A wonderful meeting

Mr E, mini me and I yesterday evening returned from a quick two day trip to Frankfurt am Main in Germany. We arrived there on Thursday evening…

… and on Friday afternoon I went to visit an academic library and meet with the librarian there, none other than fellow blogger Herba Minor! Last August I went to a large international librarian’s conference called IFLA and had hoped to maybe meet other fellow blogger-librarians there. That did not happen but the idea did arise to do a little personal exchange instead. The first part of that exchange happened last Friday; sometime next year part two will happen when I will happily welcome a return visit.

Herba gave me a full on tour of her library and we had such a great professional exchange. Turns out academic libraries in The Netherlands and Germany deal with many similar issues. And I think I’m going to steal an idea from them for at least one of “my” libraries…

It was also just lovely meeting Herba in person after knowing her from blogging for so many years, she felt familiar to me right away. We didn’t only talk about libraries, there was a lot of catching up on other topics as well, including Mr. Armitage. It was just so very nice to finally connect in person. Afterwards we met up with Mr E and mini me for dinner and had the most lovely evening to boot.

On Saturday, Mr E, mini me and I stopped by a church I used to go to in Frankfurt when I lived not far from there with my family in my late childhood/early teens. It was (and still is) an English language Anglican/Episcopal church and also very instrumental (together with the US Army base library that we used to frequent) in me not forgetting my English after we moved to Germany from Israel…

We also took a brief look in the little town of Friedberg for a bit (which was very close to where I lived), before we headed home again.

We had a lovely short trip and I’m already really looking forward to Herba’s return visit some time next year!

Books books books

I work at an Applied Sciences University Library and this past school year I participated in a project with students to develop a library game that was supposed to make learning about information literacy more fun and less dry.

The students came up with a board game that is a sort of Game of the Goose meets Trivial Pursuit meets a game where you have to do challenges. As you progress along the board, each correct multiple choice information literacy question earns you a point (an ‘edubadge’) and the first one to the end gets extra points. If you get a question wrong you have to perform a “Shame on You” action (e.g. walk like a T-rex, dance the Macarena without music, tell a joke, talk in a high-pitched voice for a minute, etc.). There are also Joker cards where you can get extra advantages or you can punish another player. The overall winner is the person who was able to earn the most points (edubadges). The game is a mix of knowledge questions and just unadulterated fun.

The students have finished their project but we librarians are still perfecting the look of the game (and making it open source so other libraries can use it as well!). One of the things still left to do was to collect all sorts of items that can be used as game pieces. During a meeting a few weeks ago (these game meetings are some of the most fun meetings I have ever attended) I was wearing a pair of Guylty’s mini-book earrings that my colleagues admired and the idea was born to use those little books as game pieces for our game! So, I ordered a few booklets from Sonja and she custom-made them for us…

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They arrived on Tuesday and were already used the next day, on Wednesday, where they were a choice as game pieces during an event at one of our libraries.

The books literally garnered some oohs and aahs and “so cute!” exclamations. We also have a smaller version of the game board for which they are better suited size-wise but they were also enjoyed on the big board. Several rounds of the game were played and a few players indeed picked one of the books as their game pieces. So fun to see fandom meet work in such a way! Thank you again, Sonja, for your beautiful work. 🙂

And speaking of books – my signed copy of Richard Armitage’s Geneva arrived today!

Just in time to take with me on a mini holiday to Portugal! I am very much looking forward to reading it. We are flying to Lisbon on Saturday and will stay there till Wednesday to see our son. I can’t tell you how much I love that I am going to see him again!

Library Playlist

I work at an applied sciences university library and some of our students have developed a really fun deskresearch boardgame (with our input) that we will be presenting in two weeks’ time. We’re planning a bit of a party where the game will be played and we’ll also be doing a silent disco! This means that a playlist needs to be curated and this past afternoon that has been my job. Some colleagues have suggested some songs but I needed more, so I went in search to find songs about libraries, (re-)search, games and books. It’s been a load of fun and I have even discovered some new music in the process. Like this one called Library Thugs…

A colleague came up with this song called Sweet Librarian…

Or this French song called Bibliotheque…

I even found a Dutch language library song, sung by a trio who made songs for kids. They were really popular, my kids used to listen to them too, although I don’t think I ever remember hearing this one…

Then there’s this Library Song…

And as they sing about checking books in and out, I thought this song could follow nicely..

