Dr Rónán O’Beirne’s Weblog

Education; Technology; Digital Transformation; Information & Knowledge Management; Librarianship; Digital Leadership

Having booked onto the Library and Information Science Research Coalition’s inaugural conference at the British Library and then realising that I had already booked a weekend in Dublin I needed careful planning to get from Dublin to London on the morning of Monday June 28th in time for the 10:30 conference start. This involved exquisite timing all enhanced by realtime information on my iphone! The Aircoach trip across a waking Dublin to the newly built Airport; the chaos of  a full security check – belt, shoes – “switch on your laptop please sir”. “Switch off your phone – please sir” All surrounded by sleepy holiday makers. Then to the debacle of the RyanAir non-queue then onto the aircraft and the relentless up-selling of products ranging from a full breakfast through to smokeless cigarettes. Our landing in Luton Airport amid some minor turbulence was greeted by spontaneous applause from some less weary passengers. Monitoring our speed using my iPhone’s GPS I noted we hit the tarmac at about 120mph! The shuttle bus from the airport to Luton Parkway rail station is a bendy bus – nothing against such vehicles except there are 4 mini-roundabouts which we negotiated at snails pace (sort that out please people of Luton) thus upon leaving the bus required me to dash to catch the Brighton bound train – packed and overheated – to St Pancras reaching an impressive yet shaky top speed of 111mph near St Albans. A purposeful walk through crowds clinging to their coffee-cups took me to the British Library where, on entering the auditorium the facilitator was asking the audience to switch-off their mobile phones. Now that’s timing. Phew.

(1) Greene, Graham (1969) Travels with my Aunt and Isherwood, Christopher (1935) Mr Norris Changes Trains 

I travelled to the JISC YH Regional Support Centre’s Summer Conference at the Rose Bowl – Leeds Metropolitan University – a wonderful venue. The conference was well attended and the programme engaging and informative. The debate at the close was interesting. Expertly chaired by Ali-Marie Ladwa e-Learning Advisor (HE), (pictured centre in full-flow), the topic was based on the controversial use of mobile (phone) technology in the classroom and it generated a lot of good discussion. I also attended a session on i-Tunes U led by Luke Fieldhouse from Apple, which has given me some ideas about generating learning content that I plan to develop further in the coming months. I had been on a MoleNet training event some weeks back at Burnley College on how to use the i-Phone for teaching and learning and Luke had presented there too – its good that Apple are having a presence at such events. Further information on the JISC Summer Conference is available from here

“The summer evening had begun to fold the world in its mysterious embrace. Far away in the west the sun was setting and the last glow of all too fleeting day lingered lovingly on sea and strand, on the proud promontory of dear old Howth guarding as ever the waters of the bay, on the weedgrown rocks along Sandymount shore and, last but not least, on the quiet church whence there streamed forth at times upon the stillness the voice of prayer to her who is in her pure radiance a beacon ever to the storm-tossed heart of man, Mary, star of the sea.”
Joyce, J Ulysses pp329 Bodley Head 1941 or in later editions e.g. Penguin, the opening paragraph of Chapter 13.

Portrait of the Writer

Today, if you stand in the same spot as Bloom did on Sandymount strand I think you might not only see the spire of the Star of the Sea church but also perhaps the top of the newly built Aviva stadium which replaces the Lansdowne Road rugby ground. Joyce although attending two great Jesuit rugby playing schools; Glongowes College just outside Dublin and  Belvedere College in the heart of the city, was himself not a player. His schooldays are well documented by Fr. Bruce Bradley SJ who incidently was my (very patient) Latin teacher and also my rugby trainer while I was at Belevedere.

The paragraph I quote above begins one of my favourite chapters.  It also reminds me of the final parts of the short story in Dubliners entitled ‘The Dead’. It also raises a question for the many Joycean scholars as to how many churches are named in the works of JJ. Not an easy one, for example  “riverrun past Eve and Adams from swerve of shore to bend of bay…” the opening (or is it the closing?) line of Finnegans Wake refers to the church of St Francis of Assisi known to locals as Adam and Eves on the Liffey.

