Tom Roper's Weblog

Mass-observation at the CILIP Sussex AGM

Dorothy Sheridan, Head of Special Collections and Research Services at the University of Sussex, spoke at last night's CILIP Sussex AGM, in Lewes library, on her experience of dealing with the media.
There's been a lot of interest in the Mass-Observation archive recently. Only last Sunday, the Observer carried Alex Clark's  review of the latest book to be based on Mass-Observation material, Jenna Bailey's Can any mother help me? Dorothy also talked about articles in the New Statesman and New Yorker, and how to handle the broadcast media. Dorothy has appeared on Start the Week and Woman's Hour. On television, Victoria Wood based her recent Housewife, 49 on Nella's last war, published in 1981 by the archive from Nella Last's diaries.
Mass-Observation are holding an anniversary conference on 11 May and two other events, one involving Victoria Wood, part of the Brighton festival and the other at Komedia where Simon Garfield will talk about his work in the archive.

Australian sitcom

Ho ho ho. Australian television is to launch a sitcom called the Librarians. From the press release:
"The six-part series centres on the trials and tribulations of Frances O'Brien, a devout Catholic and head librarian. Her life unravels when she is forced to employ her ex-best friend, Christine Grimwood - now a drug dealer - as the children's librarian. Frances must do all she can to contain her menacing past and concentrate on the biggest event of the library calendar - Book Week."
If it ever shows over here, members of this great profession of ours will be turning to their dealers for something to make it seem funny.
ABC TV Turns A New Page In Comedy.

Stalin/Iron Curtain/Passport/Sexual Promiscuity/Swimming

Lorcan Dempsey comments on the Internet Movie Database's new look and functionality.  I spend a great deal of time on IMDB at the moment, as I  and a colleague retrospectively catalogue  a video collection.
IMDB keywords are fascinating, and have inspired a new parlour game.
Which film has the following keywords on IMDB: Stalin/Iron Curtain/Passport/Sexual Promiscuity/ Swimming?
And which film has these: Aquarium/Classroom/Copy Machine/Cow/Crying?
For the answers, see  below

Why let the drug companies have all the fun?

Why indeed? David Rothman commented on the post below, and a look at his blog took me to this, the Disease Mongering Engine.
I played with it, finding that all the conditions I created sounded plausible; indeed I could identify many people I know as sufferers from this or that. My favourite, which I am sure I have, is "Transient Sexual Eating Syndrome (TSES). TSES is found in people with intermittent, rapidly-changing episodes surrounding the repeated failure to sexually perform during the consumption of food or beverages".
I was perturbed though that the creators of this splendid satirical tool have had to post a disclaimer: "the Disease Mongering Engine is a satirical commentary on various matters we believe to be of public concern and are offered as Free Speech within the protection of the First Amendment to the US Constitution". O tempora, o mores.

Web 2.0 and education

JISC Techwatch have just published a report, What is Web 2.0? Ideas, technologies and implications for education
I skimmed it quickly and it looks very good, apart from one howler, where the author puts punk in the wrong decade. His photo suggests he is too young to have been there at the time.

Technorati Tags: web2.0

Wot no writers?

The Guardian's G2 supplement today has a surrealist theme, to mark the opening at the end of March of the Surreal Things: Surrealism and design exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum, a welcome change from the V&A's  present exhibition of Miss Minogue's undergarments, and Dali and Film, which opens at Tate Modern in June. To describe this supplement as appearing "on the eve of two major new exhibitions"  is excessively hyperbolic. 
While the V&A's show is about design. it is curious that, though the Guardian also covers art, architecture and film, they make no mention of the British literary surrealist tradition, for example Edward Upward's early stories and his collaboration on  the  Mortmere  project with Christopher Ishwerwood, or  the poet David Gascoyne. The best they can offer is Blake Morrison on automatic writing.

The Guardian mentions two

Kelso and Newbury

315 Newbury: Flying Enterprise
355 Kelso: Bang and Blame
425 Kelso: Mohayer
455 Newbury: Procas de Thaix

Patrick Hamilton event

There's to be a Patrick Hamilton week (or five days) at Brighton's Jubilee library from 17 to 21 March, with showings of Rope, Gaslight and a panel discussion with Laura Wilson, Peter Guttridge and Richard Crane, chaired by Faynia Williams
I've listed the panel discussion in Upcoming (see the sidebar).
The week is jointly organised by the word, Brighton library's events programme, not to be confused with the Radio 3 literature  and the Deckchair. The latter site was down at the time of writing.

The programme says, "despite being regarded as one of the best writers of his generation, and an important chronicler of life between the wars, few of Patrick Hamilton's works are still in print"; however the availability of two editions of Slaves of Solitude, one by Constable and one in the  New York Review of Books classics series, and Black Spring Press's announcement of an edition of the Gorse trilogy to appear in June suggest this may be changing. This latter publisher's agreeably diverse list also includes some Julian Mclaren-Ross, as well as Nick Cave, Charles Jackson's The Lost Weekend, a book I have been chasing for years, Lusts of a Moron by Momus and the complete lyrics of Howard Devoto.

Thanks to Magnificent Octopus for spotting the Gorse trilogy reissue.

Besterman/McColvin Medaln

The short list is out for the 2007 Besterman/McColvin Medals, with some interesting entries, for example, for the print medal:
Grainger, H
Death Redesigned: British Crematoria
Spire Books 1-90496-507-5
and
Hoare, Peter
Cambridge History of Libraries in Britain
Cambridge University Press 0-521-85808-9
Doctor Who-related reference works make a strong showing, which may say something about information professionals' viewing habits, with two works in the shortlist from Telos Publishing.
Howe, D
Howe's Transcendental Toybox Update No 2
Telos Publishing 1-84583-012-1
and
Lyon, J.S.
Second Flight: Unofficial & Unauthorised Guide to Dr Who 2006
Telos Publishing. 1-84503-008-3

In the electronic class, my money goes on the astonishing Prosopography of Anglo-Saxon England, which intends to include  all  the recorded inhabitants of England from the late sixth to the end of the eleventh century.

There is no news on the Walford award for contribution to bibliography   and the Wheatley medal for the best index is now run solely by the Society of Indexers
For the press release see: CILIP | News: 26 February 2007.

The Ides of March are come...

...though today is really the Calendae or Calends. But the Dearing review of modern languages was to have reported "by the end of February". There’s nothing on Teachernet, where the interim report appeared last December.