Thursday 4th March: World Book Day 2010

Thursday 4th March was World Book Day (there is a separate site for Wales here). As with last year, many colleges in Wales took part. Below are details of some – feel free to send more details, photos etc. and I will upload them here.

Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor

The college celebrated World Book Day by holding a sponsored walk, along the Tree Trail on the Glynllifon site (though all sites participated). The Park warden led the walk and money was raised for Ty Gobaith.

Coleg Ceredigion, Cardigan Campus

The college has a group of reluctant readers and the LRC encourages them to log onto lovereading.co.uk (one of many useful reader development sites). There they read and print off the first chapter of their chosen book. If they decide they really like it then the LRC buys two copies of that book, one for the student and one for their tutor, with the plan that they will read the whole book together during special reading hours. This was promoted heavily for World Book Day.

Aberystwyth University

Here is a Higher Education example from Wales. Aberystwyth University celebrated with a number of linked activities: a quiz, e-book readers demonstrations, desert island books display, a book swap, and a collaborative story. Read their World Book Day Report here (PDF, 940KB).

Friday 5th March: E-books exchange of experience

On Friday 5th March I attended this e-books event organised by WHELF (Wales Higher Education Libraries Forum) and held at the University of Wales Institute, Cardiff. The day was bright and sunny, so I made a point of walking from the city centre to the campus – an hour of quality thinking time!

The morning of the event consisted of librarians from three of the universities (Swansea University, UWIC, Cardiff University) talking about their e-book collections. It was interesting to see the scale of some of the subscriptions, and the range of suppliers used.

One topic that recurred was the issue of publicity for e-books. Many ideas were suggested, some of which included:

• Dummy books for specific titles in the relevant places on bookshelves which point to the e-book availability. Dummies can be made from old VHS, CD or DVD cases.
• Stickers on physical books when there is also an e-version, alerting the user.
• Emails promoting e-books.
• Guides e.g. to using Ebrary.
• Links from the library catalogue to individual titles.
• Promotion on the web pages.
• ‘E-book of the month’ posters.
• E-book posters on the bookshelves.
• Displays.

[As an aside, e-book promotion is something discussed on the E-BOOKS-FOR-FE JISCmail list - subscribe or read here.]

Many of the benefits of e-books were highlighted:

• Increased access to titles in high demand.
• Students can’t hide the e-books!
• Get round the problem of limited physical storage space.
• Support learners when they are off-campus.
• The usage statistics allow an evidence-based approach to appropriate title selection.

Also some of the challenges e-books present:

• Some users/staff don’t really like them because large amounts of text can be uncomfortable to read on the screen.
• Too many e-book platforms. Too many different procedures for different aggregators. Aggregator policies inconsistent. Access – interface overload.
• E-book pricing inconsistent.
• The problem of getting new editions.
• Some problems with MARC records.
• e-ISBNs are a bit of a mess.
• Finding the time/resources to catalogue everything – should we include freely available e-books?
• DRM.
• Resource discovery (especially for off-campus students).
• Future access from mobile devices.
• Statistics – not always Counter compliant, hard to aggregate, a pain to review.

The general feeling was that a critical mass has yet to be achieved in the e-book collections, but they are inevitable part of the future of resource provision.

In the afternoon I gave two presentations myself, a short one on the E-books for FE Project, and a long one on E-book Readers and their potential uses for libraries. If you are interested in the latter subject then I have written an article on it which should appear in the next issue of SCONUL Focus – I will link to it from here once published.

World Book Day took place on 5th March 2009, and as in previous years, many LRCs in Wales took part with enthusiasm and imagination! This post illustrates a few of the things that took place, so read on to find out more (and get ideas for joining in the celebration of books next year). Note that there is a separate website for World Book Day in Wales.

Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor; Coleg Ceredigion; Coleg Llandrillo Cymru; Coleg Powys; Ystrad Mynach College.

Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor

The three Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor libraries decided to try and raise money to buy books for the children’s ward at Ysbyty Gwynedd, their local general hospital. Staff and students were encouraged to dress up as their favourite character from a book or comic to promote World Book Day. Those that didn’t were expected to pay a £1 fine!

