Sculpture by the Sea

On Saturday morning I was lucky enough to see the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition. My favourite pieces were those that had a sense of humour in their execution or had a feeling of whimsy. Like the pack of dogs that were made out of bits of dismantled furniture - legs made from tables or bits of junk. Or the floating 8 ball bobbing out in the sea - supposedly a tribute to our pub culture - the artist had originally thought of placing a pool table on the beach. There were about 50 sculptures dotted along the shoreline.

They had mixed reactions fromthe public, with people walking around each installation to examine them fromevery angle.

I'd dropped a bag and a couple of towels on the sand and when I returned to retrieve them, a women told me she'd just snapped them with her camera - "the colours are so beautiful - I thought they were part of the exhibition!"

Loclib Conference

On Friday I attended the afternoon sessions of the Loclib conference. I was really keen to see Jessamyn West and wasn't disappointed.

There were many to whom the whole blogging thing seemed very new and confusing, and couldn't quite see where this would fit into public libraries. A lot of us are still hamstrung by our organisations who are worried about "uncontrolled" information about them being published on the web - but I think that things will change gradually. The Act Public Library Blog is a really good Australian example of how it could work.

Jessamyn spoke about blogging as if it was no big deal and emphasized the social side of the technology.

I was lucky that I knew about some of this stuff from MPPOW - thanks CW!
I also bumped into some non-public librarians who'd crashed the session - it was good to meet Kathryn again, too.


One of the best things about conferences is hearing of new things (well, new to me) which I checked out when I got home.

• I loved Ask Metafilter after I'd checked it out and will subscribe today
• Vox looks so easy - and I'm going to set up a more personal blog there, I think.

So thanks again Jessamyn!