I’ve also included songs about games. The first song on the list is this one…

…. followed by this Game song that I found today…

There are two Games People Play songs on the list. One by Alan Parsons…

And one by Inner Circle…

I just had to use this song as well. I’ve known it for quite some years now, ever since I saw this fan video someone made for Loki…

As deskresearch can seem like an endless road, I also included this classic…

… and this one seemed fitting too…

Close to the end of the list, we get an ABBA song, as there are always winners and losers in games…

There are many more songs, it’ll be a really fun and quite diverse silent disco, I think.

It’s been a really busy week, with longer than normal working days, volunteer work, taking care of things for my mother and more work. I’m glad it’s the weekend now. The kids were both out, so Mr E and I went into town for a dinner outside and, even more importantly, some beer and wine…

The weekend has started, have a good one!

To my fellow librarians

In August there is an IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) conference in Rotterdam, here in The Netherlands. My manager has given me permission to go, so I have just registered. The last time IFLA was in The Netherlands was in 1998 in Amsterdam (had to look that up) and, at that time as a new fledgling librarian, I helped man a promotional stand on Dutch libraries. I may still even have the dark blue polo shirt tucked away somewhere in my cupboard. I didn’t attend the actual conference then, I just did the market floor thing.

Now that I’m back to working in a library again, I thought it would be nice to try the actual conference out because this year it is practically being held in my own backyard! The program isn’t set yet, I have no idea what the speeches and workshops will be about and it may even be boring at times, but heck, I won’t know if I don’t go. I also love an international community.

On the final conference day there will be library visits and I have booked mine for Antwerp in Belgium, where I hope to see this…

I know there are quite a few librarians in the Richard Armitage fan world and, although IFLA can be expensive, especially with travel and hotels and such involved, I did find myself wondering: do any of the librarians reading this have plans to go as well? If so, maybe a little Armitage Army, the Library Division meet up could be arranged? I could even do a little private tour of the library I work at. If anyone of you does have such plans, you can let me know in the comments or through my blog contact page or by email (bookestherblog@gmail.com). I’d be really interested to exchange professional experiences with you, with the added bonus of meeting in person and doing a little fangirling on the side. 🙂

Library Friday

Can you tell what I’m doing today?

Library front office duty as I fill in for someone who is ill. Scanning books and shelving! Haven’t done that in years and it’s fun to do again for a change. It’s Friday and pretty quiet, so I’m popping on here for a quick post. It’s been a really busy week for me, so when my replacement comes at 2 pm, I’ll sit with him for a little bit and then clock out early.

The busy week was due to a frontdesk scheduling problem which came to a head in recent weeks. Last week I urged my manager to do something about it and lay down the law because endless discussions were getting us nowhere and she needed to get everyone out of an impasse. Preparing that, in addition to following a course, I have been working overtime this week. As the newbie I’ve been a bit nervous about this whole scheduling thing. I don’t like harsh conflict and I was expecting a civil war but my manager did an awesome job at laying down the law in a fair and friendly manner. I presented a new basic schedule (which needs to be finalized after feedback next week) and so far so good; the grumbles are really not that loud. I think everyone is happy that there is clarity now, whether they agree or not. There is still a whole new challenge for all of us to think about how we see library service in the future, especially in this new post-lockdowns hybrid world, but for now at least the library locations will be staffed. This really feels like my first new job victory.

Thinking about these issues, I do have a question to all school /college /university librarians out there who read here: how is your physical library location staffed? Here we now opt for receptionist/admin people at the frontdesk during opening hours (9 am to 7 pm) and librarians with deeper knowledge of collections, databases and search strategies will be around in the library (but not necessarily at the frontdesk) from 10 am to 3 pm when the libraries are at their busiest. Outside those hours they are available by appointment and all questions can always also be asked via a chat service.

Hmmm, I think I should apply for work visits to libraries abroad where my readers work to see how they do things there. Good idea, right? 😉 Anyway, back to work now for an hour or so before my weekend starts.