I am at The 9th Annual Library Leadership Institute in Bangkok. This event is organized by The University of Hong Kong Libraries and brings together librarians from around Asia. It has a dual purpose: to develop and enhance management and leadership qualities and to enhance collaboration and foster relations between libraries.
There are just over 40 delegates and there is plenty of interaction. I am enjoying it – in general I very much prefer smaller intimate events where you get a chance to hear people discuss their achievements and challenges in a more extended way. From my point of view, as I don’t actually work in a library, this is quite important. This event has a special interest given the diversity of nationalities represented. It is interesting seeing common issues expressed against some difference of national policy and funding regimes.
In the last few years I have found larger, commercial events of less and less interest. While I understand that much of the value is in networking, I increasingly find that one is likely to have a good sense of what many speakers will say from exposure to their network presences – blogs, twitter, or papers.
I am writing this at 3.00 AM Thai time, however. I hope to go back to sleep soon 🙂 but it did bring to mind my comments several years ago about Lost in Translation, slightly edited here:
Lost in Translation got the screenplay Oscar. I saw this on the flight to Australia, appropriately, and again on DVD. I liked the way it showed the dislocating effect of jet lag, and the glancing sense of elsewhere the brief business visit gives.
Note 25 March: Noted comments by Dervala on In America and Lost in Translation.
p.s. I had a special interest in the Oscars that year as my brother in law was the co-producer of In America which lost out to Lost in Translation.
p.p.s. It is a while since I have looked at Dervala.net. I notice it has not been updated for a while. When memes were popular I listed it as one of my favorite non-library blogs (Memetic). “My blog is a message in a bottle with a FedEx tracking number.”
