Work and Health

Unfortunately working in a library often means lots of time in front of a computer screen. My job is sedentary.  Furthermore, I am essentially pretty lazy and I have to use all sorts of self-talk to exercise.

Here are five tips to get you out from your computer screen and to get some activity into your day.

There is an app for that

There are many apps available for smartphones that help you to track your exercise, set goals and have some fun while exercising. A few I use are: Runkeeper, Fitocracy, Zombies, Run! Both Fitocracy and Zombies, Run! turn exercise into a game to make it more fun and keep you motivated.

I adore Zombies, Run! it is set in a post-apocalyptic world with zombies and the narrative is excellent. You can use the settings to be chased by zombies to help with interval training.

Runkeeper I use for setting goals and tracking my activity. Recently I have started using a couple of apps to help me meditate: Buddhify and Headspace.

Playlists

Music is a great motivator. I make a new playlist before a fun run. Something you love singing along to that help keeps the heart rate up. It makes the exercise time go faster. You can crowd source your playlists ask your friends and followers on social media what music they exercise to. If you use Spotify you can make playlists and share them with your followers.

Tell others

If you want some help with your new fitness regime. Tell others. Commit yourself publically to your exercise goals. I get heaps of encouragement when I am doing a fun run from friends and family.

Buddies

In our workplace we are participating in Global Corporate Challenge, which is a team building, exercise program where participants aim to walk 10,000 steps per day. With every step you virtually travel to different locations around the world. This is my fourth year participating. Being in a team with my work colleagues is great. It encourages healthy competition as teams throughout the University aim to be at the top of the ladder at the end of the three months. Having a work buddy to exercise with can really help make exercise less onerous and encourage you to get your steps up.

Make time

Making time for exercise is important for both my physical and mental health. I consider it me time.  I find I am happier overall and able to work more effectively if I am feeling fit and healthy.

I’ll just slip in a final tip - try and have fun. Find exercise that you like. I mix it up. I like to run, walk, ride and dance. What exercise will you choose to get you out from behind your computer?

Kim Tairi

Connecting More with Less Resources

Is your library cutting hours, staff, and resources?  In the US this is a big trend among many large and small libraries alike.  In recent years the Long Beach Public Library has been shaving hours and services at a rapid rate since 2008.  More than ever libraries need to stay relevant and continue to be the central hub of your community’s information consumption.

As far as we can predict the economy is not going to be bouncing back for at least 2 more years and even when it does cities, counties, and institutions are not going back to restore our pre-recession budgets or going back to business as usual.  Transformation is crucial!

We have 3 initiatives we feel have made a huge difference when the idea of  the typical brick and mortar library is not likely to be open 9 to 9, Monday through Sunday anymore.  However our eBranch is open 24/7 anywhere in the world.

Set up Librarian Chat/IM: Meebo Messenger up to recently* was a totally free service allowing libraries to sign up free.  Chat with the librarian is a very effective way to maximize your connections with the public using staff at their workrooms and enticing the nextgen of MLS.  Librarians who enjoy working behind the scenes flourish in these environments, especially when telephone reference might be going away. Since Meebo was purchased by Google recently we also suggest Mosio as a good alternative.

Create a Mobile App: Mobile apps are hot there is no way around it.  This year for the first time our mobile app hits have surpassed all other databases combined.  In addition, we have included our Summer Reading Program where patrons can register, review a book and post it on Facebook.  Boopsie is our current vendor and has worked with many libraries public and academic.  If your staff are techie enough you can have them develop one in-house; but if there is something I would recommend for your library’s next year’s plan is having an app!

Cloud Based e-Books: My last recommendation is adding a basic cloud based e-books service.  Not having to download large files (in particular audiobooks) is a blessing for mobile users on limited data plans.  Your patrons will notice right away!  We have several different vendors that have been very successful and well received by savvy patrons.  One particular popular platform is Tumblebooks and Books24x7.

Unfortunately many librarians continue to be skeptical about ebooks and remote services but at this juncture where we are expected to serve at the same level as pre-recession times we have an opportunity to shine and get elected officials to notice the great work of the 21^st century library.  For further information join the Facebook ALA Think Tank and start innovating!

Francisco Vargas is the Youth Services Officer at the Long Beach Public Library; you can contact him @barriolib

*Meebo was recently bought by Google and will be shutting down July 11.

Blog Every Day of June

 

Welcome to the first day of our virtual event- Blog Every Day of June. ALIA Sydney is going to participate in this wonderful blogging event for the second time. It is with great pleasure that I announce that we have guest bloggers hailing from both international and local libraries along with your ALIA Sydney committee members, who will be blogging about anything and everything related to library and information sciences to bring you a wonderful array of thought-provoking, inspiring and illuminating posts.

