Libraries I've used around the world.
I was going to talk about the lies that Strippers have told me over the years but my dark secret and sordid history will have to stay dark and secret as no-one requested it.
In my life I've done a lot of travelling, back in 2008 I went all over the world and managed to survive somehow without much difficulty. While I was overseas I used a lot of NetCafe's and Libraries to connect to my friends and family back in Australia.
I found that libraries were always free but that NetCafe's had a lot less restrictions and were easier to simply drop in and use.
The first library I went to while overseas was the New York Public Library, which was epic in scale and scope. I went inside to get out of the rain and ended up going on the free tour, they had a Gutenberg Bible and the original Winnie the Pooh dolls there. As well as rooms full of tables and people studying and taking notes.
Photos of New York Public Library:
The four great moments of the written word:
After that I went across the road to the actual public library where people can borrow books and spent about an hour walking around the library and getting a feel for it. It was a huge building with an escalator in the middle of it. I didn't find anything I wanted to read however so I left.
The next library I found was the Chicago public library where I used the internet on St Patricks day because I couldn't find a net cafe around. I liked the library there, they had a weird privacy deal on the screens so you had to look directly at the screen from the front to be able to read anything. It meant I didn't have to look at what the people next to me were doing online. But it also meant that I had to look at the screen with a lot more concentration than I was used to. I only took one photo in the library. It was a multistory building and seemed to be very busy. They asked for my ID and I used my Passport.
In the city of Tacoma I stayed in the University of Puget Sound and my friend Tebra was working as a librarian at the time. Her library was pretty good, they had a bunch of student art demonstrations and it felt like an older style library than the libraries I was used to in my universities in Australia. I didn't get any photos of the library but I did use it a few times, it was a nice place to just hang out in and relax.
After that I flew to London and used some public library to try and watch Doctor Who online, but I couldn't get it to work and didn't have headphones, so I left. It was a lot like most of the libraries in Brisbane, space divided up based on age groups and some kids displays hanging from the roof I remember seeing, but it didn't really register at the time because I was more focused on being angry about the pay-toilets outside.
I then left London and went to Dublin where I found a library in there, in fact I found two libraries, one was the Dublin Public library which had an amazing display on Yeats in the basement that really inspired me to actually go out and read up on the guy, he was a weird fellow but someone who loved writing. And after that I found myself in the Chester Beatty library which has a world class collection of religious texts and books from around the world. They had some of the oldest bibles in the world in there as well as non-Christian books and verses. It also had maps and some cool other books. It was all the work of one guy who was rich from mining interests and decided to collect the most bibles of anyone ever. A staggering collection and a dedication to his ambition.
I visited some of the archives in Vatican city, but it was more of a walk-through than any kind of exploration of the space. They hinted at much larger archives below the building but I didn't get to see them. I was lucky to see much of anything given my families traditional luck in Vatican City(long story short, we've been prevented seeing the Sistine Chapel due to assorted things on two occasions).
The next library I remember visiting was the central library in Amsterdam, it was a huge building much like the RBWH it had a kind of hollowed out space in the middle of a giant room with computers spread around the edges of it on multiple floors. I remember there was no login or passwords, you just sat down, did whatever you wanted to and left. There were a lot of people who were lined up waiting for computers as a result. It was a nice place, the entire city of Amsterdam was nice really. I didn't really go looking at their books or what systems they used for sorting. I think they had them spread around the building in a weird way, but I don't remember what was weird about it looking back. I also had a hell of a time finding the toilets.
After that I don't think I used any libraries while I was overseas. Next time I'm in Europe I plan to really have a look around at how they do things and try to get a better idea of the different design approaches that I'm sure they've taken to the task of setting up a library.
My day today:
I woke up at about eleven this morning, which wasn't bad. I made my brothers breakfast and then debated going home or going straight to the city while I was thinking these deep thoughts I got a phone call from my parents telling me they were in the city themselves right now, having taken a bus, which was the biggest step they've taken towards public transport in the 29 years I've been alive. They wanted me to come to lunch with them but I wasn't going to get there for at least an hour so it would have been wasteful for them to wait for me. I tidied up the house before leaving, which took some time because I have a lot of clothes at Matts house.
He slept in till 8:30 this morning, which was nice for Mary and I but a little worrying because it means he slept for about ten hours last night. Which even by my lazy standards is pretty long for sleeping.
