Helsingor

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. I’m just kidding. I just couldn’t resist quoting Hamlet since today was dedicated to Kronborg Castle, the castle in which Shakespeare’s Hamlet takes place. It was a rainy, windy day here in Denmark. I left my hotel after the housekeeping service tried twice to clean my room. [...]

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Comforts in Copenhagen

1. Fanta, which I only drink when traveling 2. Chinese food for dinner 3. Big fluffy hotel duvets 4. A double bed after 12 days in a twin 5. A banana popsicle for dessert 6. Ability to buy another memory card for camera when the first one runs out of space 7. Taking an afternoon [...]

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Early Morning Trains

I arrive at the train station at 5:45. My train leaves at 6:27.  I came to the station early so I could split a cab with Melanie whose train leaves at 6:02. She is traveling, via three transfers, to the Arctic Circle because her grandson is studying it and he thought it would be “sweet” [...]

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Closing Ceremony IFLA 2010

The ceremony began with awarding Claudia Lux, former President of IFLA, as an honorary fellow of IFLA. Her first IFLA conference was in 1987 and in 2010 she was blogging and on Twitter, making her point that IFLA has changed dramatically. She said she was able to achieve all that she did, “with a little [...]

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E-learning SIG

Barbara Sen, Information School, University of Sheffield, UK There are many positive benefits to using e-portfolios.  The University of Sheffield encourages reflective journal writing with their MA library students. They call their e-portfolio “The Secret Diary of Librarian Mole: My Online Learning Environment.” These entries build to an e-portfolio and supposed to launch them into their [...]

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How come my jeans don’t fit anymore?

The answer is obvious. When you have so much delicious food to try that it seems to beckon to you, it entices you and melts away all normal rules of engagement. The next thing you know, that fresh salad from the fish market (with cavier sauce) becomes the appetizer for the banana chocolate ice cream [...]

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Notes on Libraries promoting reading in a multicultural, multilingual society

Maija Berndtson, from the Helsinki City Library, Helsinki, Finland, discusses her paper entitled “Libraries promoting multimodal literacy in an intercultural society.” She states, “We are empowering people. We need to focus on our customers, our users, our citizens–more perhaps than our institutions.” She poses a few interesting questions: What does it mean to be literate in a [...]

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Friday the 13th

Today started with one of the most engaging and thoughtful speeches I’ve ever had the pleasure of hearing. Professor Hans Rosling gave a speech that used statistics to show how people’s perspectives don’t always come from facts. What would it be like to live with a fact based world view? If we didn’t align our [...]

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Lost in translation?

My first experience with the translation system made me quite aware of how lucky I am to speak the language that so many people present in at this conference. It is not easy to listen to the translation when the speaker can also be heard. Also, if the speaker speaks quickly, you can hear the [...]

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Metropolitan Libraries With Public Libraries

Metropolitan libraries with public libraries From institutions of the industrial age to change agents for the networked society: experiences from Denmark The projects and partnerships that Rolf Hapel of Denmark spoke of today were impressive. Despite a 50% decrease of libraries in Denmark, the library services seem to have increased. Hapel stated that libraries are really [...]

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