giving thanks

thank goodness that finally worked. it took forever to get it all uploaded and what not. i hope it was worth the wait for you guys. thanks to all the people who made it possible...to irna, anke and tanya for coming to watch it all in action, to klaske and joke for helping me make khates dress, to christine for arranging the video and helping get it online, to pastor george for doing the service, to bob allison for making the faith chest, to oma and opa for the party after, and to everyone else who helped make it all posible. thanks tons!

khate's baptism 28-06-2009

i hope this works!

Here are the words

You're my Honeybunch, Sugarplum
Pumpy-umpy-umpkin, You're my Sweetie Pie
You're my Cuppycake, Gumdrop
Snoogums-Boogums, You're the Apple of my Eye
And I love you so and I want you to know
That I'll always be right here
And I love to sing sweet songs to you
Because you are so dear

© 1994 Amy J. Music (ASCAP)
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Sooooooooo cute i have to share!

Here she is!

Her Royal Cuteness Princess Cupcake!

it's been a long time coming!

well folks...for those of you who have stayed tuned only to become frustrated by my lack of communication here is your updates!!!



alie helen katherine was born christmas day. she is named after her two grandmothers and katherine is a cameron family name i share with my aunt and others. we call her khate which are her initials backwards plus 'te' to make it an actual name.



after a rough couple of months she is doing very well. because she was born very quickly while not actually in the right position she had a nerve pinched in her neck. this nerve is responsible for the workings of the digestive track...since the nerve was pinched the digestive track didn't work the way it should and resulted in much pain which then led to much crying...hense the reason why there have been no updates on my blog. it is hard to type when you constently have a bag of wheat with two legs attatched to my arm. but thank the good Lord after 2 trips to the osteopath things have changed from night to day! unbelievable. now instead of crying she has discovered the joy of laughing and babbling in khatish(the language only she understands) and smiles from the moment she wakes up till she is off to bed. what a wonder. she has also doubled her birthweight and then some and is becoming more and more of her body movements like wiggly worm trying to get herself places without really having the strength and co-ordination to do it. very funny to see.



i am now back at work and loving it. my job has changed a little bit so that my biggest job is working as a go-between for several faculties. very fun work if you ask me. but at this point really my biggest job is going through my emails! yicks! thanks goodness cynthia did some housekeeping while i was away. i don't want to know what it would have looked like otherwise. while i wrestle with the email khate is off at one of her two the nanny's having fun playing with the other kids. it is nice that i can trust them both totally and don't feel the need to constently check up on her. she is in good hands.



i think that is it for the moment. i'll see what i can come up with for the next instalment...need to find a new theme...any ideas? let me know!

ps the spellcheck isn't working so there are probably a ton of boo-boos. sorry.

stay tuned!

okay so 23 things is done(see the last 2 entries) but the blog isn't. today is my last day of "work" but family and friends can stay tuned for updates over the next few months. happy reading!

step #20~canuck chicks rock!

okay so i have spent a bit of time playing around with last.fm and i have come to the conclusion that this might just be my favourite part of 23 things! you see i am in love with a canadian singer, jann arden. she is so canadian you can hardly hear her anywhere outside of canada even though she has won countless awards and has about a zillion cd’s out and european/north american tours. but since i moved here to the land of cheese and chocolate i haven’t heard her and even missed that she had a new cd out!!!!!! horrible!!!! what kind of pathetic fan am i? but now thanks to last.fm my troubles are over! i can listen to her again. and what is also super duper about last.fm is that the majority of the other recommended tracks and artists are people i regularly listen to like other canuck chicks like amanda marshell, chantel kraviatzik and sarah mclachlan. and other great artists i totally enjoy like indigo girls, shawn colvin, melissa ethridge and the likes. there were some where i thought what in the world is this? but still the majority have been dead on to my taste. even the artists you find via via via have been to my liking. i can over look the fact that each song is a different volume and requires adjusting if the music stays this good. i also really like the info. they provide over the artists. i’ve always enjoyed reading bios over artists and now i don’t even have to look them up myself, they are provided! i enjoy that!. the one thing i don’t really find interesting for myself is the “making friends” option. i don’t really see this as a social networking opportunity for myself. i can see how one could desire the social aspect of it. chatting with other people who all enjoy the same music as you, meeting up at the same concerts and such but really…i don’t feel the need. what i do feel the need for is to see if i can use last.fm on my new smartphone! now that would be something totally super duper! i’m off to play some more…

step #23~the end

this time around i'm just going to fill in the answers cause i'm really not sure how else to do it. i hope that's not too boring...

