Tom Roper's Weblog

Ascot and Haydock

Kauto Star has his first run since his Gold Cup victory at Cheltenham in the Betfair Chase at Haydock this afternoon. For a while I had my eye on the main challenger, Notre Pere, but I doubt that he can come back after his fall at Down Royal earlier in the month.

Today's selections:

205 Ascot: Master Medic
220 Haydock: Naiad du Misselot
235 Ascot: Katchit
255 Haydock: Kauto Star

JISC Collections AGM

I've recorded most of today's JISC Collections AGM on twitter: see the tweets at the hashtag #jcagm for my and others versions of the event. However, for some of the day the wifi let me down, and I also wanted to add some thoughts on one of the presentations.

Digital Images for Education is a project funded by a VAT windfall JISC enjoyed to provide recent, that is from the past twenty-five years, digital content for schools and further and higher education. Michael Upshall took us through the project, which will provide 500 hours of video, around 30 terabytes of data, as well as 56,000 still images. His part of the project does not include delivery: the images are to be made available in the summer of 2010, The central problems they had to face are those of duplication, variations in metadata and the amount of time necessary to evaluate images

Michael then showed us pictures of Eric Clapton, the late Queen Mother, Jerry Hall and Giles Brandreth and asked if the audience would accept them for the project. We said no.

I enjoyed James Clay's passionate statement of the case for technology in education, though I found it hard to recognise the further education college I work in, with guns, gangs and knives, in the picture he painted of the sector. I wondered, too, as he spoke of the transforming power of technology with failing courses if that was really the whole of the story. Giving a bad teacher or unmotivated learner an iPod Touch does not of itself change that situation. Heaven knows my own institution needs considerable investment in computing, in the infrastructure and in people with the skills necessary to run college computing in the 21st century and to change the learner experience into something modern. But there's more to it than that.

Cheltenham Open Meeting: the second day

Undeterred by the weather, and with a strike rate of 50% from yesterday, I offer my selections for today, the day of the Paddy Power Gold Cup Chase.
12.50: Pistolet Noir
1.20: Toby Jug
1.55: Miko De Beauchaine
235: Chapoturgeon
310: Le Beau Bai
345: Dinarius

Cheltenham Open Meeting: the first day

The Open meeting at Cheltenham starts with Countryside Day, and the centrepieces of the six-race card are the paddypower.com Handicap Chase over two miles and the Glenfarclas Cross Country Chase over three miles and seven furlongs. In the former, I see no real challenge to French Opera, in the latter, though the betting suggests a two horse affair between Garde Champetre and Silver Birch, I think the reality is more complex and, after considering some of the Czech and Scandinavian entries, I go for Mr Big.

115: Mister Apple's
150: Loosen My Load
235: French Opera
300: Mr Big
335: Lord Ragnar
405: Aigle d'Or

Open access in the Times Higher Education: learning to share

I haven't read them yet, but there's two long articles in the new Times Higher Education on open access

A free public library?

Carl Clayton makes a good point on the SINTOblog. His question on the legal basis under the Public Libraries and Museums Act 1964 for charging at different rates for reserving items held in other libraries in the same authority, and those obtained from outside the authority, will send chief librarians scurrying to their council solicitors.

Reservation charges have always seemed to me a tax on the purposive reader, and unjustifiable. It occurs to me too that the Easyjet approach to public services which Conservative councils such as Barnet are now introducing, by which the council provides a very basic, poor-quality service free of charge, and then makes the user pay for anything extra, has been pioneered by public libraries for many decades.

See A free public library? for the original post

My dream job

I have found my niche at last . University College London are looking for a Deputy Zebrafish Facility Manager. How difficult can this be? A few handfuls of ant eggs every so often, and a careful eye on the water temperature are all that's required. For the rest if the time, I'd work on my novel, you know, the one that's going to change the way the world looks at fictional narrative.

Not that I'd neglect my charges. I'd give them all names beginning with Z : Zachary, Zedekia, Zelda, Zenobia, Zeus, Zöe, Zuleika. I'd play fishy games with them to keep them amused. I might even bring my cat Eustace to visit.

Bonfire advice for visitors: don't

I spent an agreeable bonfire evening at Newhaven and Seaford Sailing Club yesterday. There are more photos on Flickr . Like most non-Sussex natives, I find bonfire puzzling. On the one hand, in the pages of the Argus I find Norman Baker, the local MP, and David Quinn, President of the Lewes Chamber of Commerce, lauding the event for the number of visitors it attracts to the town and the money they spend (how? all the pubs are shut or ticket-only); on the other, on their website the Lewes Bonfire Council express hostility to non-Lewesians who try to attend. They clearly belive that no one who cannot trace descent back to the seventeen martyrs burned by Bloody Mary should not set foot in the town, though nearly all the martyrs came form outside the town. '[We urge]...people living outside the town not to try to attend the annual 5 November [...] celebrations. The event is a Lewes tradition going back many years and allows the people of the town to celebrate the ancient tradition of Bonfire'. Do they stand at the blocked entrances to the town and at the train station to check birth certificates?

Photographing libraries

Like many in this great profession of ours, I visit other libraries, for many reasons: to satisfy my curiosity, to learn about new services, to see how libraries are run in different sectors and countries. Sometimes I go with a group on an organised visit, sometimes under my own steam. I often take photographs.

I was interested, therefore, to read about Jessamyn West's experience at Des Moines public library. Jessamyn and Karen Schneider, two of the doyennes of US library blogging, were forbidden to take photographs by a library employee. Jessamyn reproduces the subsequent exhcnages with the library's Marketing Director.

Carolyn E Wright, on her PhotoAttorney blog, outlines the US law on this question, but English law will be different, and her site links to a UK Photographers Rights Guide, hosted by a stock photography agency. I cannot speak for its accuracy.

I always ask someone if I may take photographs. No one has ever refused me, though sometimes there is a lot of to-ing and fro-ing while the library staff try to work out who holds the power to say yes or no.

See my Flickr photos tagged with library. I illustrate this post with a slightly unfortunate juxtaposition of signs in my new Learning Resource Centre. The LRC is not, contrary to appearances, sponsored by a bloated multinational chain serving atrocious coffee.

Wincanton and Down Royal

I steer well clear of the Breeders' Cup. I don't follow American racing closely enough to be able to make informed judgements. So I have stuck to today's racing at Down Royal and Wincanton.

Wincanton 215: Whiteoak
Down Royal 230: My Will
Wincanton 325: The Package