I ended up going to the city at about 1:30, having driven to Toowong and trained it in. I'd've loved to have ridden a bike but I just wasn't feeling it today. I caught the train and walked to the comic shop then to get some curry and then on to a meeting with my course supervisor Helen.
I'm always nervous before any meeting I have with Helen and I don't know why, she's probably the nicest person in the library profession that I've met so far and they're a pretty friendly bunch of people as a rule. She told me that my options for cutting my classes for this semester were simple, they'd give me an A which is not a great mark but an Assessment Ongoing mark and then re-register me as Student-Like access for the computer labs and library databases. And I'd not have to pay anything extra or do anything else. My other option is to do it the legit way and defer the class till next semester which is what I've already started to do, Helen has never had to deal with this because pretty much everyone always went for Option A in the past.
I'm still holding out for my Deferment but if it doesn't go through then I'll be fine and will just work around it with the help of my department.
After that I was going to go directly home but instead went to the QUT library where I played Mass Effect 3 for an hour before going to the Queen Street Mall for Hungry Jacks. After that I trained it to my car and drove home in the darkness. I noticed a lot of people in the city driving around without lights on. I think we need some kind of universal signal for telling people they don't have lights on.
When I got home I quickly changed into my soccer gear and rushed off to training, I was a little bit late but I had a pretty crazy workout session while I was training. I had to stop a few times and catch my breath because I am so horribly out of shape. But I did okay in what I did and managed to only slightly embarrass myself by falling over and panting after five minutes of running. It's better than last year where these two guys were merciless in getting us up and running.
I drove home, had some dinner and then posted on Twitter what topic I should discuss, sadly no-one answered so I picked the least mortifying option and had to go through my old Facebook Photo Albums to see just how much of a record I kept of the libraries. It was funny, when I started thinking about it I could remember all this stuff about the libraries but I've almost nothing on record about what I did in them or where I went. I think my old Travel Journals are somewhere and probably have information in them, but I haven't looked in them in four years now and I think leaving them buried is a good idea for the foreseeable future. I wrote a lot of things while drunk in Europe, a lot of weird messy slurry things.
YouTube Clip of the Day: Mario Loses it. This is how I'd play it in his shoes.
In my life I've done a lot of travelling, back in 2008 I went all over the world and managed to survive somehow without much difficulty. While I was overseas I used a lot of NetCafe's and Libraries to connect to my friends and family back in Australia.
I found that libraries were always free but that NetCafe's had a lot less restrictions and were easier to simply drop in and use.
The first library I went to while overseas was the New York Public Library, which was epic in scale and scope. I went inside to get out of the rain and ended up going on the free tour, they had a Gutenberg Bible and the original Winnie the Pooh dolls there. As well as rooms full of tables and people studying and taking notes.
Photos of New York Public Library:
The four great moments of the written word:
- Moses and the Ten Commandments.
- Monks Transcribing the bible.
- Guttenberg setting type.
- Newspapers being printed.
After that I went across the road to the actual public library where people can borrow books and spent about an hour walking around the library and getting a feel for it. It was a huge building with an escalator in the middle of it. I didn't find anything I wanted to read however so I left.
The next library I found was the Chicago public library where I used the internet on St Patricks day because I couldn't find a net cafe around. I liked the library there, they had a weird privacy deal on the screens so you had to look directly at the screen from the front to be able to read anything. It meant I didn't have to look at what the people next to me were doing online. But it also meant that I had to look at the screen with a lot more concentration than I was used to. I only took one photo in the library. It was a multistory building and seemed to be very busy. They asked for my ID and I used my Passport.
In the city of Tacoma I stayed in the University of Puget Sound and my friend Tebra was working as a librarian at the time. Her library was pretty good, they had a bunch of student art demonstrations and it felt like an older style library than the libraries I was used to in my universities in Australia. I didn't get any photos of the library but I did use it a few times, it was a nice place to just hang out in and relax.
After that I flew to London and used some public library to try and watch Doctor Who online, but I couldn't get it to work and didn't have headphones, so I left. It was a lot like most of the libraries in Brisbane, space divided up based on age groups and some kids displays hanging from the roof I remember seeing, but it didn't really register at the time because I was more focused on being angry about the pay-toilets outside.
I then left London and went to Dublin where I found a library in there, in fact I found two libraries, one was the Dublin Public library which had an amazing display on Yeats in the basement that really inspired me to actually go out and read up on the guy, he was a weird fellow but someone who loved writing. And after that I found myself in the Chester Beatty library which has a world class collection of religious texts and books from around the world. They had some of the oldest bibles in the world in there as well as non-Christian books and verses. It also had maps and some cool other books. It was all the work of one guy who was rich from mining interests and decided to collect the most bibles of anyone ever. A staggering collection and a dedication to his ambition.