wat waren je favoriete Dingen die je onderweg hebt leren kennen en gebruiken?

well i really like netvibes...i use it daily and really find it handy for keeping my web stuff organised. i also really like last.fm. i liked spelling with flickr for a bit of creative mindless fun and have used flickr to share photo's with family and friends.

wat heeft dit leerprogramma “gedaan” met jou en met de organisatie waar je werkt?

personally this learning program has really just helped me to get off my lazy butt and try the various things i had already read about and talked about or passively experienced. it has created the opportunity for me to take the time to actually do things i had just never gotten around to.

it has been really interesting to observe how people here have responded to having to do 23 things. at first there were a lot of negative murmurs and every once in a while there still are but there have also been quite postive conversations that have not only brought co-workers further in their journey towards library 2.0ification but also just plain closer as co-workers. it has been great to see people being more open to asking for help and trying to help eachother out. i have really seen that as a postive from this experience. and lets face it having done it we are all a step...or 23 steps closer to being able to lead the 2.0 pack. the majority of us are still sheep following along with the trends and that will always be i think. but we are now better equipped to help those following after us.

waren er dingen die je verrasten, als onverwacht resultaat van dit programma?

i think i was more suprised by the team building effect of the program then the actual contents of the program itself. it has just been so postive in that respect. i feel like we should do something else like this to keep it going.

wat kan er gedaan worden om 23 Dingen te verbeteren?

a more advanced option would be great for people who are already quite handy with web2.0 applications. there were often more advanced options that were seen as like " if you really like this then dig a bit deeper" but that's not quite what i mean. i mean like other programs and such so that when you know all about podcasts and social networks you can check something else out. is that clear at all?

En vul aan: “23 Dingen is voor mij …”

for me 23 things is a great learning tool that has the potential to help inspire librarians and being the libary to the next needed service level. but i think it is just the beginning. now it is time for us to try things out and incorperate what we experiment with into our libraries and see how we can better our selves and our services.

thanks management for the great chance for a bit of fun, team building and even learning!

a librarian's 2.0 manifesto

A Librarian's 2.0 Manifesto from Library 2.0: An Academic Librarian's Perspective. Copied from the original blog post.

• I will recognize that the universe of information culture is changing fast and that libraries need to respond positively to these changes to provide resources and services that users need and want.
• I will educate myself about the information culture of my users and look for ways to incorporate what I learn into library services.
• I will not be defensive about my library, but will look clearly at its situation and make an honest assessment about what can be accomplished.
• I will become an active participant in moving my library forward.
• I will recognize that libraries change slowly, and will work with my colleagues to expedite our responsiveness to change.
• I will be courageous about proposing new services and new ways of providing services, even though some of my colleagues will be resistant.
• I will enjoy the excitement and fun of positive change and will convey this to colleagues and users.
• I will let go of previous practices if there is a better way to do things now, even if these practices once seemed so great.
• I will take an experimental approach to change and be willing to make mistakes.
• I will not wait until something is perfect before I release it, and I'll modify it based on user feedback.
• I will not fear Google or related services, but rather will take advantage of these services to benefit users while also providing excellent library services that users need.
• I will avoid requiring users to see things in librarians' terms but rather will shape services to reflect users' preferences and expectations.
• I will be willing to go where users are, both online and in physical spaces, to practice my profession.
• I will create open Web sites that allow users to join with librarians to contribute content in order to enhance their learning experience and provide assistance to their peers.
• I will lobby for an open catalog that provides personalized, interactive features that users expect in online information environments.
• I will encourage my library's administration to blog.
• I will validate, through my actions, librarians' vital and relevant professional role in any type of information culture that evolves.
  

