Tales of the City Library

A couple of weeks ago I was at a conference about Social Media in Scotland, and there was a great case study presented by Liz McGettigan of City of Edinburgh Council. Liz runs the Council's Library department, and has embraced using social media such as Twitter and Facebook to keep libraries at the heart of their communities. Their Twitter account, @TalesOfOneCity keeps followers up to date with events happening in libraries all over the city, and their Facebook page does too.

It's so refreshing to see a public sector organisation embracing these new technologies. It's also great to see institutions that could be seen as 'old media' showing just how much they can use 'new media' to keep relevant. It was interesting to know that they were partly driven by the fact that they knew their website wasn't interactive enough, but that it would take a long time to get that right by going through the official channels. So they adapted channels that others are already using to give themselves the platform they needed. Obviously, it's best when your website and your social networking activity all give out a coherent message and integrate well, but I can understand why they took that route - they needed to make their social networking activity a success first, in order to make the argument for a redevelopment of the site!

I would love it if Glasgow City Council followed their lead! Know of any other Councils using social networking well?

By Kate Wooding
Published: 22 July 2010
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Random, Random, Random

Like a lot of people we listen to music on Spotify and recently we've been subjected to the exact same advert approximately 15 times a day.

The advert in question is from the Scottish Government to promote safer driving on country roads, the advert begins by playing various short clips of music before a voiceover begins: "My tunes are always on shuffle..." It then goes on to compare the randomness of the "tunes" with what a driver might encounter on a country road such as a deer, tractor etc before going on to say  "it's totally random!" Unsurprisingly this has been more than a little wearing, despite highlighting a serious issue, the word "random" had become a byword for chronic irritation. Until today!

By "random" I stumbled on to this – a site with nothing but "random" photos with absolutely no information about them. A lot of the pictures are family snaps, many of them not very well taken, but as a whole, the site features an amazing selection of weird and wonderful photos from all over the world.

For best results click on the "random" button at the bottom of the page and don't blame me if you get slightly addicted.

P.S the advert came on twice while I was typing this!

By Chris Reilly
Published: 19 March 2010
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Foldable snowflake

Always on the lookout for new inspiring ideas I came across this work by 'Sanchtv'. It's a foldable fractal structure made from a single piece of material using a computer controlled laser cutting process. I imagine it would be pretty fiddly to assemble, but what a fantastic Christmas decoration it would make!

By Tom Beddard
Published: 18 December 2009
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