I'm looking forward to going to the Heart and Sole Conference next Friday :-) Apparently it's sold out, so it should be good fun... 
Saturday 22 January 2011
Untitled
Anyway I wanted to keep track of people's tweets during the event so I made up a Twitter list based on the people on the Lanyrd page. Here it is. Plus I think the official tag is #heartandsole.
But I went a bit further and I thought it might be the perfect excuse to try out Needlebase. Marshall Kirkpatrick (of RWW) has been singing the praises of this automated scraping service for a couple of weeks. So after setting up the list, I set Needlebase up to scrape everyone's page to gather their username, actual name, number of followers and location. And then I stuck them on a map
Here's the data set on Google Docs :-)
Tuesday 18 January 2011
Libraries... What are they good for?
(Photo: bigoteetoe on Flickr)
So there seems to be a bit of a fuss about libraries being closed lately. One library in Milton Keynes was completely emptied by locals protesting against proposed cuts. The Independent reports that 375 branch libraries are currently under threat. The #savelibraries tag was trending over the weekend. And the blogosphere has of course has it's say. One post that caught my eye was this one (credit to @edent for linkage), in which the writer argues that libraries are outdated and should be replaced with a government funded scheme to hand out e-readers to the population. She makes some very good points about how books, in their physical form, are becoming more and more obsolescent and that digital distribution (whether through a book shop or in a library) is the future. I would have to agree on quite a few points of this - there definitely seems to be a trend towards e-books that I think will only increase as devices like the Kindle get cheaper. I also think that having a taxpayer funded discount or rental scheme would probably increase reading, as e-readers make the point of sale so much easier.
However I think that libraries serve a much greater purpose that simply serving up free books. I think that the social meeting place aspect also is of great importance, and I think that letting so many of these buildings go to waste seems, well a waste. Nowadays libraries are not just for lending books, but also often have space for training, job-skills, and cafes. Now I'm not arguing for turning them into Starbucks competitors, but I think that their secondary roles can be expanded to do a great deal more.
What I'm proposing is that libraries transform themselves into co-working spaces, or perhaps even hackspaces. Call it Library 2.0, or some other stupid buzzword. Cut down on book shelf space (and offer digital rentals to take up the slack) and use it to give out to important community projects. There's plenty of people who would jump at something like this - I'm sort of involved in helping to set up a Southampton Hackspace myself and one of the biggest problems is finding a suitable, cheap place. For those not in the know, co-working spaces are basically open workspaces where people are free to come and work, but are not employed by the same company. A similar concept, hackspaces, are essentially the same but with building things in mind. All they need is a relatively small room, and a place to store equipment and paperwork. Libraries, I think, fit this bill well - they have the space, are usually centrally-located (and are therefore easy to get to) and work to support the community. With the addition of a nice fat internet pipe (essential in my opinion) and some system of dividing up time and space, and you have a bunch of people willing to use libraries again.
Don't think your library has enough space? How about an open newsroom? Combine the library with the local paper and open it up to the public so that they can interact with the journalists. This kills two birds with one stone, as many local papers are dying and community engagement seems like a good way to combat this. The open news room is already being tested out in America. Obviously there'd be some problems to sort out with the mix of a publicly-funded library and a private enterprise, but maybe it's something we should try. Alternatively the space could be used to set up a 'geek school' where advice and training on computers, the internet and other such technical problems could be offered. Open-source and free software, such as Ubuntu, could be given out and demoed. Problems with the e-reader scheme are bound to arise (people unable to work the devices, poor software, DRMed books), so libraries could be a quick and easy way to get advice in person (this is especially important for older people).
The tl:dr version of this is I see all that lovely space in libraries potentially going to waste when there's plenty of people with clever ideas on how to use it in creative, community-building ways. Let's not do that.
Sunday 16 January 2011
Winter 2011 back at KISC
I was lucky enough to be back in Kandersteg again for two weeks to help out for Ski Week 1, one of the busiest weeks in the Winter season. I was helping out as a Ski Guide taking guests around the slopes and helping them a bit with their skiing. Being back at KISC was amazing... I loved every second of being back, especially seeing my friends from the summer.
So the deal is that I worked for a week, then had a week's free stay (which is a pretty epic deal if you ask me). Part of this was working running the evening activities - I got to do curling! Which was great because I've always wanted to have a go. It turns out that curling is really difficult - getting the stone even near to the circle was hard. Here's a couple of photos of me having a go.
But the main part of what I was doing was Ski Guiding which basically involves taking a group around, showing them where to go and giving them a few tips on skiing. The group I was guiding (45th Woolwich) was total beginners, having never skied before, and though they had lessons on the first few days my job was pretty interesting... It was actually really good fun remembering all the lessons and tips I was taught when I was learning (which was quite a long time ago), plus they were a really nice bunch of people. By the end of the week we (I was guiding with Caz) managed to get all of them skiing on the blue slope and a few of them on some pretty hardcore reds. One of the kids was even starting to parallel ski, which is incredible for five days of skiing. I've got a few photo's of them at the top of Lauchernalp ski area.
After my week in green (we don't get to wear pink) we had a week to do whatever we wanted... So I did some more skiing :-) These are from the (pretty small) area above Kandersteg (near to Oeschinensee). The day when it was sunny we were teaching Christine, another one of the helpers, to ski for the first time - she's the one on the ground...
Another one of my days we went to do the Gemmi Hike and Sled which, as the name suggests, involves a bunch of hiking and sledging. We hiked up to the top of the Gemmi valley, past the frozen lake of Daubensee, where we could see down into Leukerbad. But the sledging back down was much more fun...
Another one of my days we went to do the Gemmi Hike and Sled which, as the name suggests, involves a bunch of hiking and sledging. We hiked up to the top of the Gemmi valley, past the frozen lake of Daubensee, where we could see down into Leukerbad. But the sledging back down was much more fun...
One of the things I've always wanted to try is cross country skiing, which most of the Nordics (apparently it's a compulsory sport in Finnish schools) found pretty strange. It's actually quite good fun, but I can see how it would get boring after an hour or two. It's also a pretty good workout especially on the arms which surprised me a bit...
So all in all it was a pretty good trip, definitely something I want to do again next year. I'm also going to apply for Snow and Ice this summer in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I'll be back again this summer. Yep, definitely caught the KISC bug :-)
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