Posted by Laura Cohen on November 8, 2006 01:01 PM

step #22~the evolution of the library…

1. Lees twee of drie artikelen over Bibliotheek 2.0 uit de bronnenlijst (engels en/of Nederlands). 2. Schrijf een blogpost waarin je je gedachten weergeeft over één van deze artikelen
3.Meld je aan bij de Nederlandse Bibliotheek 2.0 Ning community met je cursusaccountgegevens. 4. Schrijf een blogpost over waarin je iets schrijft over hoe jij tegen Bibliotheek 2.0 aankijkt.

okay so me being i in all my super geekdom glory am convinced that you can make a great parallel between the history of the library and the history of the church. in fact, i am convinced that in some respects the two even go hand in hand. however, i am aware that no one is interested in reading this comparison but me so i will save everyone from extreme boredom and refrain. however, i came to this conclusion while reading the articles about library 2.0 and that the whole idea about library 2.0 being about the evolutionary process of public access. if you think back, even just in library history, that has been a trend from the beginning. moving from monastic libraries to closed stakes to open stakes. library 2.0 seems like the next logical step where we as librarians continue to move from keepers of the information treasure chest to being the tour guides. yeah, we have made several steps towards that already but if the patron still can’t understand our way of doing things then we have to change to meet their needs. and as the times change so do the needs and our way of meeting them need to change too. that doesn’t mean we throw everything we’ve done out the window but it does mean that we need to be open to compromise without compromising our core. i think really the Librarian Manifesto sums it all up very well. it does not at any point say that we as librarians throw our current system out the window but that we let ourselves be receptive to the changes of the world around us and attempt to incorporate those into the library world so that we can continue to do our job effectively. we need to evolve our ideas, our programs and our services in accordance with the desires of the user and changes of their culture while being open to failure, criticism, input, and remaining positive through the whole process. I think that that is basically what we have been doing very slowly over the last few hundred years…normally in response to a crisis of some sort… and now we need to make that step a bit faster to keep up with the extra fast moving people of this time period…and we do this in response to the crisis that if we don’t, we not only stagnate, we find ourselves out of a job. this is where something like bibliotheek 2.0 ning and library 2.0 ning are super handy networks that help us as librarians help each other to track trends, evolve our services and give each other feedback on how we are doing. the evolutionary process is much easier of you do it as a team and not just on your own. Instead of being the single salmon fighting the current you become one of many going with the flow, moving forward together…but don’t worry, at the end of this story you don’t die like the salmon, you evolve to a higher level of service, standards and patron satisfaction. and that is really what being a librarian is all about.

step #21~ pop rocks and diet coke

&

due to technical difficulties i have been forced to temporarily skip step #20 and move on to #21…the aquabrowser…what do i think? i like it! i like the cool interface. it has the potential to let patrons and in particular students make actual use of the OPAC and maybe just maybe even make it fun! it fits with the professional look of applications, social networks, gaming and the likes that students now view as the norm. heck even i view it as the norm and like the eye candy of the new browser. i like the idea of a social browser too where patrons have input into how they find things like with a tag cloud. maybe it will help people find what they are looking for. sure a tag cloud doesn’t replace standard search methods made possible by fastidious cataloguing but it can enhances it, since student brains definitely work differently then cataloguer brains. i like the idea of reviewing and ranking too. students can give a heads-up to there fellow students “like this was super great for my paper about nietzsche” or “don’t be fooled the title says this is about hair but really it’s about rabbits” but i think it would be great if this could be done by both users and librarian to provide a fuller picture of the book…in an academic setting i think this is important so that students don’t discard an important book based on a fellow students poor review or vice versa…in a public library i see this as less of an issue. and i like that you can make lists of books you like, were useful you wanna read, etc. super handy when you are working on your these and you realise you forgot to cite a book and have to find it again or when you want to tell you mom about this great book you read last month but can’t remember the title or whatever your scenario is…but all of the things that i have named as advantages do beg the questions…is it necessary to cater to the student with a new sexy OPAC or should we as the library continue to indoctrinate users and force them to follow our rules…and i think it is both. we should provide a stimulating interface with input potential while sticking to our core business of providing information and teaching students proper researching techniques to do so. one shouldn’t replace the other it should bring things to a new and better level like a glass of wine is said to enhance the flavour of your dinner…i have heard anyway. i personally prefer diet coke but that only really enhances the taste of like pop rocks… know what i mean? so maybe the OPAC is the diet coke and the aquabrowser is the pop rocks? okay i have seriously digressed. i’m moving on…does this country have pop rocks? okay i’m really moving on….step #22…

the academie bestuur en recht ABRi

here are some pictures of the little reference library i have been working on for the last year. it doesn't look like much but a lot of time, work and money has gone into making it what it is. thanks bittersweet librarian for taking the shots with your super duper camera!

