Gene @dzshuniper@ausglam.space

The University of Melbourne is recruiting for a Metadata Team Leader. Full time continuing position: http://jobs.unimelb.edu.au/caw/en/job/903781/metadata-team-leader

Registrations for Research Support Community Day are now open. It's free, online, and the program looks pretty interesting: https://rscday.info/2021-program/

WTF, Trump supporters marching on St Kilda Road!? https://nitter.net/jaopkist/status/1346714844985131008

Feeling justified in having written my latest assignment on the need for St Kilda library to build its collection of antifascist literature...

Our neighbours are an elderly couple in their eighties. They both have cancer. They don't own a computer. One is a keen reader, but with the local library closed and no way of ordering books online, she ran out of reading material. My partner and I have been keeping her supplied. She said she'd read anything. I have science fiction and YA fantasy, my partner has paranormal romance. We tried a few different titles and it turns out our elderly neighbour is a huge fan of raunchy vampire novels.

Crochet troubleshooting, trying to stop my project ruffling: try searching the web for troubleshooting tips, try bigger hook, try smaller hook, try longer starting chain, watch instructional video, read comments on pattern, try continuing for a few more rounds to see if it evens out, try pulling it flat as I go. Still ruffles.

Try leaving it between two heavy text books overnight? Bingo.

With some more rounds and some blocking when it's done, I think I should have beaten the ruffles.

Natalie Harkin, Narungga woman and South Australian activist-poet, won the 2020 Kate Challis RAKA award for her work Archival-Poetics. Sounds like a must-read for archivists and archive-adjacent information workers, as it's described as "reckoning with the State's colonial archive": https://about.unimelb.edu.au/newsroom/news/2020/december/reckoning-with-australias-colonial-archive-poet-natalie-harkin-wins-raka-prize

I'm thinking of using mine, not as a planner, but as a space for daily art doodles.

My partner gave me a 2021 slingshot organiser as a holiday gift. I've just noticed it has a page using the CRAP (Currency, Reliability, Authority, Purpose) test to identify misinformation. This is sandwiched in between pages on demo readiness, DIY emotional health tips, and collective process. Interesting to see this kind of information literacy tool used in this sort of context.

You can get your own planner here: https://slingshotcollective.org/the-organizer/

I'm having a digital clear out and rediscovered this. No regrets. http://delinear.info/69b9adae58

The opening of the Mortal Engines movie kinda sums up the problems with museums: Londoners crawl the globe pillaging and looting other cultures material possessions. The choicest items go to the museum, the rest gets burned.

The ending also spells a warning: the power-hungry megalomaniac reconstructs weapons of mass destruction from hardware and knowledge preserved by the cultural heritage sector (though his plans are also thwarted by the same means...)

The second book recommendation is The Twelve Cakes of Christmas: An evolutionary history, with recipes, by Helen Leach, Mary Browne, and Raelene Inglis. This traces a history of the development of Christmas cake recipes, from early twelfth night cakes through a variety of recipe modifications to accommodate changes to cooking techniques and ingredients: https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago730920.html

A couple of book recommendations for today. First up, The Pavlova Story: A slice of New Zealand's culinary history by Helen Leach. For those who don't know, pavlovas are eaten as festive Christmas fare in Australia. There's a controversy about whether it was invented by Australians or Aotearoans / New Zealanders. Anthropologist and food historian Leach comes down on the latter side of that debate and tells the multi-threaded history of the pavlova's origins: https://www.otago.ac.nz/press/books/otago071803.html

Chocolates anyone? 🍫 https://amp.abc.net.au/article/13001562

Deadlines for diversity scholarships for rstudio::global(2021) conference close tomorrow, get your applications in now: https://blog.rstudio.com/2020/11/30/diversity-scholarships/

The README gives a little more of the background, if you're interested: https://github.com/dzshuniper/love-letters

I made this anniversary gift for my partner: https://dzshuniper.github.io/love-letters/

Library Carpentry Advisory Group calling for new members. They're especially interested in new members who represent groups or regions not currently represented on the Advisory Group, such as Asia, South Asia, Middle East, Latin America, and Africa. https://carpentries.org/blog/2020/12/call-for-new-members-library-carpentry-advisory-group/

Currently in a webinar hearing from Indigital founder Mikaela Jade talking about the NAIDOC week Minecraft challenge, supported by the NLA: https://www.nla.gov.au/stories/news/2020/11/19/naidoc-minecraft-challenge-awards