jadesfire

♥ I spent about an hour reading in Duke Humfrey's library last night. It's part of the Bodleian and looks like this. I arrived at 5.30, when the sun was streaming through the stained glass windows and making everything look beautiful. Then, just as I started to read, a choir started singing somewhere, and I honestly felt like I was in some kind of Oxford nostalgia film, complete with my own soundtrack. It was just one of those perfect moments, and I honestly couldn't have been happier. *sigh*

♥ Choir was awesome. Also, cheesier than a fromagier's, but awesome. We've got our Christmas concert on 12th December, for anyone who's in the area. I'll be doing a solo, but don't let that put you off ;)

- I'm very jealous of everyone already on Google Wave, because it looks shiny and exciting. Here's hoping the beta goes well and the rest of us can get in soon!

♥ I have a good feeling about work today, and home this weekend. Nothing I can put my finger on for why, just...an all round good feeling. Of course, that could also be because I've got my little light box on as I type this, and my big one has arrived for home. After some faffing, I think we've come up with a light set-up that's actually going to work for me - a lamp with a daylight bulb that comes on using a timer switch, a little LED light box under my monitor at work, and a big Lumie lightbox for the living room at home. The morning light is especially good, because we keep it on the windowsil behind cream curtains, which means that it's like waking up to a glorious sunrise every morning. Of course, it's a bit disappointing when I get into the living room and it's all gloomy outside, but that's what the big box is for. Here's hoping for a better winter.

♥ I've joined Bookmooch, which was recommended by a friend at work. Books are hard to sell on eBay, so I figure I may as well swap them for books I actually want to read!

♥ After a trip to the doctor's yesterday, I am officially 'fine', if in something of a catch-22 situation. I have a stomach upset, which means I need to be careful what I eat for hte next few days. I also have inflamation behind my kneecap which is intermittently very painful, and for which I should take ibuprofen. Which is notoriously bad for upset stomachs. ...yeah, I'm still working on that one...

So, today I am awesome because I am in a good mood. What about you, guys? How are you awesome today?

IT IS A COMPULSION

IT IS NOT MY FAULT

Apparently I should not be allowed in libraries on my own. I just dropped in to pick up a Cole Porter music book and a novel for the other half (both of which I got). So why did I also come away with:

The Man on the Balcony by Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo (naye forgive me, I can't get the accents on my keyboard :S)
Little Black Book of Stories by A S Byatt
The Vesuvius Club by Mark Gattiss

?

Anybody?

This is not going to end well, I can just tell. Remind me to remind myself to renew them...

Right, I think that's everything I had tagged for posting.

Since some people have said they like the library links, and I'm cross-posting mode anyway, many of these will appear here and in my library blog, but I'll keep the ones here under a cut so people who just want the fun, pretties and other articles and get at those as well.

Having said that, if I had to choose once link that really summarises my feelings about libraries at the moment, it would be this one: The search for the next big thing. To paraphrase Yes, Prime Minister, there's a lot of things we can do, and a lot of things we ought to, and a lot of things that people want us to do, but choosing what we should do? That's hard.

( Library links )

( Law Library things: )

Fun stuff:

Eat this book!

The art of bookmaking is not dead yet!

Books, young man. Books!

Stephen King on enjoyment

How to be a bat. Absolutely captivating videos and fascinating research into bat-life.

Dog vs bedsheet, set to drums

The history of art, online. Complete with pictures, commentary and text.

Have I shown you this before? Just in case I haven't - Forgotten bookmarks. It's amazing what people will leave behind.

Also, for all the Classicists: The Aeneid on Facebook

The temple of Apollo as Naxos Stunning photography.

Those who forget their history… When I was a student, my strongest interest was in reception studies – how the present receives, interprets and re-casts the past for its own needs. There are some obvious comparisons to be made, and some less obvious ones. Further reading recommended in the article.

Celebrating Wikipedia

Values of the Facebook generation. It did strike me that you could substitute "fandom" for "the Web" in most of these and not be too far off.

The Ministry of Type. Beautiful typography.

Master Classes from Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein

Flickr Commons More photographs, more history.

[cross-posted to LJ]

I'm seriously going to have to open a new blog for these, because there's just too many of them. It won't be heavily linked from here, so that I can keep my fannish and professional stuff at least nominally apart, but if anyone's interested, I'll drop you the link when/if it exists.

