I suspect the august panel of me, Kooei and the Weasel will be quite hard to impress and in the last case easy to bribe!

As such the inaugural Weasel Prize for Excellence in Blogging (WPEB or the WPEBies if you like) goes to

Katy Wrathall for Thinking

I’ll mock up a nifty graphic in the next day or so for you all to enjoy!

*Provided I remember, and there’s something sufficently interesting.

Cakes are made up of about four ingredients (flour, fat, eggs and sugar) as well, and hence my brain made the slight leap to think “So can I explain the different Creative Commons licenses as though they were in fact kinds of cake?”

It’s probably the first time I’ve baked props, and the first time Mrs Llama’s been fed as a result of my film making.  Anyway please enjoy, reuse, attribute and share the following.  And if you like what you see (or heaven help me) want to see more like this, drop me a line!

I played the original Deus Ex a fair few years ago, and agree with the various plaudits that were heaped on it.  The ability to choose your own approach and style, and the morally questionable actions of just about everyone in the whole game made it not just a great game but a great experiences.  I’ve played through it a couple of times since and it’s still enjoyable, if a little dated now graphically.  I should say up front that my personal prefered style of play is to out sneak and out think the AI of games.  Sure I like a good FPS once in a while, but given my all time favourite game series is Thief…well that should tell you a lot about how I approach DE and DE:HR.

So DE:HR looked like it would be a treat and a half.  And being me, I played it on the hardest settings and tried to roleplay my decisions rather than going with what I thought would be the “best” option.  Hence I had a blazing row with my boss early after I got augmented because, hey, basically I thought he’d been a total dick.

If you’ve read any of the gaming press you know that DE:HR is the prequel to DE and there are many nods to the game; not to mention other related tropes (like an excellent conversation about rebuilding cops with a guy called Alex Murphy.).  A lot of the press coverage I’ve read seems to lap up the easter eggs and shout outs that are scattered throughout.  Personally a lot of them left me cold, beyond “Oh, fair enough” when I hacked yet another person’s email to find *yawn* the same two circular emails.

I guess what disappointed me most was the linearity and small nature of the zones.  Detroit and Shanghai where you spend a large chunk of the game are at best a couple of blocks wide, and like oh so many games you can only go into a handful of buildings.  People on the street are a bit…well the population of the two blocks of Detroit must have numbered at most 20-30 people.  I see about that many people in the same area of the small village where I live.  Not really an overpopulated megacity of the mid-21st Century and hardly the living and breathing city I might have hoped for.  And when you come down to it 90% of people you meet are civilians who have a line or two or dialogue and are other than that essentially just walking furniture.

It was only in the last level in the arctic headquarters of the “bad guy” that I began to feel like I could pick a direction and that there were enough people wandering around (or stone cold dead) to make it feel like a real installation.  If only the early levels had been this open then that might have killed part of my concerns.

My other major disappointment is the boss fights.  Well at least the first three.  As I mentioned I sneak and think my way around problems.  So what happens when I approach a boss area? I get a cut scene of Adam Jenson (aka me) just strolling into the middle of a room like a civie.  Honestly, I’d spend the past three hours creeping along corridors, crawling through ducks, peaking around corners and basically ghosting through levels unnoticed by all (save for the odd poor sucker who would feel a tiny prick and then collapse fast asleep.  So to have Adam just stroll into the room utterly and totally went against how I’d played him and totally drew me out of the game.

There’s been a lot written about good games drawing you in so much that your mind feels within them.  It’s the whole suspension of disbelief that great drama runs on, and bad acting or glaring anomalies always shatter that illusion, that buy in, that empathy that you have for the characters.  And since “my” Adam was doing something like a numskull that really set me back.

Not to mention suddenly I’m facing a guy with automatic weaponry armed with a taser with a 5m range and a one shot tranq-dart gun that might as well be a plastic BB gun against the guy.  Thankfully I had read that the best way to smash through the illusion wreaking boss fights was with the explosive Typhoon 360 projection system (TM Sarif Industries).  So I used it, broke my RPG code against killing that I’d imbued Adam with and got past boss fight one with a slight bitter taste in my mouth.  Given a free hand by that point I’d have activated some stealth, vision and hacking augmentations.  But no, I had to pump the points into the Typhoon.

