March is Out of Oz Month!

March 2008 is a special month for Learning 2.1. For the first time your guide is coming from outside the USA! Your guide for the month of March is the City of Boroondara Library Service in Melbourne, Australia. The City of Boroondara Library Service is a public library in the inner east of Melbourne, Victoria. A wide range of collections, services and programmes are provided from five libraries at Ashburton, Balwyn, Camberwell, Hawthorn and Kew. You can find more information about the City of Boroondara Library Service on our website, on our Facebook page and on the staff ning.

In 2007, City of Boroondara Library Service staff were amongst the 1000 Victorian Public staff who participated in the state-wide Learning 2.0 program. Boroondara library staff who completed this program are now participating in the Boroondara Learning 2.1 program conducted through our Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning.

Specifically this month, your guides will be Boroondara staff Anne Holmes and Fiona Malcolm.

Anne(aka Polyxena, Annabel and other ids you don’t need to know about) has worked in public libraries for over 30 years. She remembers batch circulation and cataloguing systems and Sunday nights spent loading tapes for system saves and system restores. Anne completed the Learning 2.0 program in 2007 and has been hooked on Web 2.0 since (if she wasn’t before). But she does tend to live in the past also – a fascination with local, family and public history facilitates this, as does Web 2.0's applications for this! You can find out more about Anne at her Web 2.0 blog Hecuba’s story and her Facebook profile as well as from her profiles on the Explore, Discover, Play ning, the Boroondara staff ning and the Boroondara Learning 2.1 ning.

Fiona(aka fi, fifi, tapsister, batgirl_the_librarian) refuses to think about how many years she has spent working in public libraries. When not working or Web 2.0ing, she spends far too much time and money on musical theatre, reads too many crime novels, dabbles in family history and tries to live up to her personal motto of “If only I used my power for good instead of evil”. Check out Fiona’s blogs at Ministry of funny looks, or fi2008.