Today  is known as Bloomsday; the 16th June 1904 is the day on which all the action in Ulysses takes place – Leopold Bloom – the wandering Jew – embarks on an odyssey through the streets of Dublin his inner thoughts and encounters form the basis of this wonderfully evocative depiction of Edwardian Dublin.

In 1988 I took part in the ‘Bloomsday tour’ and the celebrations in Dublin – this coincided with the Millennium celebrations of the city it having been founded in 988. I thoroughly enjoyed the day and was interviewed by a US TV station as I sat in Davy Byrne’s pub drinking a large brandy and port a medicinal necessity to sustain my body and mind for the 18 hours of daylight.  It being pre-web days  I  never saw the broadcast.  I often wonder what a similar adventure might be like now.  I did have a vague idea that to design an iPhone app that provided rich media content (for example there is a lot of music in Ulysses), might be popular but an even better project would be to consider how the characters would behave and interact were they to have had todays technologies! What would Molly’s txt msgs to Blazes Boylan have contained? Would Bloom ditch his interior monologue in favour of Twitter? What wonders would we find on Buck Mulligan’s blog?

Enjoy the day!

James Joyce - by me this morning!

Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh 1904 -1967 who's estate had been subject to copyright issues.

On my recent visit to Dublin I was interested to read in the Irish Times on Monday  24th May, about what appears to be a highly-significant ruling by the Irish High Court and one which could set a precendent across Europe for curtailing online music theft and intellectual property right infringment. The Irish internet service provider Eircom Ireland (defendent) reached an agreement with plaintiffs; EMI Records Ireland Limited, SonyMusic Ireland, Universal Music and Warner Music, whereby copyright infringers are identified and after a warning letter their connection to the internet will cease. Eircom (not the only internet service provider in Ireland) has undertaken to clamp down on a percentage of offenders as part of the settlement. The implications are potentially far reaching and many are watching closely to see how workable the arrangement might be. If it proves to be a deterrent then it is likely that other ISPs across the EU may come under pressure to put similar systems in place.

The Irish Times paper reported the court ruling here.

The full ruling from the Irish High Court can be found here

Lynn Silipigni Connaway and Timothy J. Dickey, from OCLC Research have authored a paper for JISC on information seeking behaviours in academic libraries titled: The Digital Information Seeker: Report of the Findings from Selected OCLC, RIN, and JISC User Behaviour Projects available here

The now sadly typical, yet nonetheless critical, issue of information literacy is of course evident in this report but of equal interest is what seems  like a list of issues emerging for academic libraries, which are repeated below.

• Collaboration is vital for the survival of universities

• Existing funding arrangements stifle universities’ potential for creativity and innovation

• The US model of higher education is an example of how cooperation and competition can breed excellence

• The most competitive institutions are the most collaborative

Just some of the discussion points from a recent symposium on the future of Higher Educaiton facilitated by Education Guardian and JISC see here for the Guardian’s report.
‘The context for discussion was set by the recent Demos pamphlet by Peter Bradwell, The Edgeless University, which argues that the current financial crisis in higher education presents an opportunity for the “rebirth” of universities if they are willing to collaborate, embrace technology and offer more flexible provision.’
The Edgeless University –  is well worth a read and while it only begins to scratch the surface (presumably it had to be in the ‘quick reads’ category for important people to find the time to read it) it does make a good start. The Guardian debate itself seems to have taken it further even if the timing is not good with UK Higher (and Further) Education, sandwiched bewteen economic gloom and a general  election. The  danger is that what should be seen as a great  opportunity may instead be seen as a threat.

Note: The original article in the Education Guardian listed the participants and these can be found by following this link to the “At the table” article

AR – Augmented Reality  part of  Mediated Reality is the big new thing I thought this video on the use of augmented reality in book production and in learning development was worth sharing. It does give an insight to the way these technologies will become important over the coming decade.

David Hockney, Bigger Trees Near Warter or/ou Peinture sur le motif pour le nouvel age post- photographique, 2007. Photo by David Hockney / Richard Schmidt, © David Hockney

The frontcover of the latest edition of the journal Modern Painters (April 2010), shelved face-on in the serials section of the Art Library, 6th Floor Grove Library, caught my eye as it carries a photograph of our most distinguished alumnus – David Hockney. Marina Cashdan’s feature article on the 72 year-old Bradford painter and digital technology enthusiast is based on a recent interview at the artist’s home in Bridlington.

