LIANZA: Librarians have more fun
Just back from Rotorua and the LIANZA conference – the annual conference for the library and information flash mob of Aotearoa. This is my fifth. I have at spoken at three of them. They always surprise, and they always have a story.
Parking your prejudices.
This year I have three. First of course , with the exception of Charlie Gates of the Christchurch Press, the truly pathetic attempt by the New Zealand media to have a go at the stereotype of the librarian, as boring, stuffy, and basically past it.
I don’t know which public library these guys make a point of never visiting, but they just might want to park their prejudices up on Ponsonby Road for ten minutes and mosie on down the hill to , for example, Auckland City Library on any Saturday afternoon.
There they will see a whole bunch of young, totally cool desk staff, who I’m sure could nail some jouros of my acquaintance with one look, especially if they come out with the self patronising twaddle of the likes of my sometime host Paul Henry on TVNZ Breakfast.
The comments were sparked by the the news that Paula Ryan ex NZ Fashion, was coming to the Rotorua conference to give some hints on style. Some members of Libs – the NZ Library listserve took umbridge at this and it was all on from there.
Back at the conference, the room was packed. And, yes, your intrepid corespondent was there., albeit briefly. For the record I was wearing Workshop ,with a dash of hidden Elle McPherson, and, GAP, though I’m still never sure about the latter – qv. the famous BBC doco.
So what did I learn from Paula Ryan? Basically be tidy – and take your good clothes off when you get home from work – oh and first impressions count. At that point I left for another session.
Cambell Live on TV3 also did a spot. This is here.
NZ Blog Idol
As for more on the real deal on library land, you might also want to check out this story from Stuff – the NZ News portal, who have announced the winner their inaugural Blog Idol competition to be Christchurch librarian Moata Tamaira.
The 32-year-old won after three weeks of stiff competition against nine other bloggers, as they went head-to-head to win a year-long contract to join Stuff.co.nz’s blogging team.
So good on her. She has a really nice voice – opinions worth reading – attitude worth respecting, and turn of phrase worth waiting for.
LibraryTechNZ
Other recent voices in the New Zealand library blogsphere can be found at the newly launched National Library tech blog. This is a collaborative effort from a bunch of the younger National Library staff. They were very much in evidence at the conference, and at one point appeared to have taken over the National Library stand. Definitely a breath of fresh air.
There was also a really interesting poster/card campaign – much of which is now on Flikr, here.