On then to Shanghai and another city that appeared to be locked down into tiny chunks.  Sure the acting was good, the plot was great and there was fun to be had.  Well aside from my heavily augmented cyborg dying if he fell about 5 feet.  Guess the leg augmentations were actually glass not ceramic-metal composite!  Eventually I reached boss 2, a stealthy shoot ‘em from the cloaked shadows kinda gal.  And yes, once again Adam just strolled into the Lion’s den.  A double dose of Typhon and away she went in no time at all.  Unsatisfying, but obstacle passed.

The plot thickened and I revisited some locations on the way to boss fight three.  But oh buggeration, thanks to a decsion made hours ago to replace my chips all my augmentations go away and I have to fight him essentially naked and drunk.  And he’s invisible, lithe and has the most powerful gun in the game.  It would have been nice if one of the thousands of crappy emails I read or conversations with a local had hinted that “Oh no, don;’t change your biochip otherwise boss three will wipe the floor with you.”.  But no, no one did.  *sigh*  I actually walked away from the game at this point for a week I was so pissed off with being killed in 4 seconds flat every time.

In the end I went back to my save before Boss 3 and scoured the now guardless level for weapons that might help me fight him.  Yes, my stun-o-matic non-death dealing weapons were of no use here (as usual against bosses) and thanks to a stroke of genius, a hacked turret dragged across the level and a lucky shot to the head with a machine pistol I got past him.  Honestly a game that purports to be a smart one and yet a) requires me to make a vital choice with no info and b) Then expects me to fight an uberboss without a chance to get around him with smarts, well that gets my goat.

On then to the finalé of the game and to be honest the best experience.  Even the boss could be…out smarted through tactics, observation, carefully planted mines and judicious use of my augmentations.  And then the three endings…colour me shocked (not in the slighted) that the “correct” choice is “non-of-the-above”.  For once THIS gelled with my Adam.  Taggart, Sarif and Darrow’s world views were all flawed; and so was mine.  And while given the level of my augmentations I don’t buy it that Adam goes down with the ship the self-destructive response and closing voice over; well that was spot on.

And okay, I did like the final post credits VO linking into the original Deus Ex plot.

I should say the graphics are stunning, the sound brilliant and for the most part the game play is excellent.  The take-down moves (nonlethal from choice people!) were an especial treat.  And the combat was fluid and quite, quite deadly when you cocked up.

But like it’s protagonist Deus Ex: Human revolution is in the end a creation made up of parts that just don’t fit right. The game I played before this was Assassins Creed: Brotherhood (great game, similarly downbeat ending!) and it gave me so much freedom to just play that it was a joy to log into.  DE:HR wasn’t.  It was a solid story telling exercise, but with such limited freedom that it jarred.   I missed the real freedom of an open world to do what I wanted.  So much felt directed and as linear as any corridor bound FPS, unlike the lab rat I can spot where the walls are and know you aren’t going to let me past them to the rest of what looks like an exotic and exciting world beyond.  I wanted to move beyond the confines of Adam’s single-minded quest to find what happened to Megan and the scientists and explore Detroit or Shanghai.  I wanted my Adam to conform to the vision I had for him.  And I wanted to play with my augmentations and delight in being the superman.

I was denied this – and as such the experience of playing DE:HR has left me…sadly dissapointed.

(and oh, that as “Mr Stuntastic no-kill” I couldn’t save Malik from gun-bunny central.  Great message there designers, that I should have been just shooting everyone and that stealthy no-kill is a no-win approach!)

Yesterday, along with about 175 other librarians* I descended on Birmingham for the first Library Camp UK.  Sadly this didn’t mean pitching some tents in the middle of the James Watt Queensway. What it was (as you’ll find described in 11ty hundred better written and more information packed blogs elsewhere) was an unconference drawing together librarians of every kind in one place and saying – “go educate one another!”  If success is based on volume and excitment, then it was a resounding one – I certainly had an excellent time both during and afterwards.  If anything this may well be the single best event I’ve attended all year, and despite my intention to just go and listen and talk I found myself pitching a session after all.