thanks aadl for this great trick! to make your own card catalog entry visit the ann arber public library online catalog: http://www.aadl.org/catalog

step #19~ can't live without my facebook!

okay so step #19 is all about discovering social networks and thinking about how you can use social networking in your library. i think the best way for me to discuss this issue it to tell about my personal use of facebook cause lets face it i can no longer live without facebook. not because i am some kind of addict who relies totally on it for all social contact but because it has become the primary way for my friends and family who live around the world to keep in touch. that is how i got on facebook to begin with...when i moved here it was a free way to stay connected with my friends and family in canada as well as norway, israel, the states, england, etc. and stay up-to-date about the day to day events in life. over the years i have found more friends and they have found me. we have reconnected, picked up where we left off and now keep in touch with what is all going on in our various parts of the world and lives. but i have also used my facebook account for the good of the library world. via fellow library school friends and professors as well as various library related groups i belong to, a sort of library support system has been created for me and the others involved. we share reference questions, help find new jobs(no i'm not looking but others were) and swap stories about how we can futher enhance the library universe. i have also answered reference type questions from my no-library friends but i don't think that is the place to be in order to draw people into the library. i just happened to be in the right place at the right time. via the groups offered and such it can be used to support for outside library users as well as librarians with like "friends of the library", "ala", book discussion groups, etc. it can shed light on library opportunities and good books to borrow and spark reading interest but i don't think we as librarians should get all hung up on that. i think that is just an extra...well with all this talk about facebook i wonder how people are doing. time to check up on some friends!

step #18~ stepping away from my paper version in favour of the web...do i wanna i make the jump?

1. Ga naar de Nederlanse versie van LibraryThing en maak een persoonlijke account aan
2. Voeg tenminste 10 boeken toe aan je bibliotheek
3. Schrijf een blogpost over je ervaringen, waarbij je ook een link legt naar jouw virtuele boekenkast. Hoe populair zijn jouw boeken? Werd er over gediscussieerd?

i thought that librarything would be my very favouritist part of this little 23 things event. what could be better than virtually organising your personal libary? and for the real world this has the potential to be a handy little web2.0 thing. you can record all the books in your library with the click of the mouse. but for actual cataloguing purposes i would have to say i prefer my paper version...yes i am one of those strange people who have taken the time to catalogue my own little library in a super handly little book that allows you to cross reference titles and authers and the likes. my collection is also organised by genre and alphabetical order according to auther. i am fully aware that i am a geek and i have made peace with this but i like the organisation. another geeky thing about me is i like to be accurate...in order to be accurate you need to know the isbn of your actual copy so you have to have the book in front of you. do you think the real world knows this? or are they just randomly selecting? but a distinct advantage to librarything regardless of personal idiosyncrasies is the social part of it. you can see who likes the same books as you, discuss your books with people and see what new books you could check out next. i entered mostly the popular books in my collection and they are pretty popular. there are discussion about them...nothing deep and insightful...but there isn't really anything deep or insightful about a maeve binchy or sue grafton book...but they are popular and are on various book challenges and the likes. and i got some nifty ideas about what to read next. i quite enjoy that part of it. maybe i'll continue in my geekworthy fashion and make a new list of book to read during my month off. but for the actual cataloguing i'm still sticking to my little orange book. sorry. i know it's not very forward thinking of me and it is totally not web2.0 of me but i can't let go of the control i have with the paper version.

step #17~ going on a bear hunt…well a web2.0 hunt really…but i’ll still catch a big one!

