A library flooding experience
It could have been a lot worse, but with so many people expressing their empathy, I thought I would take the time to blog the story of my library being flooded.  I will blog later about the implications further down the track. Yesterday in Melbourne (Thursday 26th November), a severe thunderstorm came through, causing widespread damage across Melbourne’s eastern suburbs.  I had seen the warnings via Twitter and had warned library staff, but we didn’t expect the impact that we got. At about 3pm, the sky went so dark that our carpark lights came on automatically.  The area also went very still – trees stopped moving, as did many birds. At 3.05pm the wind

LibMark Digital Marketing and Libraries Pt 2
I began the afternoon session with a presentation on Web 2.0 and Marketing in Libraries. Unfortunately for the organising commitment, they had a second last minute cancellation, but were fortunate enough to have a couple of people step up and show what they were doing at their library.  Danny was first. Darebin Libraries Website – Danny Their website redevelopm

LibMark Digital Marketing and Libraries Pt 1
After my last post,  it seems only appropriate that this one is my notes taken from a marketing seminar. LibMark, which is the marketing subcommittee of the Public Libraries Victoria Network, ran a full day seminar on Digital Marketing and Libraries on Friday 23rd October.  From here on in are my notes from the day, which was great – I came away with a lot of ideas and new perspectives.  Hopefully these notes can give you some too. The keynote speaker was Darre

The M word in focus
Been thinking a lot lately about the dreaded M word – one that often makes librarians apprehensive and quickly pointing it out as someone else’s job.   I used to believe it myself, but can honestly say that it is no longer true. Maspalomas, Canary Islands The M word is marketing.  Libraries have called it many other things, including outreach, community engagement and more.  Why is it dreaded?  I can think of several reasons including that it reminds people of shonky salespeople (who would want t