Most pointless library blog entry of the week

Sorry, but does this kind of thing really amount to a "paradigm shift"?

Defining our professional future

On the subject of CILIP, it's depressing to see that this lucid, thoughtful contribution to their Conversation has produced no response and yet there has been much chatter about the "ethics" of tweeting at conferences ...

Update blog

What's going on over at CILIP's Update?

The magazine (and its somewhat pointless blog) appears to have become a outlet for Matthew Mezey's interest in weird American management gurus.

Rubbish video

This is a video made at an Australian university which has caused great excitement in the rubbish librarian community.

It's a nice example of how woolly our profession can be when we try to envisage the future: a mishmash of technophilia, utopianism, dubious business theory and wishful thinking.

Key points include:

• The "old ways" are bad, whatever they are.
• The future library will not have a "hierarchy" or "bosses". This will be achieved by using Twitter, somehow.
• Future librarians will cycle to work, however far they live from their workplace. This will have a "ripple" effect, encouraging library users to cycle to work too, thus saving the world from global warming.

Open letter to the Prime Minister

This is a letter written by some librarians to the Prime Minister. It was sent in February and is regarding school libraries.

It is a typical information literacy text. It’s badly written, lacks self-awareness and makes ludicrous claims for the profession. The timing is also strange: hadn't they seen the opinion polls?

Take this extract: leaving aside the offensive nature of the metaphor, can tidal waves "gradually but inexorably" drown people? And will the 21st century really be "symbolized", not by climate change or the rise of China, but by distance education?


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World Cup rubbish

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Making money from rubbish librarians

Twitter for librarians, CILIP Training course, 27 July 2010. Course leader: Phil Bradley.

Under "Who should attend?":

"Any library/information professional who needs to keep up to date with new resources ... No technical understanding or ability is required or expected."

!!

Cost = £305-£430 + VAT.

From Phil's post "CILIP in 2020": "I want CILIP to continue to run courses ..."

Rubbish 2.0

From Matthew Mezey's report on the Online Information 2009 event in Library & Information Update, January-February 2010, p22.

Handbook for Information Literacy Teaching

"The cover illustration and its insert companion were inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film
2001: A Space Odyssey.The moment when prehistoric man discovered the use of simple
tools was a milestone in the history of civilisation.The ability to use information as a survival
tool has had an equally profound impact.The pairing of these images conveys a sense of the
evolution and progress of the human race, from a manual to an intellectual dexterity; they
emphasise the liberating effects of information on the human spirit.We believe that these
images encapsulate many of the principles of information literacy described in this
Handbook; they motivate, inspire and demand attention.We hope that you agree."

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