Hi from Prague

Ahoj from Prague.

We are still waiting for the winter to come. It has been very warm so far, with only one snow calamity, and those who like skiing are not too happy about it. But, as the saying goes, if the spring comes in November winter will come in March.

I am Head Librarian at a theological seminary and at the moment anything connected to electronic databases and technology falls into my responsibility. I am excited about it because I enjoy discovering new ideas, new software, connecting with new people and learning how to improve things in our library.

That's why when I saw the announcement on the Five Weeks course on the Web4Lib listserv I jumped onto this opportunity without second thoughts. It will be tough timewise, because I became Head Librarian only a few weeks ago and am still confusedly wading through all the administration and orientation, but I want to make the best of it.

I strongly believe in a service-oriented participatory library that encourages conversation, conversation facilitated by lectures and books but also conversation between faculty and students, between resident and remote students, conversation between the different disciplines and research areas. Faculty facilitates some of it but I believe we as library can do much more, possibly also because we are more open to new technologies. At the moment we fall short of the high goals and also have difficulties to provide sufficient quality services for our remote students who don't live in Prague. I hope that the course will help me generate ideas on how social software can be contextualised in our setting and also force me to actively get involved with them.