Rather than try and encapsulate what I took away I thought I’d reflect on what for me were the highs, the bits that need a bit of a rethink and my hopes for next time.

Great things

• The venue, the welcome, the convenience of the parking.  And the cost – a whole pound a head!  What a bargain.  The organising team should justifiably walk around today with the smuggest of expressions on their faces – they’ve absolutely earned the right to strut
• The genuine enthusiasm for all aspects of the profession  from everyone I spoke to.  It created a fabulous buzz.
• Stealing a room over lunch to film with the Weasel.  My thanks to my actors, and yes you’ll see the results soon.
• The diversity of topics.  The diversity of interests.  The openness to learn.
• The high use of social media by most (if not quite all there).
• The conversations (and hugs) I had with people I’ve never met in the flesh before.  Not to mention everyone who name checked or patted Randy Weasel in passing.  I was getting quite jealous by the end.
• Being told by a couple of people that I’d inspired them in one way or another.  Bloody hell, that was a bit of a shocker, deeply flattered and not quite sure how to take it.  Trousers on one leg at a time like everyone else folks.
• All that cake.  While I wasn’t eating any (trying to work on the old llama-waistline at the moment) it looked fab.  Shockingly a load was left behind – was half tempted to go buy some boxes and ship it home for the Wife.
• The lack of agenda that people came with to the event.  I’ve been to some conferences where it’s clear people have a hit list of people to talk to and if you’re not on it, you get bypassed.  Which is down right rude.  At LibCamp if you spoke to someone they talked to you. Aces.
• That it was done and done in a day.  I know some folks stayed over on Fri and Sat nights, but to be able to go and return in a day (given it’s my weekend) was fab.
• The staff at Jesops whom were helpful in my quest for a quick release foot, and then a tripod.
• The pizza and post event companionship.  Topped off the whole event nicely, even if the kitchen staff needed a bit of a poke to speed up their service.  Pizzas were just fab.
• And to be honest the single best thing – the people.  Just the people.  Loud, animated, enthusiastic, engaged, laughing, shouting, passionate and fun people.

The rethinks

• That the parking discount failed to work  Bit of a bum note at the end of a long day.
• Pitching for the sessions in a mad scramble at the start of the day.  I’d have liked half the pitches in the AM and then the rest at lunch – because after the morning what I wanted to hear was going to be very different from right at the start.  I think it would help the evolution of the day’s content.
• Blank sessions or networking ones.  I think a speed-networking one would be a smash – get to know all the people you DON’T know.
• I think there was WiFi – but it wasn’t clear how to log onto it (or maybe that’s just my Android o/s).  I’d hope next time WiFi passwords would be dolled out at the entrance as some of the rooms had pretty ropey mobile signals which restricted tweeting.
• The poet. Amusing (a little) in the morning.  Cringe inducing at the end.  I noticed a fair number of people voted with their feet.  It was a nice idea though to do something different, and I heartily support it – but it just didn’t work for me.
• The staff at Jacobs whom were utterly crap, incoherent and down right couldn’t give a damn when I came asking about tripods and camera shoes.  Never shopping there again!
• Time.  Could time be stretched next time to about a month – I might just then be able to devote the amount of time and attention to everyone I wanted to talk with.  Came back and kept thinking “Arg, only talked to them for two minutes – really meant to go back and talk more but then 5 other people started chatting to me…”  Oh okay, I started chatting to 5 other people  So many great people, so little time…

And next time (and let’s all hope there is a next time!)

• I’m going to pitch a session on stand-up comedy and edutainment in library education.  Not to mention a weasel session, I’m kicking myself for not putting it on the programme.  Hell maybe I should just offer to be the videographer for the day.
• A twitter wall or fountain for the #tagged comments running on a screen in reception.  Especially useful for those of us whose devices argued about getting a signal.
• And given the success of this one – probably an arena sized venue because a whole lot of other people are gonna want to come…

*[Edit: Caveat: Just for Dave P: When I say "librarians" I kinda mean in the way "We're all librarians today!".  Personally I just happen to work in a library as a manger, I'm not really a librarian.  Saying "a group of people whom all have vested interests related to libraries and librarianship, and suppliers and information management, and repositories, and data and education etc" isn't as catchy.  Also remember, saying "I'm a librarian" is a great way to keeping your car insurance low - saying "I work in education"...up it goes!]

