Tom Roper's Weblog

New libraries proliferate in Wandsworth

I have long had an unproven theory that the biggest concentration of libraries in London, if not the country, must be in Bloomsbury, if one defines that area generously. One cannot throw a stone south of the Euston Road without hitting an academic, special or medical library. But for a brief moment, Wandsworth can claim to have the highest concentration of new libraries in the capital. Yesterday the new Wandsworth Town library opened in the old court house building, formerly the borough's museum. I visited at lunchtime and was impressed. There's self-issue, free wifi, and the designers have made the most of some complicated and awkward spaces. Outside staff handed leaflets to passers by, and inside signed up new readers like anything. All the rooms were busy, none less than the computer suite. If only they had CDs, it would be perfect, but there's nothing to beat having a library so close. There are more photos on Flickr.

Round the corner, we continue to put the finishing touches to the new LRC at my workplace, South Thames College. Will it all be ready in time?

What do we want from public libraries?

At the same time as CILIP nationally is preparing guidelines on what makes a good public library service, to be presented to the Public Library Authorities conference in October, my local library service, East Sussex, is asking its users and non-users what they want from the service. I shall certainly contribute my views and I hope the Friends of Seaford Library* will do so too. East Sussex's services are primitive, and that's putting it kindly.

I am alarmed though at the suggestion that the CILIP guidelines need to be ‘in a language that speaks to senior councillors'. It might be better to write them in good, clear English, for those who use, or could use, public libraries.

* or FOSL, pronounced, in a dig at the town's reputation as having an ageing population, as fossil

25 years of PowerPoint: good heavens

Brian Kelly's UK Web Focus blog tells me that, for better or worse, PowerPoint has been with us for 25 years. 25 years of PowerPoint. But What Next? I'm surprised. I first came across computer presentation software in the early 1990s, while working in the NHS, where the package of choice was a thing called Harvard Graphics. Many was the happy afternoon I spent in the GP Tutors office upstairs in the Postgraduate Centre at Edgware General Hospital, trying to beat pie charts into shape. Harvard Graphics ran slowly, if it ran at all. Non-conformists that we were, we used WordPerfect for word-processing and Lotus 1-2-3 for spreadsheets. I think I came under the thrall of Mr Gates later om the 1990s.

Fairyhouse and Sandown

The Ebor meeting has come and gone and I said nothing about it, largely because, apart from Sea the Stars, I had no winning selections throughout the four days. Perhaps today will be better:

Sandown 240: Buzzword
Sandown 315: Greylami
Fairyhouse 420: Dick Turpin

Le Monde on Google Books

As a way of keeping my knowledge of French alive, I read Le Monde on Fridays, a day chose beacuse it's the day for Le Monde des Livres, the book reviews. In today's I was startled to see Richard Ovenden of the Bodleian in the first paragraph of an article on Google Books. It's interesting to read a perspective on this from outside the usual Anglo-American perspective. They note for example that all the editions of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables in Google Books are English translations.

Google, l'utopie du livre pour tous

Personas: my inpenetrable skirts

After something of a struggle, I persuaded Personas to work. It's amusing to watch it at work, confusing me with the impostors around the web who have used my name. And it gives a pretty graphic at the end:

As it progresses it throws up some intriguing items. I was reassured to come upon the phrase, 'Tom Roper is not like a British politician', but puzzled by the assertion that 'Tom Roper is back with an incredibly powerful flipper, and practically inpenetrable [sic] skirts'.

A return to the fray

Today is the Great St Wilfrid Handicap at Ripon

235 Newbury: Kite Wood
310 Newbury: Gallagher
325 Newmarket: Bounty Boy
355 Ripon: Striking Spirit

Goodwood: Stewards' Cup

230: Ashram
305: High Heeled
340: Buachaill Dona