Book: Antarctica on a plate

Summary: Imagine you are a young woman with a stellar career but an increasing dissatisfaction with life. Imagine that your idea of a "remote location" is the distance between a taxi rank and a shoe shop. How do you shrug off your growing ennui? Simple. You apply for the position of cook in the coldest place on earth: Antarctica. Antarctica lends itself to tales of adventure and heartbreak. The landscape is polarized, beautiful and deadly in equal measure. But Alexa doesn't scale mountains or trek to the Pole. Instead, armed with an old cookbook, she attempts to create three-course meals with no electricity or running water and struggles to defrost meat in sub-zero temperatures. Life in a thin nylon tent in the company of scientists, explorers, and eccentrics soon begins to take on extraordinary dimensions. As 120-kilometre-an-hour winds blow and tensions rise, friendships, and love, are forged in this frozen neighborhood.

Not bad, have read better but it did want me to pack up my life and go on an adventure. Just not too sure about the morals of the romance though...

Bookgroup & Book: My Sister's Keeper

I chose this book because Jodi Picoult is so popular and I hadn't got around to reading her yet. Bookgroup forces me to. I loved this book (though maybe not the ending, which came as a huge surprise). My Sister's Keeper centers on Anna, who, at the age of thirteen, decides to sue her parents for medical emancipation. Anna has not only served as a donor for her leukemia-stricken sister Kate, she was, in fact, the product of genetic engineering that guaranteed she would be a perfect match for Kate. This premise touches on many of the issues that affect modern day science, from designer babies to the ethics involved in cloning. The thing I enjoyed most was that it looks at the story from all viewpoints: the mum, dad, brother, lawyer, guardian etc. All that is except Kate whom we only hear from in the end. A nice easy read - can see why Picoult is so popular.

Verdict: Everybody loved it and agreed that it was a nice easy read, great topic and awesome for bookgroups to discuss as many issues arouse.

Book & Bookgroup: The Time Traveler's Wife

I picked this book for one reason - one of the main characters, Henry is a librarian! It is a love story centering on a man with a genetic disorder that causes him to unpredictably time travel, and his wife Clare, an artist who has to cope with his frequent absences and dangerous experiences. This book is thick, with a very complicated story. You will find yourself slightly confused at times, wondering where in life Henry's disorder has placed him. Keep reading. Although it may feel as if you are trying to fit together some strange puzzle of time and places, they do connect, creating a beautiful and absolutely exceptional novel. The prevailing concept that I took with me from reading this book is that love can stand the test of time. In fact, in the case of Henry and Clare, love is absolutely timeless.

Verdict: Everyone from bookgroup loved it! Sometimes it is easier when people don't as it can spark more conversation!

Clunes Booktown 2009

The first weekend in May each year sees Clunes come to life with Booktown. Clunes is only 15 minutes from my house so I just love it. Dan was in charge of Adam for the day so I headed over for lots of book bargains. You see Booktown is a weekend where more than 60 book traders come together to sell their wares. The majority are second hand, but there was also a remainder seller this year who had some great books. There was also the good old “Nothing over $5” stand. I only came home with about 35 books this year which is at least half of what I bought last year! Clunes is by far my favourite weekend of he year! They also have author talks which I went to. Here are my notes:

Frank Moorhouse

Country boy.
Began as a short story specialist.
HATES books/storied that begin with a description of the weather.
Funny Publisher’s lunch stories (like ordering steak tartare – raw steak – and having to eat it!)
Began as a cadet journalist – great introduction to his life of writing. As he was young when he started he had to have guts, ie. ringing magistrates, senior officials etc.
As a youngster he PHYSICALLY checked the pier stumps (didn’t think to ring the council engineer) and he stated that “You can’t write about what you didn’t see!!)
Drinks trolley at museum. Curator wouldn’t come down (had to make an application) so he jumped the rope, wheeled it, took pictures, researched it etc.

Matthew Condon

Freelance journalist, likes “work” as such for the people contact compared to solitary novel writing.
When his first child was born he realised that there is more to life. He stepped out of his selfish bubble. Not as self obsessed anymore about getting his name “out there” etc.
Harder now as a writer with expectations, whereas when first starting, it was more passion. Then he “pumped” books out quickly and has now reverted back to that initial passion.

