California: San Francisco Public Library Launches “Biblio Bistro” a Movable Kitchen Providing Food Education - from Infodocket

California: San Francisco Public Library Launches “Biblio Bistro” a Movable Kitchen Providing Food Education



This is a great initiative.  I hope they are also connecting to other services the library offers as well as the collections.

Super Happy Maker Fun Hour from State Library of Colorado

I have just been watching the first Super Happy Maker Fun Hour from the State Library of Colorado.  It is interesting to see different ways people do G+ hangouts, and the content is great.  Watch out for the next one in February.  For those in NSW, they start at 6.00am (at least they do with current time zone things).

Great work by the State Library of Colorado, and they have other very useful resources for makerspaces too.

The resources and other information from today are here, and you can watch the video (below).

readers advisory meets local studies in this Moby-Dick reading marathon

I have only just found out about this annual Moby-Dick reading marathon which is run by the New Bedford Whaling Museum.  This is a great way of connecting fiction and non-fiction. and that this has been going for 20 years shows a lot of interest.  There are local studies connections with this as New Bedford was a big whaling town and there were some technological changes to whaling which came out of this area.  You can read a lot more about it at the New Bedford Whaling Museum website.  I think it is very impressive work by this museum.  I was so interested in this that I did a storify.

I have not come across many marathon reads.  Ulysses by James Joyce seems to attract multiple reads a year, but there are many other location specific works which would be great for this (and if they could be streamed online that helps people who can't be there).  Last year there was a reading of the Illiad, which is still available for a few more months of listening.

There are, no doubt, a lot of other marathon reads out there, which I have not included, but think of it as a way to have people consider local history, and local stories.  The reading may be of works of fiction, such as Moby-Dick, or of non-fiction. It can be a way to connect people together.  Consider it as part of your library programming.

I can find find the history, local studies and readers advisory elements of interest but I am against any current whaling.

Review of Warning, the story of Cyclone Tracy

Warning, The Story of Cyclone Tracy by Sophie Cunningham
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This book acknowledges the Northern Territory Archives as being key to it being able to be written. This comes through the body of the book as well as the acknowledgements. It also highlights collecting by other organisations, including the recording of oral histories.

This book shows the value of different methods of research, archives, libraries and interviews. While it includes some personal elements from the author (of her memories and experiences), these do not overwhelm the accounts of what happened in Darwin, rather they help to position them. Similarly references to other disasters are used to make specific points about Cyclone Tracey and the aftermath. This book is a reminder of much discrimination, towards indigenous people and women (and while there have been changes, these have not passed).

Good discussion of the effects of climate change is also used as part of this book.

The personal stories of how people experienced the cyclone are very powerful. This was a powerful book to read, the cyclone accounts are vivid, as are the descriptions of the aftermath (including the politics).

This book highlights the importance of collecting current events. What collecting was done post Cyclone Yasi, the widespread rain and hail in April 2015 in NSW and the Christmas Day fires in Victoria 2015? This is important collecting for public libraries for their local studies collections for local research, but also to enable people to draw information from different events together (as was done in this book). The collections available for this writer show the importance of collecting soon after the event (obviously in a sensitive /appropriate/representative/inclusive way) as well as collecting after time has lapsed.

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Knitting, music, & family: temperature blanket pattern - a datavisualisation by Clare

Knitting, Music, & Family: Temperature Blanket Pattern: Some of my knitting/crocheting/fiber arts friends have asked me for the pattern for the Sydney-Decorah Temperature Blanket. (For posts about...


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I am reblogging this because it is a lovely way of exploring a datavisualisation.  Clare has used an exisiting knitting style and the colours are based on maximum and minimum temperatures.

This is great.