Hi All,
We here at Ipswich campus turn 10 today and have spent the morning celebrating. Happy Birthday us.
I hope you are all ready for the new semester; it’s going to be a beauty. There are a couple of things I wanted to discuss today, one wonderful, one I’m not sure about. Firstly, did you know that scientists have discovered a new element? I guess that means that every periodic table in existence will need to be replaced, more work for messieurs Mendeleev and Meyer (or their descendents anyway). I have a problem with it though! This new element is manmade, as are about 26 other so called elements. Isn’t that the same as me walking into the forest with a black marker pen drawing a band around an antechinus and saying I have discovered a new species: the black banded antechinus? Well if this gets you goat, if you think these scientists are kidding, if you think it’s baaaad science the second thing I wish to discuss will warm your heart. The good people of Barcaldine in outback Queensland are planning the world’s first goat museum, to be opened in 2010. The goat museum will rival tourist hotspots such as the museum of barbed wire in Kentucky and the spam museum in Minnesota.
I have noticed that many of our Museum management books have been checked out by a bevy of Barcaldine based UQ students and staff so you know it’s going to be good.
Marcos

Hi All,
I must begin this weeks blog with a warning, there are fraudsters out there! Australian astronomer Dr. Simon O’Toole has suggested that, due to the gravitational force exerted by Jupiter, the planet Mercury could be pulled out of its solar orbit creating a possible galactic catastrophe. Mercury could be pulled into a collision course with Venus which could in turn collide with the Earth. Dr O’Toole has suggested that there is a 1% chance that this could happen within the next 1 billion years! Although Dr O’Toole advises us not to panic, the prospect of chunks of Venus thousands of miles across hurtling towards our homes and loved ones would seem to leave us with little option, after all a lump of rock probably only ten miles across was enough to kill the dinosaurs and leave a crater in the Yucatan peninsula that can be seen from space. Enter the fraudsters! There have been people going door to door selling a product called Venus-Shield, which claims to be able protect households from the deadly impact of a one thousand mile long chunk of Venus travelling at a 500 miles per second. Although the purchase of this product may initially bring peace of mind, the fine print indicates that the actual protective device, to be activated when necessary, is a wooden stick seven feet long with which the hurtling chunk can be pushed away as it approaches. The experts tell me that the stick is neither long enough nor of sufficient quality for such a task.

The only way to avoid being duped by such charlatans is to keep well informed. The greatest source of information, and misinformation, we have is the internet. Not all information comes from reputablewebsite.com or with reassuring messages such as “As similar to seen on TV”. Fortunately here at the library we have created a “How-to” guide entitled “Internet resource evaluation” ,which can be found at http://www.library.uq.edu.au/ssah/useits/inteval.pdf , to help you.
Enjoy your break.
Marcos

Hi All,
Big news this week! The one millionth word has been added to the English language, or so says the Global Language Monitor. The word is “Web 2.0”. However, before “Web 2.0” goes out to get a “1 Million” number plate for it’s Ferrari, there may be some issues to resolve. I can recall being punished mercilessly by my grade three teacher for putting a number in a sentence rather than spelling it out as a word. Can a word have a number in it? Microsoft Word, the doyen of all things spelling, which after all is the source most of us rely on, doesn’t attempt to correct any word with a number in it, so Web 2.0 and Bofdjig8 are treated equally. To get another authoritative view I went to the Oxford English Dictionary online, which can be reached via the dropdown “toolkit” menu on the Library home page and selecting “Quick Reference”. I put in Web 2.0 and got no hits. I thought this is probably unfair, Web 2.0 being a relatively new “word” and the OED not being one to rush into adding new words. So I put in another word with a number in it that has been around a bit longer: Blink182. Again no hits, the GLM’s view is looking decidedly shaky. “Word” also considers Web 2.0 as two words with regard to word count. The 1,000,001st (sorry Mrs. Bryant) word according to GLM is “Financial Tsunami”. Isn’t that two words? Is two words two words? Confused?…. me too.
Good Luck with exams,
Marcos

Hi All,
It’s the Queen’s Birthday weekend, woohoo long weekend. As wonderful as it is to have a holiday, this whole thing is shrouded in confusion. It’s not the day the Queen was born and it is celebrated on the second Monday in June. This is the case in all Australian states except WA who seem even more confused than we are. There is a plus side to this for the Queen. Celebrating birthdays began as a way to protect people from evil spirits that could have greater power over a person when there was a significant event, such as turning a year older. Friends would gather and make lots of noise and make it unpleasant for the evil spirits (and the neighbours). To have as a celebration date the 2nd Monday in June, would indicate a desire to measure in weekly increments rather than yearly increments as the interval between one and the next cannot be measured accurately in years but can be measured accurately in weeks. Why not measure birthdays in weeks? There would be so many occasions to celebrate, surely the effects of the evil spirits per event would be diminished, after all the Queen is approx 4300 weeks old. Accuracy being such an important and desirable quality in society today I feel it is our duty, if the Queen’s birthday is to be described in such a way, to lobby that this holiday be celebrated weekly rather than annually. Who wants to get the ball rolling? I think all the information you will need to make this happen will be held within the Walter Harrison Law Library. Good Luck we are all behind you.

