National Museum of Play, Rochester, NY

This was an amazing museum.  A branch of the local public library was spread through out it and it houses the International Centre for the History of Electronic Games.



To see more photographs of the museum either look at the slideshow below or follow this link to read descriptions of the photographs.
 

Outpost at Cocktoo Island

This is by ROA - it is one of the amazing art works on exhibition at Outpost at Cocktoo Island (although the art works painted on the buildings like this one may be around for longer).

I took a few more photographs and you can see them in the slideshow
 

Museum Shop - Museo Nacional de Athropologie, Mexico

The shop at the Museo Nacional de Athropologie, Mexico was a later addition to this museum. It was a smart and attractive addition as it was designed in a way to look great in the museum, but in a more modern style of design. It looked good, and you knew it was a later element and this worked very well.

You can see more photographs of the museum shop here

Do you like your job so much you want to sing about it?

This is a question to ask yourself. This young man enjoys his work making and tempering fudge so much that he was singing about fudge.  It sounded like an improvised blues song, which since he was singing in New Orleans was appropriate.

People may look at you if you sing about your work in a library (and I know some childrens/young adult staff may be able to get away with it), but the point is not so much about singing as asking do you look like you enjoy your work?  A better question is do you actually enjoy your work?

Are you conveying enthusiasm as well as you are conveying your amazing effective library skills?

#egoreads for October

My reading for October did not include many #egoreads, it included:

• Faking it by Jennifer Crusie - mixing art and romance
• Bourke Street Bakery by Phil Allan and David McGuinness, a great bakery well represented
• Matthew Reilly Five greatest warriors - an enjoyable e-audio experience
• Stardust by Neil Gaiman - this was a lovely read
• Mark Abernathy County attack - action thriller set in south east Asia
• Michael J Parry The spiral tattoo - noir-ish mystery in fantasy environment
• Gaming the past by Jeremiah McCall - video games as a way of teaching history to high school students
• The way of kings by Brandon Sanderson.  I had not read any titles by Sanderson before - don't know how I missed doing this.  Really enjoyable, with some great ideas about libraries and storytelling.
• The impossible dead by Ian Rankin - another enjoyable read by this author
• Everything bad is good for you by Stephen Johnson - about learning from popular culture

Libreria Porrua

Libreria Porrua is a Mexican bookshop, one branch is in a large park, near the botanic gardens and the National Anthropology Museum.

This bookshop is impressive because of its light and open structure (it even had a full size tree growing through the building).  It looked a lovely bookshop, the kind any one would like to have in their community.



It had a lovely connection to the park, and is welcoming and engaging.

You can see more photographs of it here

roving shop help

Michaels staff in Ithaca, NY use these walkie talkies to communicate with one another so they can tap into each other's specialist skills - it is very effective - and a shop version of roving reference.  Michaels is a craft shop with a broad range of craft materials represented.  It would not be possible to be an expert in all the craft options in the shop.

All the staff were wearing these radio headsets including the staff on the checkouts.  They allowed staff to tap into each others expertise so that the cup cake specialist (yes there was one) could talk to the beading expert rather than bluffing or providing inaccurate information.  Staff were very happy to talk about the great assistance these radios were for their customer service.  It was impressive, it was slick and most of all it provided assistance to the people in the shop.

It was also great that the staff were happy with my questions, when I was in the shop as a client. The staff were proud of the system and how it helped them do their work better and help each other.

La Biblioteca Nacional de México

La Biblioteca Nacional de México is located within a university. The building is an older style, but is interesting because of the way the story of Mexico's history is constructed into the building.
You can see a few more slides of the building here.

Biblioteca Vasconcelos, Mexico Ciudad, Mexico

Biblioteca Vasconcelos, Mexico Ciudad, Mexicois an amazing public library as the shelving within the library is an integral part of the library structure holding the building together.  There were quite a few issues when the library first opened, but they have been resolved.




The shelving is very sculptural


and there are many places with comfortable seating or study tables for people to work at.
You can look at more photographs of the library using this link (which will provide descriptions of the photographs) or you can follow the link below.

Salt Lake City Public LIbrary, Utah

Salt Lake City Public Library has a pedestrian street with shops inside the building,

a very impressive library shop totally run and managed by Friends of the library...

and interesting promotions.


You can look at the slide show here to see more photographs of the library including their bee hives (and read the descriptions), or follow the link below.