Tuesday, 1st May 2007

In today’s Journal Club meeting the basis for discussion was the article:-

'Wikis in the workplace: how wikis can help manage knowledge in library reference services' by Angela Kille, published in LIBRES Number 16 Issue 1 2006, available at http://libres.curtin.edu.au/libres16n1/

A very practical article with lots of good tips and links to websites. However, due to the presence of one person who was rather more technologically literate than the others present, the discussion was wide-ranging and included mention of other techie things such as social bookmarking (http://www.del.ici.ous/), virtual communities such as Second Life (www.secondlife.com) and RSS feeds, complete with live demonstrations as the aforesaid techie person had had the foresight to bring along a laptop!

When setting up wikis it is important to plan properly – decide what your wiki will be used for, what will be included, who will be able to add and change content, etc.

The article mentioned several ways in which libraries could use wikis, eg as a database for FAQs, as a peer resource guide for sharing subject specialist knowledge, library instruction material specifically for a community of users such as the Oregon Library Instruction Wiki (http://instructionwiki.org/), and subject-specific resource guides such as BizWiki at Ohio University Libraries (http://www.libraryohiou.edu/subjects/bizwiki)

This discussion article certainly inspired this writer to investigate wikis further with the aim of developing some wiki applications for the library’s website.

The article for tomorrow's Journal Club meeting is
'Wikis in the workplace: how wikis can help manage knowledge in library reference services' by Angela Kille
http://libres.curtin.edu.au/libres16n1/
Same time, same place - Speaker's Corner cafe, Parliamnet House, Darwin, 9-10am, Tuesday 1st May 2007.

Comments on article:
'When I'm 64': the public library after the retirement of the baby boomers"
Book, travel and news clubs, life-long learning programs, access to new technology, volunteering, social and cultural activities are future needs of the growing group of baby boomers who are hitting retirement and have more leisure time. All these needs could be met by Libraries with decent coffee shops, of course! This article has a number of excellent suggestions on ways libraries can provide information and recreational resources for such a significant section of the community.
Further reading:
http://www.fola.org.au/pdfs/FOLA_Seniors.pdf

Tuesday 27 March 2007

The first meeting of the NTL Journal Club for 2007 is on Tuesday 27 March, 9-10 am at Speaker's Corner Cafe, Parliament House, Darwin. The article for discussion will be
'When I'm 64': the public library after the retirement of the baby boomers" by Williamson, Kirsty et al. In Proceedings of Research Applications in Information and Library Studies (RAILS) Conference, held at the National Library of Australia, 17-18 September 2005. Wagga Wagga: Centre for Information Studies, Charles Sturt University. http://www.csu.edu.au/faculty/educat/sis/CIS/epubs/RAILS2/RAILS2_When_I'm_64.pdf
See you there!
Dates for the remainder of 2007 will be: 24 April, 29 May, 19 June, 31 July, 28 August,
25 September, 30 October, 27 November - so put them in your diary now!

Tuesday 21st November 2006

The 'article' for this week's meeting at Speakers Corner Cafe, Parliament House, Darwin,
9-10am is actually two chapters from a book:-

http://libraryjuicepress.com/barbarians-ch1.php
> Barbarians at the Gates of the Public Library [Ed D'Angelo]
Chapter 1: The Crisis of Democracy and the Public Library
Chapter 2: Democracy and Professional Librarianship

This will be the last meeting for the year so come along and make it a good one!

Tuesday 7th November

The article for Journal Club this week is:-

Smith, Richard
The highly profitable but unethical business of publishing medical research
Journal of the Royal Sciety of Medicine, 2006, 99;452-456

Meeting at Speaker's Corner Cafe, Parliament House Darwin 0900-1000 Tuesday 7/11/06.

Tuesday 24th October 2006

Two brief items provided information for the group to discuss the implications for our own libraries of the 2005 Heritage Health Index:

• an abstract of Yakel, Elizabeth. "Examining the implications of the Heritage Health Index" OCLC Systems and Services; 2006: 22(2), 92-96 and
• Heritage Health Index: valuable library collections at risk. Available http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA6291703.html. Accessed October 2006.

The full report is available at http://www.heritagepreservation.org/HHI/index.html

This survey commenced in 2001 and was completed with the December report in 2005 with the support of the Luce Foundation and at a cost of $100,000. It provides an assessment of the condition of 4.8 billion cultural heritage resources held in 30,000 archives, libraries, museums, historical societies and scientific research insitutions.

Initial discussion was around the types of materials that are being held in Australian and American institutions in comparison to European instutions and how these would possibly contain a higher proportion of modern materials. The nature of modern materials creates archival problems.

The group discussed what is being done within our region and other Australian regions - in particular NSW and WA.

Chapter 9 of the full report discusses how preservation can be used as a tool, delivered via the web, tours and workshops, to attract donors and visitors. The article discusses this in terms of "extending the mentorship model". Local experiences indicate that demonstrating preventive conservation methods in place by means of a tour attracts donors and library users. Extended mentorship can also include Friends groups of volunteers and custodians.

Many of the American institutions lacked emergency plans. In the Territory situation, there is a high level of informal cooperation and now a formal MoU exists between the major cultural institutions.

The next Journal Club to be held Tuesday 14th November 2006 Speaker's Cafe Parliament House 9:00 - 10:00. Topic still to be announced. Please forward any recent articles which you think have implications for local practise to journal blog for future discussions.