Both

Frank and Matthew are good friends. They met at the launch of Matthew’s first book as Frank like to attend/support young writers. Frank was Matthew’s literary hero. Friendship blossomed.

Eva Sallis

Very funny!
Vogel (Young writer) and Steel Rudd (Short story) Award Winner.
When she was told she won the Vogel she told everyone, even though there was an embargo!
Also judges awards. Stories he likes (that the other judges don’t), she keeps their names and looks for them to appear in the future.
Literary friends essential. Trusts them to read manuscripts and that they are skilled to understand and sophisticated enough to help.
Has her brag shelf. All her novels, different editions/covers etc. but never looks at it – just adds to it.
Novel has to start with a BIG IDEA or she can’t write. Must be a burning issue in her mind.

Julienne van Loon

Winning the Vogel Award opened the Publisher’s doors.
Advocate of the Vogel as it opens the door for young (less than 35) writers and represents them.
Judges awards. Interesting to see what she thinks is a work of genius compared to what other judges think.
Not a planned writer – it just has to flow – to explore.
Her novels grow out of place, not necessarily a big idea. Look for background stories and things that just niggles in the background/mind.

Both

Both were academics doing PHD’s while writing that first novel. Won the Vogel then second novel hard to follow up on. (Interesting as Nigel Krauth, the MC also won the Vogel).Both feel that reviews in newspapers generally don’t get the point of novels. Also that there are so few books reviewed in papers, and those that are get limited to so few words. To get noticed now you need an interview or something bigger to get your name out there.

NLS4

I keep thinking that I need to write about NLS4. It was such a big part of my life for 3 years then, bam its over. I think it was fantastic and so did most people I spoke to. From a personal viewpoint I learnt so much. I got to work with such a fantastic team and hoped that they learnt as much off me as I did from them. I can’t wait for our big catch up as I miss them all so much! The following are blogs that others have written from their experiences at NLS4:

http://virtuallyalibrarian.com/2008/12/07/nls4-conference-wrap-up/

http://quilterjo.blogspot.com/2008/12/tasty-morsel.html

http://roxannemissingham.blogspot.com/2008/12/new-librarians-they-are-out-there-are.html

http://librariesinteract.info/2008/12/16/new-librarians-symposium-nls4-review/

http://librarianidol.blogspot.com/2008/12/yes-moments-of-last-week.html

http://www.alia.org.au/blog/?p=94

It's a boy!

At 4:42pm on Sunday March 15th, Daniel and I welcomed Adam William Siemensma into the world. A healthy baby boy weighing in at 7 pounds 2. He is now approaching two months old and we are loving every minute of it.

Book & Bookgroup: The Eyre Affair

The book follows literary detective Thursday Next, who is trailing the dangerous Acheron Hades. When Hades begins stealing characters out of books, it's up to Thursday to stop him. The 1985 alternate universe is entirely believable and intriguing - filled with dodos, bookworms, and other inventions. Thursday is a wonderful heroine - strong, yet vulnerable in her own ways. This book brings up many thought-provoking ideas, and keeps you reading till the very end. It's a terrific science-fiction-esque novel without being too 'far out'. Bookgroup doesn't meet for another few weeks so I am not sure what others thought but I loved it (it did help that I recently read Jane Eyre though so remembered many of the details)!

Vedict: 50/50, half of bookgroup loved it, the other half couldn't finish it!

Book: Mozart Maulers

The Mozart Maulers is a comic memoir based on Dorian's experiences as a student at the Conservatorium of Music in Sydney. At the time he was seeing a psychiatrist who encouraged him to externalize his anger and use an alternative to drug therapy: Rugby League. Unable to convince any team to take him on, he formed his own team with other music students at the Con called The Mozart Maulers. They took on Sydney Uni and surprised everyone - by winning! It was a nice little read, not too heavy and with a good outcome. Lots of chuckles and a good look into both the Arts and Sports.

Book: The Game

I kept going with the crime feel and read another Mandasue Heller. This was a good book about Mary who got kicked out of home as a teenager, became a drug addict, prostitute etc. and ended up in the dodgy Manchester underworld, abused by her husband, lying to Police etc. Just a nice easy read!

