Edward Shaddow
I write neo-noir polytheistic fiction (among other things). My alter ego lives in the library playing with technology. My pronouns are he/him.
Blog June - Day Six
About three months ago I started learning T’ai Chi (aka. Taiji, Tai Chi etc.) as a martial art. T’ai chi ch’uan or tàijíquán is an internal martial art that is used for health, mediation, and defence. It took a while to find someone who teaches T’ai Chi as a martial art but I’m glad I did as it’s been one of the best things I’ve ever done. For the past four years I’ve learnt and practiced fencing and I’m finding a lot of cross over between the two which has helped. Something I didn’t count on wa
Blog June - Day Five
A few months ago I was in a vendor presentation for a popular wifi company pitching an upgrade to their login interface. Most of it was pretty stock standard sales pitch and the interface was ten years too late but what made me pay attention was the mention of statistics. Part of this new interface allowed clients to login using their Twitter or Facebook profile, when I questioned this the vendor replied saying it allowed better data collection. Luckily (?), this is an option that can be turned
Blog June - Day Four
My story begins with a toaster oven. Several weeks ago a staff member’s lunch went up in (mild) flames and set off the fire alarm in my library. There was a visit by a wonderful fire crew and all that was hurt was the staff member’s pride. Oh, and the toaster oven. Seeing as it was a very old model long ago donated by a another staffer (long since gone), it went in the bin to be replaced with a newer model. One that hopefully wouldn’t create a fire hazard. I have never had so much trouble. Almos
Blog June - Day Three
I was initially going to rant about toaster ovens today (long story) but instead a job advert has prompted a long running thought I’ve had about eServices Librarians. Having been one for a few years I can see the need of the position in libraries but also how it is possibly damaging our profession. Appointing a dedicated person to look after ‘everything digital’ seems like a good idea, why wouldn’t you want someone in charge of a valuable resource? The approach I took to eServices was to run it
Blog June - Day Two
Discfriends. A small group of friends recently decided to create an album club to share and discuss new music (thanks Moriarty!). It’s been active for the past four weeks and so far has been a great success, I’ve listened to bands I’ve never heard of and found some I’ll be following up. Interestingly I’m also using Discfriends to encourage my writing again, each album I review, an enjoyable weekly writing goal. Last week’s album was Blueshift by Splashdown, a band I had never heard of but qu
Blog June - Day One
This year I have decided to participate in #blogjune in an attempt to get me back into a regular writing habit. Blogging everyday for the entire month of June? It’s only slightly less crazy than NaNoWriMo and I’m a two year winner (and will be trying again this year). So what can you expect for this month out of me? I’m looking at having a few solid blogs coming up interspersed with general daily reflections. For those interested and to keep me on task, I’ll be blogging about: * Library lif
DIY Workshop: Bright Bunnies
In my current job role I’ve been focusing a lot on events and initiatives to run in my small, one branch library and I thought it best to start sharing these ideas to the larger library world! We’ll be starting with the first ‘maker’ event I ran, based on the SparkFun Bright Bunny Kit. I invited parents/guardians along so each teen would, in theory, have their own supervision and assistance. This worked out surprisingly well and my target audience of 13-18yr olds turned up and had a lot of fun,
New Romanticism and Libraries
Change. For better or worse, it’s a topic that’s constantly being discussed and debated in the library world. There are a lot of opinions about the future of libraries [1] [2], ranging from the utopian (free digital content for everyone) to dystopian (libraries are dying). The more optimistic of us tend to take the utopian view; doing our best to make it a reality, while working with and around copyright restrictions, publishers and content providers. The problem I’ve seen recently, however,
Libraries, Earl Grey, Hot
For those not familiar with Star Trek this post will look at my experiences purchasing and running a 3D printer in my public library. Back in July 2013 I acquired funding to purchase a Makerbot Replicator 2 and since September 3D printing services have been available to the public (both members and non-members) with positive results. I’m not going to talk about what a 3D printer is or how it works as there are plenty of resources for all that (or shameless plug: you can come to my workshop at
Mmmmm...Pi
A while ago I got the idea to use Raspberry Pi’s as replacement OPACs in my library. Cheap, linux based computers with a very small footprint made them the ideal choice for slim mount terminals on bay ends. Sadly there were issues with mounting them on the ends of shelving units (no power, networking etc.) so they just remained where they were for now but they still work. There is only one supplier of Raspberry Pi’s in Australia and that’s Element14 who were very helpful in setting up invoicin