And given they’re unplanned not quite sure how the cast are going to react!

I’m doing it for a couple of reasons.  Firstly to see if I can do it.  Those of you whom know me well, know that this is the sort of thing I like.  I’d never done a Marathon before, but when someone asked me to do one this year I went “Yes” straight away (my feet have just about recovered now).  Likewise growing the tache or going vegetarian for a month.  I like meeting a challenge. 

Secondly I think, a bit like my social media holiday, it’s good to shake things up from time to time.  I’ve been making videos for almost 5 years now and after a while you start to feel trapped by a formula of your own devising.  Don’t get me wrong, I like the way most (not all) of my videos turn out – but various people have said to me over the years that some of my best material doesn’t get on-screen because I script, revise and redraft before I film.  So having a chance to do it raw, and effectively live, is a challenge and something creative and new for me.

All the same I’ll be glad come Nov 1st and can sit back and start preparing this year’s Christmas special.  I will still be working on other videos in this time (at weekends only I suspect) so there may be one or two extras – but they’ll be more of the scripted variety.

So please keep watching the videos, posing questions and encouraging me.  Or you might find come 31st October the videos consist entirely of Randy screaming at the camera “Let it end!!! Just let it f*****g end!!!!”

Did you notice?  Three people did I know…

Anyway for one reason or another I decided to take a break from all things social and online, and refocus on the things around me.  It was an interesting experience and I thought that now I’m back I thought I’d share my reflections with you.

Day 1: Resolve not to look at any social media for the whole week.  Realise that this is going to be easy enough in the office as I can just avoid opening Hootsuite or Facebook, but that my phone is going to keep on chirping messages to me.  Search through Android’s menus and find a way to stop the apps updating.  Sadly unlike the Wifi there’s no easy widget to turn it off.  Spend a bit of time in the evening wondering if anything interesting has happened in the world but watch TV instead.

Day 2: The weekend.  Spot something on the Beeb’s news pages that amuses me, and immediately want to share it…and realise the only person I’ve got to talk to is the Wife.  This could be awkward as she’s used to me sharing all the madder bits of my interest online and not bothering her with them.  Looks like she’s in for a tough few days.  Also decide that I’m going to stick this out for the full week at least.  Do flick onto Facebook to clear (but not read) my notifications – don’t want 50 red flags sitting there waiting for me when I come back.  If I come back.

Day 3: Still the weekend.  And slightly break my rules by uploading Doctor WHeasel to YouTube.  Decide that this is in fact part of one of my multiple personalities doing it not me (the Weasel) and that I’m not breaching the self defined regs.  Just resolve not to respond to any comments, and keep running silent.  Interested that despite a quick sneaky look at twitter that no one’s DM’d or @’ed me, so clearly unmissed and unmourned.  Spend a whole 7.5 minutes sulking over that and then slap myself with a wet fish and go to frolic with the chickens in the garden.  Noting that since I’m not social networking that I’ve spent far less time just sat at my PC waiting for input/interaction.  Also realise that this makes me akin to Johnny Five more “Input! Input! Input!” than “No disassemble grasshopper!”

Day 4: Work, well that makes it easier to turn off and tune out the social world; working as I do in an environment that doesn’t exactly encourage but doesn’t forbit social networking.  Come home having spent the whole day twitching slightly and wondering what’s going on in the online world, but forbidding myself to even glance at twitter or Facebook for the whole livelong day to make up for the weekend’s YouTubeing.  Discover glancing at Facebook that the first person has asked where I am (since they can see the Wife’s around).  Drop them an email telling ‘em about my holiday.

Day 5: One of my team asks me to tweet a question they need some insight on.  Eeep.  Bit of a quandary, can’t really tell ‘em I’ve gone offline for a week but at the same time don’t want to slow their work down as it really is a genuine question.  Decide in the end to drop a line to contact in the field Manchester way for their ideas.  That’s not social, right?  Come home to find for the first time that I’ve not really been missing the online back and forth at all.  For a moment remember what it’s like to be outside the world (and how my family must feel when I tell them of the world of social networking).  Not quite an outside view, but it’s a new sensation.  Not since I before joined twitter in Feb 2008 can I remember feeling that way.