Book & Bookgroup: Eucalyptus

What can I say except interesting book. Only half of the people in bookgroup managed to get through it. I didn't mind it. What wrecked it for me was that I read it over about 6 weeks in between other books and only in chuncks. Once I got into it it was good but otherwise it definitely wasn't something you could dip in and out of. However, now I can say that I have read a Miles Franklin winner!

Summary: On a property in western New South Wales a man named Holland lives with his daughter Ellen. Over the years, as she grows into a beautiful young woman, he plants hundreds of different gum trees on his land. When Ellen is nineteen her father announces his decision: she will marry the man who can name all his species of eucalypt, down to the last tree.

Book: The Charmer

This is the first book I've read of this author and whilst I was impressed and it gripped me from the start, I was a bit disappointed at the ending - it makes you want a sequel to finish it off completely. Also, I felt the author doesn't do enough research into the detective/criminal side of things as there were bits that seemed a bit "unreal". I mean I did love it but it was a pretty basic storyline. Needed to be a little more gritty, druggie and gangstaish! She will definitely be an author I continue to read though but she isn't quite up to Martina Cole standards yet!

Book: Blueback

Young Abel and his mother, Dora, lead a peaceful, idyllic life by the sea in Western Australia. They live off the land and sea, taking no more than they need to survive, carefully husbanding the natural resources at their disposal. Abel's best friend is an enormous fish named Blueback. Time passes, Abel grows up, and he and his mother find it harder to protect Blueback and their "Robbers Bay" from unscrupulous fishermen and developers.

WOW - what a beautiful book. Though it is quite small and easy to get through the language is just beautifully mesmerizing. Just the description of nature and the sea really made me feel like I was there - no wonder it won the Wilderness Society Environment Award. Just a magical little book.

Book: The Pact - three young men make a promise and fulfill a dream

The Pact is about three young men who lived in the projects around drugs and peer pressure from old friends who did not want anything out of life. So George and Sam and Rameck made a pact to go to college and not to let peer pressure rule their lives. I mean it wasn't all smooth sailing. Two of them ended up in juvenile detention but they overcame this. They went to college, all became Doctors and in turn gave back to the neighborhood. Very inspirational read to see what came be achieved if you have dedication and determination and little bit of help, regardless of your background.

Book: Random Acts of Kindness

Product Description:
In his bestselling book Join Me, Danny Wallace instructs his legions of followers to perform a 'Random Act of Kindness' every Friday. As a result, his thousands of followers (dubbed the Karma Army), without warning, made people happier the length and breadth of the country. Now in Random Acts of Kindness Danny and the gang bring you a hilarious, well-meaning book to encourage you to perform Random Acts of your own. 'Now, at last, the secret to a happier world! You have the power to make it a nicer place! All over the planet, thousands of people just like you are performing Random Acts of Kindness for complete strangers- Buy an old lady a hat! Give a policeman a helium balloon! Pat a dog! Hand a stranger your umbrella! Applaud a lady who's clearly made an effort! This book contains 365 real Random Acts of Kindness real people have done for real strangers- so read it, learn it, and start making your world the nicer place, today!'

Ah - this was a cool little book. Now I have to read "Join Me" (which is in my bookcase) so that I can see where it all started from.

Book: Kaitlyn

Now this one was like Martina Cole and much better than Frankie. It's the story of a girl who goes from the slums of a south London council estate to being the richest drug baron in the UK. Again the story lines are far fetched but who cares! Everything Kaitlyn does in life is for her younger brother who was taken away from her mother when he was a baby(except her brother doesn't know she exists). Drugs, murder, child abuse, prison - it has it all! Just brilliant.

Book: Frankie

I had this book because I was told the story would be similar to Martina Cole. It wasn't similar at all though. However, I still really enjoyed the book and raced through it. It's based around a young girl, murder and fraud. How do they all come together? By weaving all the different stories together. It was more detective than gangland stuff but I still really enjoyed it even though the story lines were a bit far fetched! In fact I liked it so much I read another book by the same author straight away which I very rarely do!

