Just 'cause it's Sunny outside.................

Fingers crossed for some blue skies a few cold beers and a BBQ.....................Mmmmmmmmm

No Comment!

Having major issues with Blogger the last few days.  I can post on my own blog but when I try to comment on anybody else's it forces me to re-login, enter the disabled text, enter my password, kick me out, round and round we go!! I must by now be filling half a cyber graveyard with all my missing posts. 

Pitseleh, love your Guardian photo sequence, I was on the verge of blubbing too! Horrible to think that that kind of life could cease to exist.  There's something actually beautiful about their self-reliance and contentment.  I'm not sure which number it was but I was endeared to the one where one brother said the worst day of his life was staying in a hotel 3 hours away!

With regard to Pitseleh's house burning down post, checkout the burning house project it's cute!  I have very little personally that's irreplaceable.  Photo albums, and childhood memory box would need to be rescued. The main thing I would want to keep is  a box of diaries and letters I wrote during my teens and twenties.  Even reading them now, I cringe and smile at my younger self.  So clueless, and so naive. I think when I'm older I will cherish these dearly.

Totally against kids on Facebook, I fear having under 13's on  facebook will transform it into a grooming portal for paedophiles.  For every parent who monitors their kids internet use, there will be thousands that don't.  It is so easy to assume a fake identity and groom a child, I really don't see any benefits to this at all. 

I fear something more sinister with Zuckerberg than passive advertising.  Like Twitpic, Facebook owns any photos you upload, so he 'owns' billions of photos of people's lives.   Think about the stars of the future.  Their parents are busy posting every highlight of their little lives on Facebook:  baby scans, first photo, first tooth, first step, first birthday, first day of school, communion, confirmation, graduation............All there in technicolour and OWNED by Zuckerberg.  By the time the next generation go to sign their first record deal or begin to learn the lines for their first movie, Zuckerberg will have a lifetimes worth of photos ready to sell to the biggest bidder.  I find this whole concept terrifying.

Bookshops..............

World's  most beautiful bookstores, have a look and drool! I like the one in Porto and the quaint coffee shop in Massachusettes the best. 

If I could have one dream come true it would be to win enough money to open my own book shop complete with coffee area & slouch couches.

I'd home bake muffins and scones everyday for the coffee area, and have coffee mornings for OAPs.  There would be a book club and I'd show foreign/independent movies  a couple of times a month.  I'd have Story Time for kids & guest readings

I have it all worked out, just need to get my hands on that illustrious winning lotto ticket.  I know it probably wouldn't make any money that''s why I need to win the money to fund it.  

Back in the real World, Dublin has it's very own new independent bookstore. the Loft Bookshop, check it out above Twisted Pepper on Abbey Street. 

All set for Obama



Oh dear......



Lost in Space

So my take on Creative Commons is lost, floating somewhere in cyber space.  I could re-write it alas it's one of those strange concepts, where my opinion is evolving the more I read and talk about it.  I had a lengthy discussion about copyright with AnonLibrarian the other day, how quaint, actually speaking to each other as opposed to firing our ideas across the interweb.  We could have spoken for hours, it's such a contentious issue, and possibly the most relevant to librarians of any of the 'Things' covered thus far.

I still feel in essence that Creative Commons is half hearted; it just doesn't go far enough.  Interestingly I've discovered a lot of my friends use it.  You know you're a complete bore when you ask people at a dinner party if they've heard of or used Creative Commons, YES, I am that much of a geek.  I dunno, I'm just strangely fascinated by the whole concept. 

Anyway, it turns out my husband has been using it forever.  He works in publishing and with restrictive budgets getting stock imagery can be a nightmare, now he can use anything with cc logo, and he's not in breach of any laws.  I am warming to it's uses for people who want to reuse other peoples work.  It's good to be covered.  I think it is something that is going to grow massively or completely evolve as we become ever more reliant on internet in all facets of life.

Here's a paper from Project Muse about rethinking copyright and cc licensing in school libraries.  It's quite long, but interesting and  relevant.

Who says libraries aren't rock n roll!!

Manic Street Preachers single 'A Design for Life' opens with the line  'Libraries gave us power' based on the inscription 'Knowledge is power'outside a Welsh library where one of their girlfriends worked.  

Years later life imitates art as they officially open Cardiffs new state of the art library. 

Here Manic Street Preachers's, Nick Wire bemoans lack of funding for Public Libraries in the UK .  

Friday Fun - Obsessive Librarian

Psychoville returned to BBC2 last night, with a new character, an obsessive librarian, makes us look a pretty meek bunch it has to be said .