In the meantime:

What Google can learn from history. Interesting piece bringing together the history of copyright and competition (antitrust) law and drawing some striking parallels.

Australia's blacklisted internet site list is leaked. The objections are not entirely about the list of sites blacklisted, more about the opaque nature of the choices made.

Podcast about Cloud Computing and the EUCALYPTUS project. I haven't had a chance to listen to this yet, but it sounds interesting.

Library news (not all good, not all bad):

This is an old article, but worth the read. One of the biggest challenges in US libraries in recent years has been the Patriot Act. I'm still reading up about this, but this was one librarian's response to the privacy issues involved.

MIT Open Access mandate. It's hard to over-stress how important this is. Open Access should be HUGE, and institutions are starting to catch up. Harvard's doing it, Oxford's working on it. It's becoming real.

Washington State Libraries offers advice for hard times, and Friends of the Library in MN are doing their part

New York Libraries may lose up to 17% of their budget. That's about $23m and nearly 500 more people out of work. The rest could face losing 20% of their hours. More details about Brooklyn

Philadelphia's having problems too. Oh, and Virginia Tech

An email with a link to an article in the Independent about discrimination against gay, lesbian and transgendered people in the workplace is filtered out by 'content filters'. Can anyone spell 'irony'? The original article

I really hope this guy's wrong...

Web 2.0 in libraries:

Defusing traditional arguments against letting go of content. With bonus flash presentation!

CILIP (The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals) has been getting into hot water over Web 2.0 matters lately. It was originally sparked by a blog post in which the Chief Executive seemed to be highly dismissive of Twitter and other social networking sites, and talked about only having conversations in 'official spaces'. This backfired on him somewhat spectacularly, but to his credit, he's been listening and learning from the experience. His latest blog post suggests that he has at least grasped the problem ("Foster a culture of working on the web. Explain the value of modernised professional qualifications. And get a lot better at communication."). I'm not holding my breath to see what happens about solutions, but some cautious optimism doesn't feel too out of place.

There are interesting debates and conversations going on in the library world at the moment about what 'the future of libraries' is, and how we avoid getting left behind by the technological revolutions (JISC are leading the discussion - their website). There's a debate taking place in Oxford on 2 April, and one of the invited speakers, Peter Murray Rust, a computational chemist at Cambridge, has been blogging about his thoughts and the processes he's using to draw them together. Personally, I have my doubts about using the word 'revolution' in this context, but that's for another post.

I have achieved studying! I'm feeling rather proud of myself today for managing to read 5 or 6 books and actually gathering information that's going to let me write the first third of my dissertation. yay! I'd forgotten how much I enjoy a)studying and b)Classics and got rather nostalgic while sitting in the Lower Reading Room at the Bod. *sniff* I've only got this luxury for 3 more weeks, so I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

There are always jealous comments when I write about reading at the Bod, and today, I think they were justified :) It was lovely and sunny, so the Lower Reading Room was looking its best, I had a pile of books about ancient libraries, including the most enormous red volume with lots of colour pictures that I can't wait to get to and I even chose a proper foam book rest to use, to save my neck. The only drawback was the sheer number of tourists every time I set foot outside the door. Why do they always congregate in doorways/gateways? There's so much space around the Bodleian and Sheldonian, but they always stand right in the way. And while I was actually upstairs reading, some of them decided it would be fun to re-enact the wailing scene from *forgets name of play* The Crucible ? Apparently they liked the acoustics in the courtyard and wanted to try them out. A lot. *sigh* But there's something lovely and surreal about sitting in an old, academic setting while modern life goes on outside. I really am remembering how much I loved this.

I also remembered why I'm not allowed in Blackwells bookshop on my own. I wandered into the second-hand department (looking for something specific, I swear) and there were so...many...books. It looked like someone had got rid of a complete 'Classics for everyone' collection, so there were books by people like Michael Grant and Paul Cartledge who write scholarly, accessible books that are really useful. Actually, I wanted to buy everything on display, but settled on Greek & Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation as my ancient history's a bit rusty. I've also ordered Library: An Unquiet History and am now just crossing my fingers that it arrives in time for me to use it.

While I'm here, I don't suppose any of you guys know anything about medieval libraries? I need to write about one (maybe two) and am looking for a basic introduction to the subject (preferably UK published so the Bod will definitely have it). On the basis that you guys always know everything, I thought I'd ask...