Busy day today. First session was with John Tuck the Director of Library Services at the Royal Holloway, University of London who talked about libraries as social learning spaces. Really interesting slide show of Royal Holloway and one of their new library spaces which incorporates movable walls and furniture, white boards, interactive technology and a Japanese tea house with tea and sushi as snacks.
The second session was Future Directions for Academic Libraries presented by Anne Bell, University Librarian for University of Warwick. She also spoke on libraries as social learning spaces and the changing face of the needs of academic libraries.
Following lunch we were back at the New Bodleian Library for a tour of the John Johnson Collection of Printed Ephemera and a glimpse into the digitization of the collection. Ephemera is everything that would normally be thrown away, such as playbills, political pamphlets, menus, invitations, handouts and the collection covers hundreds of years and subject headings. My favorite were the handouts that were passed out before murder trials and executions. Fascinating collection.
After dinner a few of us went to the Eagle and Child Pub (everyone here calls it the Bird and the Baby, pic above is me in the pub) which is right around the corner from our flat. The pub was famous as the meeting place of The Inklings which included writers Tolkien (Lord of the Rings) and C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia). A tiny pub where you can enjoy a pint (served lukewarm) in the room they met in for more than 20 years. You can see pics of the pub at the Wikipedia entry here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inklings
After the pub we watched Manchester United lose to Barcelona in the Champions League Final, bummer...would have been a party in England if they'd won.
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