A Blog In Transition

As the term draws to a close I want to begin transitioning this blog to something a little more general. Libraries, social software, web 2.0, these are my interests, and as such they will remain staples of this blog, however, I feel that I can now begin to give it a slightly more personal touch.

To kick off the transition I'm posting a photo I took in Colorado over the summer. I went to Colorado to run the Pikes Peak Marathon, but also found myself with quite a bit of time on my hands. As the race starts at 6,295 feet above sea level and has an elevation gain of 7,815 feet on top of that, I went a week prior to acclimatise as much my schedule would allow. During the week, while I wasn't on the top of the mountain, I explored the small town of Manitou Springs at its base. Among the interesting things I found was the town's public library.

As it turns out, the library is an original Carnegie library, as you can see from the picture, built in 1910. That first day I was there the library was closed, but I return later in the week to take a look inside. It was a fantastic space with the adult collection on the main floor and a children's area in the basement. One of the things I do when I have the opportunity to visit a new library is to checkout what OPAC they're using. In this small, century old library, I expected to find some small system of which I'd never heard, but much to my chagrin the screen displayed the same dynix window the the Toronto Public library computers do.

Anyway, as it happens, the Start/Finish line of the race was only a few yards from the library. So, after being thoroughly checked over for potentially fatal injuries and spending some time hunched in a chair recuperating, I hobbled over to the library and immortalized the moment on film.

I had a great many experiences during that race and the week prior, but I can't think of a better way to remember it then with a picture of the library.

[Edit: Oh yea, for those of you in London, go vote !!!]