While the piece carries some interesting aspects of Hockney’s character (where perhaps his Englishness is accentuated by/for this New York-centric journal) what is of real interest to me are the techniques he uses to construct his paintings. The image above is compiled of 50 smaller canvases (36×48 inches).

As the article explains “He transports the canvases to the woods and paints en plein air, mounting one or more at a time onto easels. Returning to his studio at the end of the day, he combines them to form giant multicanvas pictures. Bigger Trees Near Warter, 2007, which debuted in the Royal Academy’s 2007 summer show, is composed of 50 canvases measuring a combined 15 by 40 feet and controversially took up an entire wall in the main gallery (“I didn’t want any other works to go up next to it,” Hockney says mischievously).”

The current issue of Modern Painters is available in the College Grove Library along with a number of other art journals and an excellent collection of art books. To access the journal online visit the ArtInfo website.

As noted in an earlier post, with Bradford College as the sponsor, I am on the governing body of the Appleton Academy. I also attend the design group meetings where for the past year or so we have been looking, along with representatives of the Bradford public library service at the feasibility of developing a joint-use facility. With the high number of stakeholders involved the process has been complex and at times difficult. The local public library in Wyke has been in need of repair for some time and the main impetus for the local authority has been to see a new library for the community. The Academy, unique for its all-through provision,  in turn sees benefits in having a prestigious community library provision within its building offering extended out of hours services. Bradford College sees the potential for lifelong learning provision within this community venue.

The potential for economies of scale through linkages, both physical and strategic , between the Academy’s learning resource centre and the public library will now be realised following a decision by the Bradford Council’s Executive on March 30th to go ahead with its part of the scheme.

Professionally the challenge for those of us involved is to design and deliver a superb facility fit for the local community.

I was very pleased to be invited onto the board of the Bradford Textile Archive and to be involved in its future. As a librarian it is deeply exciting to come into contact with primary source material and a professional challenge to ensure the integrity of the collection is not simply preserved but, rather more importantly, is exploited to the full for the local people and for those further afield who have a genuine interest in the collection. Moreover the technical difficulties of digitising materials that are essentially appreciated through 3D rather than 2D photography make for interesting times ahead.

No time has been wasted in getting a bid organised to a national agency for some funding to digitise the collection and that has already been submitted. Also on the international front we are developing a bid through a consortium of educational establishments including Universities from Serbia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Japan to digitise and disseminate the collection more widely.

A brief description of the Bradford Textile Archive is reproduced here from its publicity brouchure:

The wide assortment of material comprising the Bradford College Textile Archive is symbolic of Bradford’s rich heritage and current regeneration. The collection has steadily been accumulating since the Bradford Technical School opened its doors in 1882, to deliver textiles education and training to support local industry and owes much to the support and patronage of former students of the College and also to those in the local textiles industry who have over the years generously donated materials and artefacts. The collection continues to be used by local students and in turn, they contribute examples of their own work, thus continuing to build the collection with contemporary products. Community members are continuing to donate to the archive, the most recent being costume from a member of Bradford’s German community. The Bradford College Textile Archive consists of a diverse range of textiles and related materials from fine silk jacquards, rayon, velvets, mohair and woollens and worsteds dating from over the last 150 years. The collection includes twenty-six bound volumes of Textile Fabrics of India, demonstrating the strong ties between the Bradford Textile industry and the Indian sub continent; unique student work books dating from the mid to late Victorian period; a comprehensive range of text books, journals and other printed publications; approximately 10,000 samples drawn from manufacturers pattern books including Bilbille and other international forecasting references, a large number of fabric sample books including the collections of Hind Robinson and Denholme Velvets; and a collection of records, minute books, ledgers and cash books from various textile organisations. The collection has recently been re-housed in the college building affectionally known as The Old Building which was originally built in 1882 for the “purpose of imparting to youths, artisans and others, technical and scientific, artistic and general instruction” in textile manufacturing.