Congratulations to Michael Gardner who won the Robison Gold top “Les Paul” in the student Music Trivia.
Marcos

Hi All,
I’m sorry that for the last couple of weeks this blog hasn’t appeared. Unfortunately I accidentally uploaded them onto the site of a New Zealand couple who immediately disappeared overseas with them. INTERPOL and the good people from MySpace are doing everything they can to retrieve them.
This week is diversity week, the week when we should be celebrating each other’s gifts and foibles and yet the foul stench of bigotry still pervades our lives! I was listening to some colleagues discuss an event that had gone awry. They said “it had gone pear shaped”. Pears are a noble fruit favoured in ancient times by Homer and have been enjoyed by all for centuries, yet now this gentle fruit is being vilified for it’s very shape? for shame. Why do we not say it has gone “Leyland p76 shaped” or “new coke shaped”? In the spirit of Diversity week embrace the pear, shape and all.
Perhaps this is an education issue? Here at UQ library we have 101 items which are returned when “Pear” is entered into a catalogue keyword search. Next time you hear someone deriding the shape of the pear, direct them to one of these books and the world will be a better place. We are celebrating Library week this week as well, so you’d be killing 2 birds with one stone…. Er.. make that 2 Leyland p76s with one stone (I think Homer mentioned birds too).
Marcos

Hi All,
I have been thinking this week about panic. There are so many people at the moment telling us not to panic, but how can we identify panic? Can panic be detected from actions, or from the consequences of the actions? If a person or a group of people are behaving in a way that could be construed as panic but the outcome of the behaviour is positive or beneficial in some way, was it panic? Does this mean that there are times when to panic is the right option?

As a society we are so often bombarded by the obvious, we have all seen the signs on strollers telling us to remove our children before folding up the stroller or that our peanut paste may contain traces of nuts. However, we are still given these vague messages about not panicking, but given no clues as to exactly what constitutes panic?
If you do a keyword search on “Panic” in the UQ library catalogue you get 254 hits here at Ipswich alone we have 23. If you can’t get to all of them don’t panic, just a few should give you enough information so that you know exactly what not to do when instructed not to panic.
Helping you to be prepared,
Marcos

Hi All,
I have made a discovery which is, at the same time, startling and glaringly obvious! A little while ago I was helping my sister to move things around her shed, when I came across 2 sheets of chipboard which I remembered placing there about 25 years ago. I attempted to move the sheets and found that I could only lift one board at a time, whereas when I put them there I remember easily lifting them both. After considering this for a time I believe there is only one answer: Gravity has increased significantly in the last 25 years! This evidence suggests that if Isaac Newton was sitting under the apple tree today he would risk serious cranial injuries. This is the obvious answer to so much of the population being overweight. In fact if your weight has not increased significantly in the last 25 years you may be dangerously underweight and need an intensive course of pork crackling and deep fried ice cream.

As you ponder the gravity of the situation you may like to join me in eZone 1 on Friday the 24th at 2PM for a weighty discussion about endnote.

Marcos

Hi All,
During this week in 1860 the corkscrew was patented, I believe that up until then wine was only available in plastic bags encased in cardboard boxes. In 1865 Outdoor advertising legislation was enacted in New York City which outlawed painting on stones, rocks and trees, undoubtedly as a result of the proliferation of corkscrew advertising which was turning up on stones, rocks and trees throughout Manhattan. In 1874 Poet Robert Frost was born and in 1882 German physician Robert Koch discovered the bacillus that causes tuberculosis. Isabelle Frost was most disgruntled when she was informed that she couldn’t tell of the birth of her Pulitzer Prize winning son on the stones, rocks and trees of New York City. Dr. Koch had similar feelings and thought that this law had slowed dissemination of his discovery significantly.
On Thursday the 2nd of April Miranda Newell will be running a “Finding Journal Articles” class in eZone1 at 10am. If I get the chance I will advertise this class on the stones, rocks and trees of New York City,( I have visited New York City recently and evidence suggests the law has been repealed), otherwise, I’ll just mention it here.
Marcos

Hi All,
Did you know that “The Fellowship of the Ring” and “The Return of the King” both won Academy Awards for music? Sadly, “The Two Towers” was not even nominated. This did not have to be so! There was the chance to include a piece of music that would have made the Academy’s decision easy and sent a third Oscar the way of The Two Towers, but the opportunity was not grasped. There is a work called “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” made famous by Leonard Nimoy (see it on YouTube) which was available. My sources tell me that Cate Blanchette, Hugo Weaving and Ian McKellen were all keen to croon the song and Nimoy himself was likely available. It may well have been simply to keep harmony on the set that it was discarded, still, we are left to consider what may have been. Regret is a difficult thing to live with.
To avoid living with regret yourself, come along to “finding journal articles” with Margaret Sloan-McDonald on Tuesday the 24th at 2pm in eZone1. As Gollum would say “precious, precious, precious”
Marcos

Hi All,
Psychologists will tell you that having the perception of a happy life, where one is treated fairly and equitably is almost as important as actually having a happy life, where one is treated fairly and equitably. Well, a survey done by Fujitsu Consulting delivered a damning report about Australian Bank fees. The report suggested that Australians are paying 22% more in bank fees than do our English cousins and 11% more than the Americans. This is just the sort of thing that has the potential to diminish the aforementioned perceptions. Fortunately, the Australian Bankers Association conducted their own study which found that the bank fees which Australians are charged compare favourably with those in other countries. Whew, what a relief. I’m sure my perceptions will once again soar once I determine the banker’s definition of “favourably”.
One perception that doesn’t need any qualification is the one that Margaret Sloan-McDonald is running a Getting Started in the Library class on Monday the 9th in eZone 1 at midday. I’m sure most Psychologists would say you should come to this class.
Marcos