Friday, February 14, 2014

Case Study No. 1242: Andrew Finegan

Song for Library Lovers Day
3:02
A film clip that I threw together to promote Library Lovers Day - coming soon to a library near you on the 14th February...
Tags: library lovers day music librarians australia
Added: 7 years ago
From: fin4t2
Views: 5,521

Library Lover's Day
14th February
@your library

Day after day
We try to find the answers
That'll help us on our way
But, time rolls on by
And despite our information needs
Our lives become a lie
And I know it's been awhile
Since your emotions were aroused
But come and take my hand
And together we will rouse
On the fourteenth of February
At your library

It's Library Lovers Day!
Saint Valentine is so passe
And greeting cards are just unnecessary
Now there's no need to be alone
When your perfect match is here forlorne
So get some lovin' in your library
On Library Lovers Day!

Follow your heart
Together we can help your circulation make a start
Just count on me
Whenever you need to improve
Your information literacy
And I promise you right now
I won't leave you on the shelf
But girl, you shouldn't worry
About being by yourself
You don't need lifelong commitment
Just some lifelong learning

On Library Lovers Day!
Saint Valentine is so passe
And greeting cards are just unnecessary
Now there's no need to be alone
When your perfect match is here forlorne
So get some lovin' in your library
On Library Lovers Day!

Library Lovers Day!
Saint Valentine is so passe
And greeting cards are just unnecessary
(They're so over-rated!)
Now there's no need to be alone
When your perfect match is here forlorne
So get some lovin' in your library
On Library Lovers Day!

www.myspace.com/ andrewthelibrarian

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From librariansmatter.com:

Wednesday may be Valentines Day for some, but for Australians, it's Library Lovers Day.

The Australia Library and Information Association (ALIA) and the New South Wales Public Library Network have a site devoted to Library Lovers Day. There's even a competition with REAL chocolate at the end. Just answer 7 reading questions to fill up your vitual choccie box, print out the receipt and take it to a participating library to claim some real chocolates. Yum!

The arrows of library lurve have pierced Andrew Finegan's heart as well. He's written, recorded and illustrated his own Song for Library Lovers Day. Hoik up those pelvic floor muscles before you watch it. I liked it so much, that I just nominated it for an Info Tubey.

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From pbworks.com:

Andrew Finegan, a librarian in Darwin, made this on his Mac in his spare time to co-incide with ALIA's "Library Lover's Day" 14th February 2007.

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From blogspot.com:

I want to elevate the status of the librarian in society so that it takes its proper place as a recognised profession in information science, both within the wider information industry as well as within popular culture. We need our Librarian Idols.

Librarians have always been my idols, every encouraging me and helping me to adopt new technology through my studies. Furthermore, in my training to become a librarian, and through meeting librarians at conferences and on the biblioblogosphere, I've come to realise that librarians are often at the cutting edge of technology. These librarians have become my inspiration to change the world through cultivating a community of lifelong learning, both in academia and in the general public.

Unfortunately, I often experience a lot of difficulty when it comes to seeking support from other departments. As an academic librarian, I often found that teaching staff would not consider us as a source of academic support in embedding information literacy in coursework, nor would they encourage their students to consult us for assistance. Admittedly, a lot of this had to do with pressures on academic staff, but still, my work was often an uphill battle to outreach both to students and staff.

Similarly, in the public library sector, I seem to be fighting a battle of a different kind. I believe public libraries need to be a place for learning new information trends, but many of the staff really need to catch up on their information literacy skills. What's more, I'm keen to launch a Web 2.0 staff development programme, not dissimilar to the "23 things" programme, however, some initial responses have ranged from cynicism to active resistance from library staff, along the lines of "why should we go about learning new stuff that we don't see the relevance in?" On a separate front, I'm experiencing an attitude of, "We don't want you to increase usage of internet resources." That may be, but that's where the demand is, and we need to meet demand, not work around it, and that means expanding our resources, and not cut outselves short, leaving us on the wrong side of the ever-growing digital divide.

I may also add that these criticisms aren't a hard-and-fast rule - there are also very progressive librarians in the public sector who do great things. However, the fact that these issues are arising at all means that it really needs to be tackled now, and quickly. Living in a relatively remote area, we have the most to gain from adopting interactive information technology in our library services, and the most to lose if we do not.

Clearly, I have my work ahead of me. My current goal is to try to get my staff to have a proper grasp of "Web 2.0". Before that, I have a feeling that I need to teach most of them a thing or two about proper web searching and using online databases, before I get them to start setting up alerts, folksonomies, feed readers and participating in the blogosphere.

And yes, I know it's a lot to learn. But hey, it's not rocket science. Anybody can do it. And if you're a library worker, you should bloody well know how to do it. It's your job.

Some might say that's a hard line to take, but I honestly feel that if the library industry doesn't get its act together, then it's going to die in the arse. I make it a rule to know everything cool that there is to do on the internet, and then teach it to somebody else. Then they can say "That's so cool, and the librarian showed me how to do it. Therefore, librarians are cool."

Because librarians should be cool. Librarians should be idols.

Blogged by Andrew Finegan at 2:03 PM

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