So I hope you can join with me in celebrating this year's Blog Every Day of June by following our blog posts, and engaging in conversation via the comments function on each blog post. You can follow our blog feed here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/ALIASydney or you can catch each blog post on the @ALIASyd Twitter feed. Happy Blog Every Day of June!

For this first post, I thought I'd share with you some ideas I've had to do with dreaming up new ways of discovering things at your library, whether it be your public library or your research library...
For me, it's all about finding interesting books to read for pleasure.

One of the things I loved about my first library job (which was in a public library) was discovering what the library had to offer by just working on the circulation desk. As a library assistant, I did a lot of shifts on this desk, and it was great to see what was getting checked out, and more importantly for me, what was getting checked in, so I could get dibbs on some really interesting things to read for myself!

I’m pretty sure I rarely had to venture into the shelves themselves to discover something to read of my own volition, unless I was looking for something specific!

The only drawback to this vulture-like picking off of returns (come on- you know you love looking at the recently returned shelf at your local library, as much as I do!!), is that I ended up with too much stuff to read, and way too many books on my library account.

Now that I no longer work in a public library, but instead in an academic life sciences library, the kinds of books that I check in on a day-to-day basis appeal to me less in a reading-for-pleasure kind of way (although some of the titles, provide much amusement and hilarity, but that’s a blog post for another day!)

Wouldn’t it be cool if there was an app that allowed you to see in real time what was being checked back in at the library, or what had just been put back on the shelf? I envision it to be kind of like a twitter feed that you could integrate into a library’s mobile site or mobile app.

What about an app that geolocates you in the library, and pops up with recommendations that are on the shelf near you, based on your reading history?

Does anyone else have any other ideas for 'how cool would it be if...’ type apps for the library?

- Crystal Choi is the convenor of ALIA Sydney and is a Faculty Liaison Librarian at the University of Sydney Library. She tweets @crystalibrary.

Welcome to the App Sharing Zone!

For today’s blog post, I thought I would initiate a great app sharing process that I first heard about from a lecturer friend, who regularly tells his students to whip out their iphones/ipads/smart phones during downtimes in tutes, and to go around the room and share the latest cool new app that they can’t live without, with the rest of the group.

Ok. I’ll go first.... but not before I disclaim that this has a kinda self-serving purpose, because I was recently lucky enough to be given an iPad for my birthday – (how lucky am I?) and I’m always on the lookout for awesome, cool apps. I find that I tend to find out about cool apps in a random and serendipitous manner (someone really should create a catalogue for apps, that uses controlled vocabulary, because I find using the itunes store, less useful, but that might be just me) Or is there one already out there?

So, what better way to find out about great apps but to lean on my professional learning network (ie you guys!)?

I’ve listed some of the apps that I’ve recently discovered and/or can’t live without. Note: For the apps that are only available for iPad, I’ve included iPad in brackets after I’ve listed it. Where possible, I’ve listed if the app was free at the time that I acquired it.

Social Media apps

-          Facebook app for iPhone (free) I’m still trying to find a comparable app for my iPad that doesn’t crash or randomly forget to give me notifications. Does anyone have any suggestions? I’ve got MyPad+ and Friendly, but they don’t cut the mustard.

-          Hootsuite (free)-  a dashboard for updating to all of your SM accounts

Productivity apps

-          SpringPad (free)- great for making notes, clipping web pages and generally keeping track of everything in my life

-           Paperless- another great list making app (There’s a free lite version)

-          PhatPad- (iPad) it does OCR on your handwriting, and converts it to text! This requires the use of a stylus.

-          DocsToGo- create and sync Word documents and Excel spreadsheets on the go!

-          Dropbox (free)- for document sharing and storage

-          Evernote Peek (free) – (iPad) FABULOUS study tool that allows you to use the smart cover to test yourself- great for learning vocab if you’re learning a language!

-          Evernote (free, but with option for paying for more storage) – (you need an Evernote account to use Evernote Peek)

-          Popplet lite (free)– (iPad) great brainstorming app

RSS feeds/news apps

-          Pulse (free)– this is my new ALL TIME favourite app, which allows you to customise your news feeds. It looks pretty, and it’s FREE!

Photo apps

-          FlickStackr – (iPad) lets’s you upload photos from your ipad to Flickr and other SM such as Twitter and Facebook

-          Instagram (free)- an oldie but a goodie, that lets you customise your photos with fancy filters and share them on your SM networks.

Other

-          Scrabble

-          Words with Friends (free)

-          Goodreads (free)

-          Dictionary (free)

-          smh (free, for the moment)

-          Pkt weather app

-          ABC iview (free)

Of course this list is not exhaustive, and I’m sure I’ve missed your favourite app, so please leave a comment and we can start going around the room and sharing!

- Crystal

Crystal Choi is a committee member of ALIA Sydney and tweets @crystalibrary.