explodedlibrary.info

trivialities in times of tragedy

The scale of the tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean is absolutely overwhelming. I cannot even process the magnitude of a tragedy that literally wipes over 60,000 people and their houses and towns off the face of the earth into the ocean.

I have had to think about how or why I can stomach to maintain this trivial blog during such a time of tragedy. The only answer for me is that these trivialities can help.

When I was visting Tasmania last week, I slept through the tremor which turned out to be the precursor to the killer quake off Sumatra. I can't help but feel that this disaster could have so easily been reversed, and so easily happened to me and my loved ones. And if not that, then some other disaster.

We  spend our whole lives next to an awful gaping and growing chasm that would consume us all. It is absolutely horrifying, and the only way we can stay sane is to cover this chasm with the insubstantial webs that we weave from less important things.

not so blasé about Gmail anymore

I was about to write to write that Gmail is a great reinvention of browser-based email, but mightn't be the best solution for everyone, particularly those who rely upon the features of POP email. Thanks to some last minute fact-checking, I learned that Gmail does support POP and it's possible to configure it so that Gmail will keep a copy of all incoming mail, even after it's been accessed with POP. Google doesn't yet support IMAP, and I know that some people prefer IMAP to POP, but not me. Before I was kind of blase about Gmail, but now I've been converted and think that it offers the best of worlds in email.

my first blog award nomination

A kind person has nominated this blog for Best Australian Tech Blog in the 2005 Australian Blog Awards.

Sometimes I sense a bit of a backlash against blog awards, especially ones with narrow categories. My blog would have much better chances of getting this award: Best Returning Australian Expat Librarian Blog with some Coverage of Tech Issues.

But the categories aren't that narrow, and I think that blog awards are valuable if only because they invite you to look at the other nominated blogs, so you can get a better idea of what's out there. I for one am particularly interested in taking a look at the blogs nominated for best Tasmanian blog, best New South Wales blog (because I guess I am also a NSW blogger now), the best tech and political blogs.

Just to let you know what's been happening: I had a bit of block with writing up Part 2 of my job seeking experience. Then I started writing a guide for online dating for Ambivalenz (not quite finished). The similarities and differences between job seeking and dating have inspired to return to the job seeking post with a slightly different approach.

what LiveJournal has to offer library workers

It is perplexing why LiveJournal and its ilk are so often ignored or looked down upon in the mainstream blogosphere. Last week Steven at Library Stuff wrote an interesting post about why blogging works, especially for bringing people together who have common interests. On a smaller scale, I can relate to what Steven is saying with this explodedlibrary blog. For me, LiveJournal does a better job of bringing people together with common interests (actually, it was a mutual LJ friend who first introduced me to Steven's blog). I have no idea how many librarians are on LiveJournal. As of today, the libraries LJ community has 924 members and the library grrls community has 724 members. These communities are open to anybody, so some of the members mightn't work in libraries, but presumably they wouldn't have joined if they weren't interested in library issues. My favourite one is a closed and quasi-underground library LJ community which I'm  not even going to name or link to here, but if you're curious, look around or ask around and you'll find it. The best thing is about the communities is that if somebody writes a post that you like or found interesting, you can take a look at their personal LiveJournal and get to know people that way.

There are a couple of things that I really like about LJ - being able to filter posts so that only those people that I feel close to can read certain things. The other thing is that because LJ entries generally don't show up on Google and other search engines (and even if they did, basic anonymity is provided by a pseudonym), the entries are less pretentious, and more honest, personal and revealing. They can provide helpful information and support for living as a librarian. And of course, everybody has to work out what works best for them, but sometimes it can be helpful to see what other people go through and how they cope.