Category: GLAM Blog Club

On the first of every month we announce a new theme, and GLAM bloggers write a post inspired by the theme. Some take a literal approach, whilst others come up with surprising and creative interpretations. GLAM Blog Club is designed to provide you with a monthly inspiration so that you always has “something to blog about” – we hope it provides you with a little encouragement to blog more often about GLAM. Australasian GLAM bloggers are also encouraged to register your blogs with Aus GLAM Blogs.

GLAM Blog Club – January 2019

Last night marked the end of 2018, and all through December the GLAM community shared their thoughts on ‘End’ for GLAM Blog Club.

Chloe has finished her fieldwork and her entire Masters in Library and Information Practice.

Rebecca’s love of museums and exhibitions has definitely not ended: she reviewed the State Library of Queensland’s new exhibition Home: a suburban obsession, the Wellington Museum and Te Papa.

Nathan called for an end to passivity in the GLAM professions:

Memory institutions have power they need to share with grassroots organisations working towards repairing the damage done by and preventing future harm caused by white supremacy, colonialism, patriarchy, heteronormativity, ableism, and capitalism.

Andrew reflected on Nathan’s post, in a rather philosophical post asking “What is our endgame as librarians?”, whilst Kassi contemplated The end of the year, the start of something.

Romany decided to end her (blogging) silence rather than her blog, and shared some thoughts about Ending the “either/or”.

Glenn was happy to see the end of 2018, whilst Clare wrote about the important of defining where the ‘end’ is, as did Ros, from a different perspective. Meanwhile Nik was comfortable pointing out that there is no end, but maybe you can leave a legacy.

Anne told us what she will be ending in 2019, whilst Clare had a dream that the use of Dewey Decimal Classification came to an end in her workplace.

Alissa ended the year with a roundup of everything she achieved in 2018, including seeing the Museum of the Riverina’s gold-plated Chiko Roll.

Jane suggested Four things public libraries needs to end, whilst I extended my own suggestions for things that must end in GLAM.

So now it’s January again, and you know what that means: it’s time to write about What I learned last year and/or what I want to learn this year. Quite a few of you have already written about your achievements in 2018, but we really want you to share what you learned as well. We’re looking forward to reading all of your posts this month – and every month this year! Now there’s a resolution worth making.

1 January 2019
GLAM Blog Club December 2018

Yes, it really is that time of year! December has arrived, and with it our final GLAM Blog Club theme for the year. Before we get to that though, let’s see what the newCardigan community wrote about change in November.

Jane Cowell was on topic (even if it was probably co-incidental!) with two posts on digital disruption and the skills librarians need to navigate it. Melly like to dance around change, whilst Clare likes change to be slow and steady. Nikki wrote about ticking off everything on her ‘uncomfort zone’ list (including publishing her writing!) From Annalyce we learned about ‘the blueberry muffin policy’ and also all the ways she’s changed professionally this year – congrats Annalyce! Andrew has also been working on some changes moving Dodedodo to production – but cautions us that muffins, blueberry or otherwise, are for customers. Rebecca wrote about how four museums have changed her, and Lucinda introduced us to five (six) podcasts that may just change your day or even your life.

We were also treated to some great posts about changes GLAMers would like to see. James wrote about the potential of blockchain technologies to change the research lifecycle, Alissa shared her plan to rebuild and restore respect for cataloguing practice, Liz gave us a great run-down of the Critical Librarianship School held in Sydney recently, and Nathan challenged us to do more than just talk about diversity: “Why hire First Nations people into your mostly white structure and expect/want/demand everything to remain basically the same?”

Thanks to everyone for your ideas, thoughts and stories. Our last theme for the year is, appropriately, End. Perhaps there’s a practice you think needs to stop in cultural institutions, an amazing project you’ve just finished, a story about de-accessioning, or an edge you’ve reached. However you interpret the topic, be sure to tag your post with GLAM Blog Club in your blog publishing system, and #GLAMBlogClub on social media channels. And don’t worry – ‘End’ might be our theme for December, but you’ll have twelve more opportunities to contribute to GLAM Blog Club next year!

1 December 2018
GLAM Blog Club – November 2018

Beginning was our GLAM Blog Club theme for October, and a big thank you to everyone who wrote on the theme… Beginning a new blog post is not always easy.

Andrew F kicked off the month with a blog about going back to uni, a new beginning, and getting on track to begin a PhD sometime in the future. Hugh blogged about blogging with Eleventy, how he moved from Ghost, and the reasons he wanted to begin again with something different. Rosness argues that from the beginning, “Our emotional experiences in our first operating systems define how we react to everything that comes after”. I wrote about beginning to become a horror fan, by taking part in 31 days of horror. Clare P states that “beginning is the easy part”, it’s what happens as the project progresses, “you find out whether you sink or swim”.

It’s the first of the month, so you know what that means, we have a new theme! In the words of Bowie….Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes, Turn and face the strange, Ch-ch-changes…. Do you thrive with change, or do you shy away from it? Do you think working in the GLAM sector means you must be willing to evolve as the sector changes? What changes are you ok with, and what changes are you not?

To make sure other GLAM Blog Club peeps can find your blog, make sure to tag ‘GLAM Blog Club’ on your blog, and share on social media with #GLAMBlogClub. Make sure to register your blog with Aus GLAM Blogs, and become part of the community. We look forward to finding and reading your blogs!