Images from Dolgellau campus events

Student Library Focus Group members were really supportive, wearing fancy dress and going around the college with collection boxes. In all they raised £350.75 towards their cause. One librarian said, “It’s so encouraging to see the students participating in library extra-curricular activities and hopefully raising the profile of the library in the process.”

Images from Glynllifon campus events

Image from Pwllheli campus

Coleg Ceredigion

The Cardigan Campus had a wall display, with lists of the top ten funniest books, top ten children’s books, and a successful paperback ‘SWOP BOX’: ‘Put one in…take one out!’ This is still running…

Coleg Llandrillo Cymru

Coleg Llandrillo linked World Book Day with Comic Relief and are running a book review competition. Students and Staff were told to read a book for fun on world book day – this helped them to promote their Quick Reads section in the library. They then have until Friday (red nose day) to pay £1 and submit a book review. The money will go to Comic Relief and the winner will receive a Digital Radio.

Coleg Powys

Coleg Powys had a promotion based around the slogan ‘Grab a Bag on World Book Day’. On three Coleg Powys sites free, reusable bags were given out in the Learning Resources Centres. Each bag had a library slogan in both Welsh and English. New Quick Read books were on display alongside the Six Book Challenge literature. Lots of students were seen using the bags and advertising libraries.

Ystrad Mynach College

Between the dates 2nd – 6th March the college held a week of celebration called ‘Proud to be Welsh’. Students were encouraged to perform in the atrium where a stage was set up and used for singing, poetry, readings etc. The LRC supported the event with displays of their welsh resources.

Roger Granelli inspiring the students

As ‘World Book Day’ was within this week and they were still focused on continuing to promote reading throughout the college, they invited a Welsh author Roger Granelli to give a talk on his books and writing. The event was used to launch a reading competition to the students, with an ‘Ystrad famous reader’ display of staff and students photos with book recommendations.

Today is World Book Day 2008, a chance to celebrate our love of books (print or electronic!) There is an official website for the day, and a version for Wales, which includes events taking place around Wales. The sites have lots of information and ideas for celebrating and promoting the LRC resources to users.One of the libraries I work in has an exhibition for the day which includes book reviews by members of staff in the institution, as well as some ‘real’ writers. In the spirit of being open about our love of the printed word, here is the review I put on the display.

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Neuromancer, by William Gibson

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
— opening sentence of Neuromancer (1984)

Do you wonder what the future might hold? Where technology in all its forms is taking us – genetic engineering, artificial intelligence, surgery – and how it will affect what it means to be human? What might it be like when megacorporations have more power than governments; when the natural environment has been destroyed by greed and the only place to escape from the densely-populated planet is through drugs or virtual reality?

Welcome to cyberpunk.

It sounds bleak, and in many ways this genre’s visions of the future are - even the protagonists tend to be burnt-out and emotionless drug-addicted shells. But the best of the genre satisfy on two levels: they are intellectually stimulating, as ideas and concepts zoom past faster than you can catch them; and they are almost guilty pleasures, as the fantastic locales and believable characters pull you into the virtual worlds of the story, similar to the way the hero, Case, jacks in to Cyberspace (the in-novel pinnacle of human-computer interaction – think ‘Second Life’, but more immersive, better-looking, and without the lag).

Some people are put off at first by the jargon of the near-future – they think that they need to understand it all, and have missed something otherwise. However, just let it wash over you and become part of the immersion – and let the world-picture build up at its own pace, data building on data to construct the hi-res image of a possible future. Then the story will do the rest: hackers and revenge; surgically-enhanced assassins who only see the world through filters; personalities smashed then stuck back together by the military; mysterious intelligences directing our actions; and a conspiracy-uncovering finale aboard a space station for the rich.

I chose Neuromancer because it set the pattern for this whole genre when it blazed across the sci-fi sphere in 1984; also because the story needn’t end there – the Hugh Owen Library also has the follow-up novels in what is sometimes referred to as the ‘Sprawl Trilogy’ – Count Zero (1986) and Mona Lisa Overdrive (1988).

If you like science fiction you should read these; if you don’t normally read this genre, or have never experienced cyberpunk, then it could be an opportunity to branch out! If you enjoy the themes that occur in these novels then I also recommend ‘Free Radical’ by Shamus Young – available online for free – a complete cyberpunk novel based loosely on the cult “System Shock” series of computer games.