— I'm Timothy Greig. I live in Wellington, New Zealand, and work
for AIM Proximity. I'm interested in game design, information architecture, librarianship, and transmedia storytelling. Updates? — Try the RSS.

I’m very happy to say that I have been successful in my recent application for the position of Assistant Librarian at the Victoria University Architecture & Design Library! All right!

I went up to Wellington on the Monday before last for my interview, and to visit the Architecture & Design campus. The Te Aro campus (where my library is) is a considerable way away from the main university; a twenty minute walk down a steep Wellingtonian hill.

When I finally arrived at the big red building, the first thing I noticed was the student projects hanging up in the large atrium area that connects the departments and the library. I was thrilled to see that they were creative architectural concepts for a new Upper Hutt Public Library!

That’s not the only interesting project that the A&D faculty are working on. The Digital Media Design department are working on an online space for teaching and learning in Second Life! (more…)

I’ve applied for a job in Wellington! It’s the position of Assistant Librarian, at the Architecture & Design Library at Victoria University. With Michelle trying for a Capital City job as well (at the Office of Film and Literature Classification) and as I’m nearning the completion of my Masters in Library and Information Studies, I’ve decided this is a good time to explore the different (and more professional!) possibilities that might be open to me.

Some of the key result areas outlined in the role description hint at it being quite an exciting position, which could give me the opportunity to expand on my existing skills. In particular, I think I’d be able to build on my experience developing of online documentation and websites to support student learning (I’ve been allowed to experiment in this area through my work at StudentNet). I would also welcome the chance to apply what I’ve learned through the MLIS in what looks to be a challenging, and changing environment.

Four of the Key Result Areas outlined in the Role Description seem particularly interesting. The job would involve:

• Taking primary responsibility for the development, implementation and evaluation of Web and paper-based publications to assist Library users,
• Maintaining and developing current awareness service for academic staff and students,
• Maintaining and developing the Architecture and Design Library Group’s presence on the Library’s intranet,
• Managing and updating the Architecture and Design Library’s web pages. (more…)

I’ve decided to suspend my MA thesis, for about a year and a half, to pursue the Master of Library and Information Studies, a professional library course taught from Victoria University, Wellington. I’m going to be taking the course via correspondence, however – so I can keep working at MacMillan Brown while I study part time. I’m hoping that my studies toward the MLIS will help to focus and clarify my ideas for my MA, so when I resume it, it’ll be even more interesting!

I’ve been installed in room 420 for most of this past year, and over that time my collection of things to terrify my colleagues and the lecturers upstairs in American Studies has truly grown. I am most proud to present you with a flikr photo tour of my office! Keep a close eye out for the annotations.

I’ve organised the few of my wedding photos that are uploaded to the web into a flickr group. The group can be found here.

It’s official: I start work this coming monday as a ‘continuing’ Library Assistant for the Macmillan Brown Library here at Canterbury University (part-time, of course)! What’s more, I get to keep my old job on the after-hours team as well! I’m very pleased about getting this position; I really enjoy being a librarian.

I am especially looking forward to getting a look behind the scenes in MB’s basement. I imagine it to be like Terry Pratchett’s Unseen University Library. I’ve tried to find some quotes describing it, but they don’t quite match what’s in my mind, still -

The layout of the Library of Unseen University was a topographical nightmare, the sheer presence of so much stored magic twisting dimensions and gravity into the kind of spaghetti that would make M.C.Escher go for a good lie down, or possibly sideways.

It’s generally very quiet in the Unseen University library. There’s perhaps the shuffling of feet as wizards wander between shelves, the occasional hacking cough to disturb the academic silence, and every once in a while a dying scream as an unwary student fails to treat an old magical book with the caution it deserves.

In most old libraries the books are chained to the shelves to prevent them being damaged by people. In the library of the Unseen University, of course, it’s more or less the other way about.

…Those descriptions all sound rather dangerous. Jill Durnie, the Macmillan Brown Library Assistant Manager, did mention jokingly that they occasionally lose librarians down in the basement.

I found an interesting flickr photogroup of librarians’ desks from all around the globe, by way of librarian.net. I’d love to contribute pictures of the main desks at our libraries to the collection. I will see if it’s okay for me to take pictures of the basement, too, to put up on this site.