1 November 2018
GLAM Blog Club – October 2018

Sally Turbitt is always hard at work, and September was no exception. She paid no heed to the theme (which is totally fine! It’s just a prompt to help you if you’re having trouble thinking of something to write about) and wrote early in the month about the need for LIS people to become Influencers outside the profession, and later about the usefulness of writing your personal values down. Glenn Harper also got in early with a rather unsettling post published on Library Whisperers that …well, you’ll just have to read it to get the full experience. Speaking of ‘unsettling’, Lucinda told us about an exhibition at the Museum of Central Australia that confronts some of the usual practices within museums, and prioritises local Aboriginal voices and language whilst exhibiting photographs taken by Otto Tschirn a century ago.

September saw a new GLAM Blog Club member join us, with Jacqui Sanders writing a fascinating post about Victorian autopsy tables. Thanks Jacqui! Meanwhile, Clare was busy writing about one of my own interests – public toilets. Make sure you check it out – it includes a picture of a unicorn pooping rainbows. Speaking of Clares, we also got to read about the most amazing and beautiful random package that strangely arrived in the mail recently. It made Clare very happy, and that’s a fact: unlike some of the weird things Anne has read about what predicts (or doesn’t) how happy people will be later in life. Kylie is pretty happy in her chosen career, though it has taken some strange twists she wasn’t expecting. Kylie also gets bonus points for an excellent historical photograph managing to depict several librarian stereotypes at the same time – nice one, Kylie.

Melly Tango shared some of the strange requests she’s had working on the Inter-Library Loan phone shift. Alissa decided to turn and face the strange of her evolving professional identity, whilst Andrew was returning to face the strange on the same day which *cough* may have been the last day of the month, not that we regularly notice that many people leave their GLAM Blog Club posts to the last minute of course. Finally, I scraped in just ahead of the deadline with a post about the strange things I’ve discovered about the Ghost blogging system.

As September ends, we’ve definitely moved into Spring – the birds have flown South again, the sun is rising earlier, and it’s nearly time to plant those tomato seedlings. It’s the perfect time to write about beginning.

Don’t forget to apply the appropriate metadata to your posts: remember it’s ‘GLAM Blog Club’ (three words, one tag) in your blogging system, and #GLAMBlogClub on social media. Don’t get them mixed up! If you haven’t already done so, now is a great time to register your blog with Aus GLAM Blogs so we can easily find your post, and you can expand your readership.

But that’s enough from me – I’m keeping you from beginning your October post.

1 October 2018
GLAM Blog Club – September 2018

Another GLAM Blog Club month has flown by and we’ve been looking at the theme of collect. We got a rather interesting spread of ideas this month, from personal collections through to questioning what it means to collect.

Rebecca starts off our month by introducing us to their personal collections – Vintage and Vintage-Style Clothing, and American election campaign pins.

I take the opportunity to write about all the RPGs I own and basically beg people to play with me.

Nathan looks at collecting in the context of First Nation culture and asks ‘who are archives and museums collecting First Nations cultural heritage for?‘

Amy discusses the thorny subject of private donations and how to say no.

Clare takes us on a tour of London and some how combines leprechauns, queer themes, and collections!

We get an insight to Alissa’s print serial collection aka that pile holding up her bedside table.

Our own Nik talks about how the Melbourne Museum’s archive collection is developed and what it involves.

I was wondering how happiness relates to our theme and I’m glad to hear from Anne that collections make you happy. Excellent!

Andrew collects his thoughts on managing a library and gives some good insight into the process.

Rounding out the month is our Clare with a deep dive into her music collection, physical and digital.

Our topic for September is Strange! What does this mean to you? Working in a library it could be the strangest query you’ve had. It could be the strangest/most interesting thing in your museum or archive. It could also be the relationship between information gatekeepers and the ‘strangers’ we are supposed to serve. We look forward to your thoughts and blogs, cardies.

Please don’t forget to use the tag GLAM Blog Club in your post, and #GLAMBlogClub for any social media posts linking to it. If you haven’t done so yet, remember to register your blog at Aus GLAM Blogs. Happy blogging!

1 September 2018
GLAM Blog Club – August 2018

It’s a short round up this month for our theme of ‘digital’, although there were plenty of other blog posts on topics such as unpaid work placements, conferences and workshops, cataloguing trauma, and general GLAM musings. Make sure to follow our AusGLAM Twitter bot or use the Pocket plugin so you don’t miss out on some amazing posts!

Rounding up the digital theme posts, Miss Library Grrl started us off with a list of their favourite digital tools.

Hugh came knocking on our bird site door and wants to let you know the good word about Mastodon. Join us over at ausglam.space and awoo till your heart’s content.

Learn to be happier through technology with Happier Librarian talking about their digital happy things. Happy 🙂

I wrote up a recent project/idea about how to digitally capture reference queries using a location based RFID reader. Riveting stuff.

Melly Tango talks about the digital and the physical and wonders if there is a divide?

Rounding out the month Nik looks at where the digital age will take museums, and Clare ponders if shoehorning digital content into systems that pre-date that content is a good thing (spoiler – it’s not)?

Our topic for August is Collect! Sometimes it’s the things we chose not to collect that can make a collection, what are your ideas around collecting? Do we do too much, or not enough?

Please don’t forget to use the tag GLAM Blog Club in your post, and #GLAMBlogClub for any social media posts linking to it. If you haven’t done so yet, remember to register your blog at Aus GLAM Blogs. Happy blogging!

1 August 2018

newCardigan

Making GLAM workers more awesome