step #17 is all about finding out about the wonderful world of web2.0 and all the crazy things you can do with the applications now available. i checked out lots of stuff from how to make postcards of your pets to getting money advice to storing backups of your files. but the thing that really caught my eye was biblio.com. found via the website for web2.0 awards. Biblio.com is a great place to look for secondhand and rare books with many different bookstores opening their treasure chests of available books for you to find all in one place! i’m totally in love with the miss zukas mysteries by jo derekse about a librarian who canoes, eats all her food separately not allowing a thing to touch, sucks the coating off m&m’s before actually eating them and does several other things and has several other similarities to my slightly nutty self. She also solves mysteries but that is not my forte. anyway, some super smart publisher (smell the sarcasm) decided to stop publishing the middle 4 books in the miss zukas series. this sad fact means that in order to finish the series i have to find used copies. no worries now! i hit up biblio.com and found them!!! now if that isn’t super duper fabulicious I just don’t know what is!!!! Schaap veronica and cybercybar I think we can attend to some unfinished business now…we just have to wait till jan. cause they’re being delivered to the parental units house. thank the good lord for web2.0 applications! now we can practice some good old-fashioned pre-web reading!

step #16~ the written stuff

Surf door YouTube, bekijk tags, rubrieken, de zoekmogelijkheden etc. en schrijf erover op je blog. Wat kan je bibliotheek ermee doen ter promotie van de diensten? Wellicht wil je een bibliotheekfilmpje in je blog plaatsen? Rechts van elke video vind je de zogenaamde “embed” code. Kopieer en plak deze in je blogpost. Let wel op dat je dan in de HTML weergave van het bericht werkt!

well step #16 is actually something i have never done before. i could never be bothered to search for other people’s videos on YouTube. sure i always found it funny when people sent me stuff they had found on the site but i could never get the umph to check it out myself. today i did and i found super fun stuff. i loved mr. bean and the library and grover’s library lecture and no cookies in the library with cookie monster and i am such a big fan of miss marpel that is was great to see the body in the library up there too…although i am sure that there have to be lots of copyright infringements going on. there were lots of clips from other movies and games that include library scenes and even a few super funny songs about the library. but with the super fun stuff i also found the super lame stuff!!!! seriously i will name no names but there were a lot of seriously boring library tours and stuff meant to entice the public into the library and explain how it all works that made me, a librarian, roll my eyes. how can you expect someone first to find your video and then to actually watch it when it is akin to watching paint dry…and i don’t mean the kind of paint were you can play “which drip falls the fastest”. that can actually be fun. YouTube has great outreach potential but then you gotta give the user some high quality competitive stuff that isn’t like…lets pick our youngest librarian on staff and have them take students through the information finding, book lending blah blah blah process…i mean i don’t care so why should students and users care? and then you gotta get some good pr so people can find what you have made. there is total potential with this free sharing multimedia program to be used as a teaching tool …teaching through fun what better way to learn without the pain of actually using the word “learn”…but we gotta make it worth the viewers while or we are just kidding ourselves wasting time and money on something that could be super duper fabulicious.

step #16~ a little peak at retro library programs

you can't tell me these aren't great!



grover's library lecture



no cookies in the library

the seseame street of our childhood!

step #15~ moving and grooving through 23 things...with my new podcast!

ah the podcast… the anywhere, anytime, self selected music or information program at your fingertips. quite an enjoyable little invention really. before step #15 i had several positive experiences with podcasts. i have a running podcast on my ipod for 5 km runs which is updated ever week. it has different music according to the tempo you should be running at and it tells you approximately how far you should be at which point in the music and tries to inspire you to push that little bit more. needless to say i have not been making use if this podcast lately as i am pretty much thankful i can still move my legs in a running like movement without collapsing let alone trying to keep up with a tempo…i wont be winning any races this year! but my pod experience is not limited to running. i also receive the podcast of the “obnoxious librarian” a very humorous satirical look at the library world(there is also a blog and a christmas book coming out! can’t wait!!!) and i access the biblio file by nigal beale, which has interviews with canadian and international authors and the likes. i think this sort of program has great potential in a public library setting. i mean on the surface it looks like it is just an informative discussion over award winning books but really it has the potential to draw people into the library to get the book to actually read it. i’m sure a variation could be adapted for students…that is perhaps more of a challenge but it has the potential…only you will require a great pr campaign to get the work out i think. something to think about… but now i am off to scour podplaza.nl for a new knitting or craft podcast…you never know what fun tips you might find…if you walk into the office and you hear something about a rib stitch I’m not slacking i’m working…on 23 things!