Thank you all for the lovely send off and the going away gifts. I love the books and the beautiful necklace – thank you. I am enjoying the poetry. It is such a treat to have these three collections to dip into.
I am feeling pretty good about my new job. It seems I’ve started at a busy time in government circles as preparations are being made for the budget on 17th of May. I’m learning about estimates, appropriations and the machinations of the Finance and Expenditure Select Committee. I wrote my first official memo this week and joined the National Library Leadership Team for an away day on Friday.
The view from my office is of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Beehive with the city centre as backdrop. I’m enjoying taking the bus to work and the walk home in the evening up the hill is keeping me fit.
I was delighted to bump into Dave Lane and Manja on ANZAC day when I was out walking around the water front. If you are in Wellington do be in touch.
Pinelopi and I attended the FLANZ Conference in Palmerston North in April. The conference theme this year was “Inception to Infinity: Places, spaces and time for learning”, which attracted a very wide range of thought provoking keynote speakers and other presentations. Pinelopi and I will present our stand-out sessions on Thursday 3 May at 10.30-11.30 in Poutama. We would love to see you there. Book yourself in here.
I hope I now have your attention with that alluring and mysterious title. The timetable reports tool is a very useful way to see whether a room has been booked (and by whom) before you start trying to book it using the web room bookings tool. It is available from the staff page on the website, or here. You select the building, the room and the date and the tool will show the bookings for that time. I am happy to take you through it.
Theresa and I (after long years of planning) have overhauled the Law Subject Guide. We hope it is improved! There are some parts of the guide that no longer exist, so if you have linked to parts of the guide in the past, please check that those links are still working. We are happy to receive any feedback you have.
I cleaned out the stationery cupboard today and found this amazing collection of relics – string, mosquito coils, fast post stickers, a three hole punch, overhead projector transparencies and more. If you have a yearning to possess any of these items, they are on the spare desk on level 5.
Max’s wife Clare has an exhibition of her paintings opening tomorrow at the Little River Gallery. There is an opening ceremony at 11am and the exhibition runs until 25 October.
I am very pleased to announce that Wendy Wu will be the Subject Librarian for the Chinese language and culture courses for the next six months. Wendy will continue in her Library Access and Collections role, but will dedicate two hours a week to supporting the staff and students in the Chinese programme. We thrilled to have Wendy’s expertise and experience in the team.
It is with great sadness that I write to say that Max passed away at 3.23 this morning. He had been in hospice care since last Friday and Clare was with him to the end. They had hoped to move to Doctor’s Point for Max’s retirement, and they got very close with the furniture packed to be taken down last week. However, in Clare’s words “The Universe is saying things need to be concluded here”.
Max will be greatly missed by his Library colleagues and the wider University staff.
I am pleased to announce that Anton Angelo is the new Library Committee staff representative. Thank you very much to Damian and Anton for putting their names forward for this role.
Please do bring any issues you would like raised at the Committee meetings to Anton for discussion.
We have two nominations for the Library Committee representative: Damian Cairns and Anton Angelo. I have sent out a ballot email, so that you can all vote for your preferred candidate. This email may well be caught in your spam, as I used a free piece of software called “BallotBin”. Please release the message so you can vote!