Day 6: Midway through the working week and I’ve already settled into a new rhythm of not worrying about the social networking back and forth.  I guess if I had a few more local friends to chat to in the flesh I might worry less about social media as a whole, but since my nearest good friends all live at least 30 minutes away (and most a couple of hours) social networking’s been a real life line.  Tomorrow’s the 7th day and I’m already debating extending the holiday.  Someone else has noticed I’m offline and sent me a DM (which copies to my email) so I tell them about my experiment.

Day 7: Last day in the office (off to speak at a conference in London on Friday) and while I’m looking forward to coming back online, in others I’m less concerned.  Debate making a “DID YOU MISS ME?!” splash, and then decide that would be far too egotistical.  If they missed me they missed me, if they didn’t.  Frak ‘em.  Scan Facebook in the evening to see what people are up to and find the compulsion to comment is quite weak.  Hope I’ve not lost my social voice in a week’s deliberate absence!

Day 8: Heading to London on the train and a 3rd person DMs me to say where have I go. 8 days and just three people have noticed I’m gone from the social interwebs.  Doesn’t say much for social networking as a way to keep an eye on vulnerable people – I could have been locked in my basement for days before anyone even opined where I was, much less anyone develop the conversation.  Conclusion – don’t rely on twitter to tell you grannie’s OK.  Reach conference and within 20 minutes am on the Wifi and have popped my born-again social networking cherry on Facebook and twitter.

Almost feels like I’ve never been away.

So what did I learn?

1. It only takes a few days to lose the social networking twitch.
2. I miss the social aspect more than the professional discussions.
3. Stepping back from the social networks deliberately is well worth trying – if only for a little while – to reevaluate what you use them for and get out of them.
4. Don’t expect family to notice (though I did speak to them through other means, so I guess that’s no shocker).  Unless you’ve thousands of followers or a celeb, don’t expect anyone to much miss you.
5. My Christmas card list this year will have just three people on it Ash, MC and Rach!
6. And finally, I’d do it again and probably will sometime next year.  The extra head-space it gave me from not worrying about the next witty tweet, or if someone would take a tongue in cheek sarcy comment as literal truth was refreshing in the extreme.

And if you don’t believe me – just try it – unannounced.  I’d be interested in how it finds you!

Tonight I had the delight of watching the CILIP AGM live streamed from CILIP Command Centre, Londinium.  I’ve been keeping a low profile CILIP wise in recent weeks since I took my bat and ball home and left Council; frankly I concluded if I wasn’t going to take my chance to have a say there there wasn’t any point tilting at windmills in cyberspace.  But I was persuaded to come out of retirement to take part in the twitter stream for the AGM since, well, now the corporate gagging order no longer applies I could at least have my say as John Q Ordinary (chartered) member.

And tilt at the odd passing windmill.

It was…bloody good fun. And I’m sorry to say I felt like I was able to have a freer dialogue with the oridnary members than I ever was on Council; more’s the pity.  And I learned a few things along the way.

1. Isabel as Chair of Council is a gem at keeping a room and a meeting under control.
2. I’d never ever ever ever want to be treasurer of the organisation.
3. All that reading of names of the dead and the silence…weird.  Unwatchable and uncomfortable. And very old fashioned.
4. There are STILL far too many retired members coming in whom seem to have the time (and bus passes) to get to the meeting and influence policy and decisions on what is a livign breathing organisation. Take their votes away I (still) say.
5. Even when something is voted down, people just won’t let it die (I’m talking about you Mrs “let’s look into what overseas members are paid”
6. The tweeps in the twitter stream were all brilliant.  Shame Council/Trustees aren’t allowed free reign to share their thoughts – given they are the “acme of library advocacy” you’d think they’d* trust them. (*they = CILIP Exec)
7. Phil Bradley entertained me no end by looking a bit bored towards the end.
8. Where. Was. The. President?  [Edit] Scrub that, I as I’ve now been informed why
9. Online voting is a MUST for next year.  Should have it for this year, but the London centricity continues.
10. And if we can’t vote, why not questions from the twitter stream (thought @CILIPInfo did a splendid job of chipping in where he could all the same)?
11. WordShore broke me many many times with his quips.
12. Shouting/laughing/raging at the screen is so much more fun than sitting in a room in a posh frock trying to look serious and senatorial.  I don’t do those.  I do professional and manic instead.
13. Lots about what we’re doing for the sector.  Not much about what we’re doing for the ordinary member in the street.  Which these days is moi.
14. Can we not bring in a Vengeance of Varos style audience voting system?  Not for the Council and CEO, more for the daft headed questioners frankly – sorry your 15 seconds is up…
15. £5 more quid a year is bringing it awfully close to 200 quid for membership – beyond that I think it’s gonna shed members like dandelion seeds in a hurricane.
16. And finally – especial kudos to those tweeters in the room for keeping it real, interesting and not snoring too much in the disciplinary regulations bit.

