3D printing and history

A few days ago I shared this video on twitter, it is a 3D printing of the crown of Henry VIII.
I shared it because of the history element.  I thought how interesting it would be if schools around the world who had to study history of the Tudors could be able to access this technology as part of learning about the past.  I was interested to receive a very negative tweet about this, which lead to this blog post.

Most students of Tudor history are not going to have the luxury of seeing this crown, or many other historical object up close, and 3D printing is a way to access some elements of history. Imagine being able to hold replicas of key museum items.

The robot tours at the Australian National Museum are another was to get up close to museum materials (and the tours are impressive).

I think using creative approaches to how information is provided are important, and libraries have a key role in that.

143 books to read in summer 2014 - really?

The headline "143 books to read in summer 2014" came through my zite feed and depressed me. I realise that it is a way of saying there are lots of wonderful books to read over the next few months. It briefly made me feel that I was a reader without hope.  I am sure it did not mean to.

I read, but unless they were 143 picture books there is no way I could read 143 books over a few months.  If they are 143 "big fat fantasy" titles, that would be a much longer time.  Looking at the list, and it is an interesting one, they are not titles you could read in 143 evenings (if you were kind of taking a book a day approach).

This is a lovely list, which did not have the desired effect of excitement.  It highlights the challenge of how you promote lots and lots of exciting things.  This headline implied I needed to read them all, but really they were giving me a lovely choice, which it took a while for me to see (being blinded by the inability to read 143 titles in a few months).

Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin and sign language

When you visit the website of the Zentral- und Landesbibliothek Berlin you see a link to gebaerdensprache which takes you to their page about signing services.

It includes the video, shown below as well as information about services to children.


I was impressed to see that they are catering for  section of the community which is often under represented in library services.

Thanks to Google translate for making some of this possible.

Cockatoo Island and social media

Cockatoo Island makes it very clear, almost as soon as you exit the ferry, how you can connect with them in social media.  I really like this.