Day 2. A caving we will go

Due to my *stumble* yesterday afternoon (tripped over the footpath, and in trying to stop myself falling actually wrenched more bits of me than might otherwise have been the case) it was a stiff & sore fifi who 'limped bravely' out to the rental car for our drive to Waitomo and the glowworm caves.

We left Auckland at some ungodly hour (6.30 AM ! - I'm on holidays fgs!) for the drive to Waitomo and the caves.

The first cave we visited was Aranui. It was raining and we passed a party of older Australians who were on a 3 day walk through the area. We shared a shelter with them while we waited for our guide, and they waited for the rain to ease a little.

We had an excellent guide who explained the history of the cave to us, and told us about the efforts being made to preserve and conserve the caves and then totally flummoxed us by telling us she was going on ahead to open the door and turn on the lights.

Tres amusing.

The cave was awesome - stalactites & stalagmites, interesting rock and rock-coral formations. We were allowed to take photos but my shots do not capture the size and grandeur of the cave. I've had to rely on postcards for that.

Next up was the glowworm cave. This too was very intriguing and interesting. This tour finished with a boat ride thru the cave in pitch black lit only by the glowworms. There is one huge cave where they hold concerts - it would be awesome to see the Christmas Carols Concert there.

As I exited Waitomo with my usual grace and poise I stepped in a pothole on the side of the road and wrenched my other ankle. Am now limping bravely on both ankles! (note - i survived the caves without incidents but I apparently can't cope with footpaths and roads - go figure)

Back to Auckland Airport (via Hamilton and Waikato) as we were flying to Dunedin later in the evening.

Air NZ has just redone it's domestic terminal - it's practically all selfserve, you print your own boarding pass & luggage labels and put your suitcase on the conveyor belt yourself.

By the time we arrived in Dunedin it was 9pm and raining and cold so we threw ourselves and our suitcases into a cab (Driven by the Patricia Cornwell reading Jill) and headed to our hotel.

Arrived at the hotel, let ourselves in, had a cuppa and hit the sack - tomorrow would be another day...

VALA Day 2. Afternoon Plenary

Michael Geist , Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law, University of Ottawa, Canada Unlocking access: in support of a hands-on Internet policy

podcasts.culture.ca

'law & technology' U of Ottawa podcasts

creative archive licence group

Net 2008

• blogs
• podcasts
• social networking
• enables people to speak out, create
• share experiences

Creation

• desktop software
• video distribution (youtube, bbc etc.)
• flickr -billions of photos -over 100 million available under Creative Commons licences

Collaborative media

• wikipedia - 2 million articles in english.
• encyclopedia of Life -catalogue all life on earth in 10 years - started last year.
• OhMyNews - citizen journalism
• Project Gutenberg
• LibriVox (audio of it)
• MIT Open Courseware - online syllabus, course materials, powerpoint demos, podcasts, videocasts.
• Public Library of Science - open access peer reviewed scientific journal

Internet archive is good for more than the Way Back machine, it will host any content that the individual has the copyright to.

Digitisation projects worldwide making information available to all.

Underlying most of this is open source software.

Net 2018

Connectivity

• broadband
• muni wifi
• net neutrality
• spam
• spyware

Enhance participation

• liability issues
• domain names
• privacy
• trust
• transparency

Anti-circumvention

• fair use
• term extension
• orphan works
• wipo

Content

• open access
• digitisation
• crown copyright
• public broadcasting

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VALA. Day 2, Session 2c.

Ellen Forsyth, State Library of New South Wales Fancy walkie talkies, Star Trek communicators or roving reference? (2006 Travel Scholar)

Ellen talked about the VOCERA device which is a Wifi 'badge' which means that libraries can provide a roving reference service rather than a static, physical reference desk.

Staff can basically roam the shelves looking for people to help rather than waiting for people to approach the desk for help.

'Staff need to learn to stroll rather than stride'

A number of US public libraries are using the vocera devices to provide reference services.

• Pasadena Public Library
• Orange County
• King County
• Santa Monica

Each badge costs approx. US$400

As at Jan 08, no Australian libraries using the system

___________________________

Seems suited to large, multi storey libraries rather than CoBLS' libraries. Can see it being useful in say, the Baillieu Library, where users don't want to traipse down three flights to ask a reference librarian.

VALA. Day 2. Afternoon session 2.Libraries Interact

Kathryn Greenhill, Murdoch University, WA and Constance Wiebrands, Curtin University, WA Libraries interact: collaboration & community in the Australian library blogosphere.

librariesinteract

Tools used to set up the site.

• wordpress
• feedburner
• technorati
• gmail/google groups
• pbwiki
• connotea
• citeulike

Tools for 2.0 libraries

• australian library blog list
• australian library blog search (google search engine)
• surveys
• VLINT (virtual libraries interact new technology?)
• Frappr
• Thali tags
• professional reading room
• facebook

'community of practice'

VALA. Day 2. Afternoon session 1

Alan Butters. Sybis, Vic. New RFID technologies & standards - what does it all mean for your library?

Given that TODETEM. (The Org Daft Enough To Employ Me), has started RFID'ing I was quite interested in the topic.

He spoke about what info should be on the tag, the encoding, (ID mandatory, all else optional) and the different frequencies.

• Low (animal tags)
• High (libraries, file tracking)
• UHF (warehousing)
• Microwave (city link)

Frequency needs to 'match' the application: read speed, distance/range.

UHF

• faster read rates
• greater read distance
• cheaper tags
• more powerful
• compatibility

UHF vs Current technology

UHF is:

• new technology
• current mobile phone technology
• no data on safety (yet)
• international guidelines
• accelerated life testing
• hard to control (fields)

Can't mix and match HF and UHF