Without a doubt, the most enjoyable CILIP meeting I wasn’t at and yet attended.  Still should have asked the Chair whom her favourite Doctor Who was under AOB thought

The march did fill column inches in lazy dead tree press organs and give the chattering classes on main stream media something to pontificate about.  And I suspect that epetitions will go much the same way.  Look at all the news articles this week about people calling for the return of the death penalty!  And then more people calling for the death penalty to stay away thanks awfully. And so on and so on.  Given the population of the UK is around 70 million these days (90% of whom live inside the M25 I assume given the media’s focus on events there) 15,000 people is just over 0.02% of the population, so essentially statistically irrelevant.

As of this entry here are the top petitions that are still live.

1. Petition to retain the ban on Capital Punishment
2. CHEAPER PETROL AND DIESEL, BY ROBERT HALFON MP AND FAIRFUEL UK
3. Keep Formula 1 Free To Air in the UK View
4. Restore Capital Punishment
5. Britain wants referendum to leave EU
6. Legalise cannabis
7. Hold a referendum on withdrawing from the EU
8. End mass immigration

To be honest I’m glad that your average petition completing loon(who is happy to give away their name, address, email and mad views to a government they clearly don’t trust) rates keeping the death penalty at bay.  I’d vote for that, but I ain’t wasting my time on no petition.  The rest of it though increasingly reads like the pages of BBC Have Your Say or the Daily Mail/Express (can anyone honestly tell those two apart these days?).  I’m sure many an MP or their speech writers will mine these expressions of “belief” come the next election.

That said, the most shocking thing is how badly most of the petitions (even some of the one’s the above with their teeny tiny ground swell of opinion) are written.  I don’t claim to be a great writer (or even a semi-competent one, something about grammar I’m sure I should rememebr…oh wait-everything!) but honestly do these people even think before pressing keys.  I mean Robert Halfon MP doesn’t even know about NOT SPEAKING IN CAPS.  Don’t know the chap, but I assume he doesn’t follow the school of SHOUT, SHOUT and SHOUT again when giving orders.  Or maybe he is General Sir Anthony Cecil Hogmanay Melchett.

Oh, and here are a few of my favourite ones I’ve come across to date.

So for those of you who might still want to have a pop at one of these, after an extensive reading of far too many of these damned things, here are Llordllama’s rules for Writing a Half-Decent ePetition

1. Avoid writing in plain, clear English.  The more flowery phrases you can throw in, especially half remembered Latin vocab pro hoc ad astra, the better!
2. The title of the petition must be suitable for publication as the Daily Mail’s headline of the day “All immigrants to stop stealing my cheese“, “Gay traffic cones to be removed from Cheltenham by Wednesday” or “The Prime Minister must speak out about pedestrian crossings on my street“
3. Must  contain the phrase “everyone knows that…” or “we all know that” or similar for perceived “common knowledge”.  You are writing as the Voice of Britain after all!
4. IF IT IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO BE A PETITION THEN IT IS IMPORTANT ENOUGH TO BE  BE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS
5. People’s attention spans are short – don’t give them a chance to click off without signing by ending a sentence!  Ensure your entire petition is a single sentence three paragraphs long without pausing for breath or any semblance of punctuation.  That way by the end they’ll be so weary people will just be grateful to sign.
6. Ensure your gramophone is blasting out the the tune of God Save the Queen (Pistols or traditional, your call)  in the background as you type.  It will help the hate flow…sorry, words flow.
7. For the love of Jovis, don;’t ask anyone else about your idea.  That would risk sullying or watering it down – it needs to go out to the world untainted by the ideas of others.  If you must, only share it with your closest drinking companions before writing it.
8. Write what you want to say.  Then read it aloud.  If you don’t quite capture the ground pleasing demagogue of Hitler or Mosley, complete with hand gestures, then rewrite it.  Petitions are designed to SHOUT INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S BRAINS remember.
9. Try and make sure you include hot buzz words out of OK, Heat or Sky News.  Extra points for Pedo, Death Sentence, Criminal Scum, Schools, Fiasco or Podiatrist!
10. If at all possible try and make sure that your petition defies the laws of good sense, taste or basic physics.