HLI Conference

(Laura, me and Michelle but not at the HLI Conference but at NLS4)

The 6th HLI conference was once again held at the RACV City Club on Friday October 24th. It was great to go as I hadn't seen my girls (Laura and Michelle) since May. Normally I head down for library events and we catch up every few months but not in 2008! Anyway, I was the MC for the afternoon. I must admit public speaking does get easier. I wasn't nervous at all really. Compared to the first time I chaired a conference session I think I have improved (Well I hope I have anyway!) I enjoyed most of the sessions but I mainly just love to catch up with everyone once a year from across different health libraries. Naturally I always stay on for the dinner too - any chance to socialise. Here are my notes, the theme for the day was The Evolving Library:

Jason Clarke (from www.mindsatwork.com.au)

The idea that information wants to be free.

Less expensive, more expensive

Substitute, combine, magnify, re purpose, adopt, minify, simplify, modify, adapt, rearrange, reconfigure, reverse, eliminate.

He was a wonderful speaker, very motivational.

Jenny Ward (print serials)

Discussed different storage options all which are bloody expensive!

Jill Aron (records management)

Integrating a RM and LMS together.

Interesting that one may need RM skills which are similar but VERY different to library skills.

Marie Anne Slaney (future)

We are a sector - health librarians.

Other health and library professionals look to us.

Key to our professional practice is finding QUALITY information.

How we might work = add value, drive initiatives, share, lead, develop, extend, learn.

Skills you need = business, core IM, health IM, job specific, personal niche.

Richard Sayers (professional development)

ALIA NAC paper on professional development.

Libraries are about people, not books and bytes.

Without people there is no need for libraries.

He left ALIA PD Scheme as a stand that it doesn't encompass or ensure him to undertake PD for accreditation.

Ancora Imparo - "I am still learning".

Still learning in all stages of life.

Breadth and depth of LIS courses (he thinks there are too many library schools).

Thinks we must embrace compulsory PD because if something isn't compulsory it doesn't get done.

PD is compulsory in the UK and NZ.

PD needs to add real demonstrative value to an employer.

Problems = ALIA membership may drop off, hard to co-ordinate, hard for rural/regional members

need transition, cannot happen overnight.

Stephen Due (statistics)

Most article requested are within 5 years of publication.

Most books on loan were published in last 5 years.

Books loans are on the increase.

Print journal copies on the decrease.

New libraries increase library usage so build for people, not collections.

Lisa Kruesi (MLA Cunningham Fellowship)

Patient Informatics Consult Service (PICS) - specifically targeted at patients. The doctor fills in a "lit form" specific to their patients care needs and consumer information is found for the patient.

MyHealth@Vanderbuilt - where patients can log on and look up there own medical records.

Patient Information - Australia

myDR

Aust. Health Directory

National Health Call Centre Network

Cochrane Consumer Network Project

HealthInsite

Jane and Virginia (23 things, web 2.0)

iGoogle - your own Google homepage

NLS4 Meetings

I did manage to make two trips up and down that highway for NLS4 meetings.

September 20th and November 15th. (October was a teleconferece).

Just blogging about it here so that come tax time I remember to claim the kilometres!!

Ballarat Library Industry Dinner

In November (the 12th) we once again had a dinner in Ballarat for everyone and anyone who works in a library. This time it was at Rinaldo's on Sturt St. The food wasn't that good and the room was very squishy and hot. However it was wonderful to have some faces from the public library present. I sat with Helen who I know anyway as she does the housebound books and Jan who always serves me at the counter. It was nice to chat to them more informally and learn about them and their lives in libraries. Also just by chance I went to the Avoca Races for Bec's Hen's Day a few weeks earlier and saw Melissa who works at the public library (she was in the marquee next to us) so I got to catch up with her too as she was always my favourite public library worker. She went on maternity leave but is back working now, just not at Ballarat branch which is where I most often go.

Bookgroup

The other thing I was really bad at was bookgroup. I missed a few meetings due to illness but once I got sick in August I never read another bookgroup book for the entire year (and I had read everyone so far). I was so annoyed at myself but because I wasn't choosing the books as such I just couldn't be bothered. Plus at that stage the size of a novel could make me feel ill, or even just the sight of one! I have however vowed to be better in 2009. Luck has it I was the only one who put in a booklist for this years group so all the books we will be reading have been chosen by me! So I have February's book next to my bed and hope to get onto it soon. The plan is to stay one book ahead - wish me luck!