaining in his talks around New Zealand recently. Listen to his interview with Kim Hill here http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/20091003
or his address to the LIANZA conference here
http://audio-video.gnu.org/audio/#LIANZANEWZ2009

OpenID

I do like the sound of OpenID - but I would like to take it even further! In fact I am in favour of having one universal ID for everything; driver's licence, passport, flybuys, etc. and can see this expanding into digital ID with a digital fingerprint, eye recognition etc. Life would be much easier if we could do away with plastic cards, usernames and passwords.
OpenID run by google just means they have a monopoly over the services that I subscribe to - not really open is it?

Online privacy and security

Well this is a dilemna. Whilst I am pleased with the strict controls on using my credit card over the internet, I am frustrated by the requirement to change my password every six weeks on my work computer. Internet security is both a blessing and a nuisance.
As a librarian promoting the use of digital facilities it is important to pass on information to other people so that they feel safe using social networking, banking and public opinion applications. Personally I don't see the world as any different; in feudal times everyone knew what everyone else was up to in the village. When I was growing up in a small community news of my whereabouts and who I was with always got back to my parents pretty quickly!
Surveillance may be now digital but is it always threatening?

Remarkable creatures by Tracy Chevalier

Devoured this book in a day (only stopping for more strepsils and panadol)
http://www.elgar.govt.nz/record=b2388780~S6
Big themes of fossils, friendship and feminsim.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/aug/29/remarkable-creatures-tracy-chevalier

Happy reading!