- Yeats Father.
- Yeats portrait by his brother.
- The Lake Isle of Innisfree.
- He Wishes for the Cloths of Heaven
- Getting a picture painted by the woman he stalked his whole life.
- The only place I could take a photo in the Bible library.
- A quote near the library on a wall.
I visited some of the archives in Vatican city, but it was more of a walk-through than any kind of exploration of the space. They hinted at much larger archives below the building but I didn't get to see them. I was lucky to see much of anything given my families traditional luck in Vatican City(long story short, we've been prevented seeing the Sistine Chapel due to assorted things on two occasions).
The next library I remember visiting was the central library in Amsterdam, it was a huge building much like the RBWH it had a kind of hollowed out space in the middle of a giant room with computers spread around the edges of it on multiple floors. I remember there was no login or passwords, you just sat down, did whatever you wanted to and left. There were a lot of people who were lined up waiting for computers as a result. It was a nice place, the entire city of Amsterdam was nice really. I didn't really go looking at their books or what systems they used for sorting. I think they had them spread around the building in a weird way, but I don't remember what was weird about it looking back. I also had a hell of a time finding the toilets.
After that I don't think I used any libraries while I was overseas. Next time I'm in Europe I plan to really have a look around at how they do things and try to get a better idea of the different design approaches that I'm sure they've taken to the task of setting up a library.
My day today:
I woke up at about eleven this morning, which wasn't bad. I made my brothers breakfast and then debated going home or going straight to the city while I was thinking these deep thoughts I got a phone call from my parents telling me they were in the city themselves right now, having taken a bus, which was the biggest step they've taken towards public transport in the 29 years I've been alive. They wanted me to come to lunch with them but I wasn't going to get there for at least an hour so it would have been wasteful for them to wait for me. I tidied up the house before leaving, which took some time because I have a lot of clothes at Matts house.
He slept in till 8:30 this morning, which was nice for Mary and I but a little worrying because it means he slept for about ten hours last night. Which even by my lazy standards is pretty long for sleeping.
I ended up going to the city at about 1:30, having driven to Toowong and trained it in. I'd've loved to have ridden a bike but I just wasn't feeling it today. I caught the train and walked to the comic shop then to get some curry and then on to a meeting with my course supervisor Helen.
I'm always nervous before any meeting I have with Helen and I don't know why, she's probably the nicest person in the library profession that I've met so far and they're a pretty friendly bunch of people as a rule. She told me that my options for cutting my classes for this semester were simple, they'd give me an A which is not a great mark but an Assessment Ongoing mark and then re-register me as Student-Like access for the computer labs and library databases. And I'd not have to pay anything extra or do anything else. My other option is to do it the legit way and defer the class till next semester which is what I've already started to do, Helen has never had to deal with this because pretty much everyone always went for Option A in the past.
I'm still holding out for my Deferment but if it doesn't go through then I'll be fine and will just work around it with the help of my department.
After that I was going to go directly home but instead went to the QUT library where I played Mass Effect 3 for an hour before going to the Queen Street Mall for Hungry Jacks. After that I trained it to my car and drove home in the darkness. I noticed a lot of people in the city driving around without lights on. I think we need some kind of universal signal for telling people they don't have lights on.
When I got home I quickly changed into my soccer gear and rushed off to training, I was a little bit late but I had a pretty crazy workout session while I was training. I had to stop a few times and catch my breath because I am so horribly out of shape. But I did okay in what I did and managed to only slightly embarrass myself by falling over and panting after five minutes of running. It's better than last year where these two guys were merciless in getting us up and running.
I drove home, had some dinner and then posted on Twitter what topic I should discuss, sadly no-one answered so I picked the least mortifying option and had to go through my old Facebook Photo Albums to see just how much of a record I kept of the libraries. It was funny, when I started thinking about it I could remember all this stuff about the libraries but I've almost nothing on record about what I did in them or where I went. I think my old Travel Journals are somewhere and probably have information in them, but I haven't looked in them in four years now and I think leaving them buried is a good idea for the foreseeable future. I wrote a lot of things while drunk in Europe, a lot of weird messy slurry things.
YouTube Clip of the Day: Mario Loses it. This is how I'd play it in his shoes.