Hopefully by trying to remember these rules – there’s a good chance your petition will not only garner a few like-minded folks to sign it, but will get picked up in the media.  Whom will raise the question with some poor junior minister, and we can all enjoy watching them squirm on Newsnight (or just the edited highlights on 60 seconds on BBC3 for the majority of you).

Actually I lied – there is one epetition that needs your support, needs it right now.  Please go sign it, and let’s show the rest of these epetition writers what Britain really thinks…honest

Getting the research already in there used.

Librarians, for all their faults, are all about building great big collections of objects that are meticulously catalogued according to archaic and intricate laws that make AD&D or Warhammer 40k rules look like simplicity itself!  For generations they’ve squirreled together buildings full of big papery volumes which feel like they are developed according to the Field of Dreams maxim “If you build it, they will come.”  More stuff for the sake of completeness.

In this modern age of librarianship thankfully people are slowly coming to realisation that no one location or library can ever hold everything that people want.  Yes, not even the British Library folks.  And this is a good thing which means in time librarians will focus more on enabling access.

But what about repositories?  You see the problem is that the underlying and false assumption that predicates the library driven collection building policies of most institutional repositories is that every single academic’s publications are of the same value.  They might well be in the myriad of academic spheres within which they each research, but these readers are likely to have already read the publications.  The big bonus of repositories is that they are readable outside the silos of academia in the great beyond – the world we call the rest of the world.  And it’s in the rest of the world where the major economic benefit and impact from the research can be realised.

Commercial bodies don’t buy many, if any, research journals.  Where do they turn when they need to find some exploitable research?  Sure they can pay the British Library an arm and a leg for a commercial copy of an article, but with limited funds that’s a dying art.  Chances are these days the smart ones turn to a repository.  Which means for academics, if you’re not putting your work in the repository; well good luck holding onto your funding over the next 10 years as you’re for all intents and purposes utterly invisible.  The likelihood of someone wanting to collaborate with you, or heaven forbid take your work and make a REFable impact with it are as next to zero as you’re likely to find outside of the Maths’ dept.

Want to demonstrate real economic value of the repository – get what is in there used.  What I believe  repository managers should be focussing on is getting the most out of what we’ve got.  Sure get it indexed well, get it OCRed if you can and share it left right and centre through the social web (although truth be told you need the academics to embrace that ideal as well).  The sad metric of number of items, so beloved it seems by most senior managers, is a tawdry tin cup to the golden path of the actual usage of the materials in the right markets.

Of course the tricky thing is always going to demonstrate that it was from the repository that the multi-million pound deal with a major international drug company came about.  Which is why repository managers need to forge strong links with outward facing business and enterprise units.  Get yourself on their agenda when they meet local (and not so local) companies.  Capture those rare occasions where you do get a CEO mentioning that they found the work in the repository, these kind of tales might be anecdotal but you can bet the VC’ll stand up and take note when names are named; far more than a bar chart no matter how many colours you use.

Forget the academic audiences, forget the metrics of number of items, and forget student use.  These are all false friends. Focus on the golden treasures within and market them to the world.  That’s how repositories can make a real economic difference to their institutions, authors and hell in the long run Britain.

But for now I guess we’ll all have to keep focussing on stuffing them full of more fluff, and rather than shining our light upon the real treasures that lie buried deep within.  Unless we can all somehow get senior managers to break their ingrained librarian thinking.

No nothing to do with libraries.  But I’m quite pleased with this one…