The Forgotten Isles

If you are in the continents, most likely you have never heard about the isles de salomon, now called Solomon Islands. Lost for 400 years after its dicovery in 1568! For billions of people it is still unknown today, especially those without the internet.

If you are deliberately hiding from someone, naturally you would choose the most unlikely, uninteresting and out-of -the -way place to hide. Well same here for 'them' that do not want to be in the spot light of high tech forensics, and media attention. I mean aliens, UFOs, and beings with magical powers. The skeptics are in for a most rude awakening.

In the very near future DNA tests will be carried out on samples which will be extracted from remains to ascertain that these beings existed and co-existed with the locals for thousands of years till they were literally driven underground for their mere survival.

Keep your seat belts on! More news coming in from the investigators in the days ahead.

Nico

Mysterious Happenings at Home

Hi guys,
Guess what? I had been swamped lately by correspondences about mysterious happenings here in the islands. One of my feloow islander came up lately and realted that a group of people including himself saw an alien aircraft, conventional structure, but very strange behaviour.

The aircraft, smaller than a Dash 7, but bigger than a Twin Otter, flew stright into the sea half a km out from the shore, as if it crashed. Hysterical villagers paddled their little canoes to the spot where the aircraft dived but could not see any wreckage. It was dusking then so they left for the shore and waited for news over the national radio. Nothing. but some folks rang the police and soon the government ordered an air search and rescue operation. Again nothing could be found in a few k/meters radius that could account for an air crash.

The very next day though, on a clear morning, to the amazement of the same villagers, the same aircraft took off from the area it went down the previous evening. More fear, more hysteria.

Please help explain if such crafts exist in other parts of our planet. We have not seen anything like this unless we are really behind times!

Nico

Follower gets A+

Though not so avid a follower on the Nico blog, he is the only follower at the moment. He got an A+ for one his assignments recently. A student doing the Certificate in Library studies at the University of the South Pacific. Was he elated? You're joking! He called me as soon as he found out. Broke the news with trembling voice and ran out of the office for the rest of the afternoon! Hope he returns in one piece. I do not discuss course assignments on this blog but it is much better on email. It gets personal and more like official. Chatting is also no grounds for course assignments.

Basic librarianship gets better with every discussion in my tutorial group. You can join and we'll discuss a common interest!

Nico

The Ghost Library Association

Rumours had it that the library association in the Solomon Islands had been hibernating for the last twenty years. It is still in hibernation, waiting, waiting, and waiting... for who knows what. There were better associations which had become extinct, those with some kind of budget, so how worse off or better off would one expect of an association of traditional story tellers? I guess nothing much.

But that does not nullify the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which promises an awsome US $1 million dollars for any library association that submits a convincing proposal to qualify for funding. Such a promise, once materialized, would pull every single librarian into the association on full time employment for the next twenty years.Then story telling can really become the favorite program to attract users and librarians alike.

Let all good information providers come to the aid of the body and give it to this ghostly entity. No sacrifice, no life! Please let there be a revival before 2012. The sooner the better!

Quality versus Quantity: The library collection development

Storing and organizing the library collection gets more tedious with the influx of donated materials which are most often irrelevant to the mission of the library. It is better to store relevant materials than more of next to useless materials just to give a impression of a rich collection.

The most tell tale evidence of an irrelevant material is the borrowing rate for that item. The less time it is borrowed in the last three decades the best it is designated for other uses, like land filling, or some other environmentally friendly purposes. The ones with high borrowing demand ought to be bought in two or more copies depending on the library's financial standing. Often, getting the quality ones, especially reference materials can really deplete book funds fast.

In this age and era, getting electronic materials can be appealing.

Basic Librarianship Tutorial Classes

I have taken the liberty to tutor some students doing the Certificate in Librarianship program of the University of the South Pacific through the local university centre. I thought it was going to be mundane, but how wrong was I? It was most rewarding and enjoyable. Getting these guys to understand the questions and to write in meaningful ways is quite uplifting, really.

I did not shoot any photos, now to my regret, but I'll be ready next session. I hope others join our group and hopefully we will create a little network back here in the balmy islands. In our last session I asked my little group: "What traditional methods of communications have we killed, fossilized, and rend valuable for their rarity, in the information age?" The answer to this question may surprise you. The answer will be posted next time around.

Then there was the issue of information as a tool for empowering people. But re-wording the phrase we said enriching. I divulged to the group that information specialists ( formerly librarians) and brokers do this stuff for their livelyhood because of the "en-rich-ing" lodged within the word.

So now we had a newer look at librarianship. Thus it became more fascinating and not so mundane.

Information Literacy Advocay

What really takes place when one talks about info. lit advocacy? I'm not that adept with jargons but although I probably been doing this without putting a label to it I believe it's when I help students use information ethically.

Bet there are numerous ops out there. Any?