Our Secret, Siri Aang

African Reading Challenge
I am taking a part in the African reading challenge and have just finished my first book this year by an African writer or about Africa.

The author, Cristina Kessler, is an American who has spent 19 years in Africa. Our Secret is a teen novel about a young Maasai girl called Namelok. She is on the edge of becoming 'A Woman' and all that entails including female circumcision, marriage to a man twice her age, restricted movements etc. It is also the story of 'change' touching on western education, poaching of African wildlife, the impact of tourism and 'reservations' on the traditional nomadic lifestyle of the Maasai.

Namelok 'can't breathe' in her family encampment and regularly wanders far collecting firewood when, one day, she comes across a rhino giving birth. She forms a bond with the rhino family, swearing to protect them but something dreadful happens and, bent on revenge, she tracks a limping man over the dangerous savannah.

The tale follows a lovely path and Namelok does become a woman but following a far different route than that prescribed to her. It is beautifully written and far more subtle and complex than I would have expected from a young adult book. Mind you; I don't read much Teen fiction and maybe I should.

4 stars and recommended.

African Reading Challenge

The wonderful Sally mentioned the Africa Reading Challenge in her Daily News and I think its a great idea. I have read quite a lot of African fiction and it is very different - cool - but different.

There is no point to the challenge except the joy of discovering and reading African literature. The challenge runs for the whole of 2012 and eligible books include those which are written by African writers, or take place in Africa, or are concerned with Africans and with historical and contemporary African issues. At least 3 books must be written by African writers.

Here is a preliminary list of my favourites but I'll post more:

• The Joys of Motherhood by Buchi Emecheta,
• The Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Adiche
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Adiche,
• Story of an African Farm by Olive Shreiner
  
• Heremakanon by Maryse Conde
  
• and any short stories by Aidoo, Ama Ata.
  

Kete needs a bit of lovin'

NDF was terrific last week but I have come back with a mission around Kete.

Kete is a very cool open source product that encourages the collection of informal local content. It was developed by us back in 2007 with Digital Strategy funding and is available to anyone who wants it - for free.

A number of public libraries are now using it around the world and in New Zealand, including APNK ones. Now here's my beef: Kete needs some love.

Many of us got given Kete for free but that doesn't mean it is for free. There is a cost to keeping Kete useful and relevant going forward into the future and if you got it for free in the first place maybe its time you started contributing to its upkeep and development. Libraries could start by asking themselves a few questions:

• Do we believe in the importance of developing collections of local digital content?
• Do we believe in the value of informal or community created local content?
• How much do we spend each year supporting our library management systems?
• How much have we contributed this year to help develop Kete?
• How much effort have we made to contribute in other ways to the Kete project? ie ideas for development, identifying new technologies and considering how they can be incorporated? building a Kete community of users etc?
• How much value do we attach to Kete as a means to gather informal community content?
  
• Can we afford to buy another product?
  
• What would that product be?

The reality is that none of us have done much at all to support Kete in a practical sense. It was designed in 2007; it is 4 years old and I know there are many advances in the digital arena that have passed us by. For instance, I want to be able to easily upload images, video and sound captured on my cellphone, I want to be able to share it easily on twitter, flickr, facebook etc, I want a 'new' user interface that is really modern and user-friendly and inviting, I want streaming video, I want a tool to easily create 'things' using Kete content.

All software needs continual refreshing and updating in order to keep pace with the expectations of our users and Kete is no different. with the collective talents of those of us using Kete it should absolutely rock!

Now is the time to step up and start showing a bit of love to this really useful tool. Many of us are preparing budgets for next year. How about making a commitment by budgeting to contribute to a development fund (we'll work out the mechanics of spending it later), then identify a person or 2 who can contribute ideas on how to improve Kete. From there we delegate a working group to get those changes made - and paid for - and lets make Kete 2.0 an objective for 2012.

Imagine : reinventing library services

Those who know me will know that Horowhenua Library Trust and Horowhenua District Council are about to commence construction of Te Takere, a culture and community centre. Te Takere will include the public library service but also a whole bunch of other activities and partners including the Muaupoko Tribal Authority, the Horowhenua Historical Society and Levin Family History Group. No doubt there will be others too. More>>

I have been pondering the operational aspect of Te Takere (because we have to prepare a budget for 2012/13 soon) and to do that we really need to get a handle on the service that will be delivered from Te Takere. I am a great one for models or frameworks and last night I spent half the night pondering this issue ... with some excitement I might add!

Tonight I must sleep and the best way to ensure that is do a brain dump, create a thought piece and invite all those clever people out there in the world to help me hammer something out. I'm aiming for crowd-sourced brilliance :)

Imagine : reinventing library services.

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Update on NZ Koha trademark

Who would have thought that one little blog post on a Tuesday morning would have generated so much interest and debate and support.

Horowhenua Library Trust have been bowled over by the generosity of a global community who are as concerned as we are at the PTFS New Zealand trade application to register the mark Koha in relation to software.

We have received hundreds of emails offering support for fighting the ‘good fight’. I haven’t quite replied to them all yet – but I am trying . The press have provided balanced coverage with Radio NZ, TV1 and TV3 all reporting the story pretty accurately here, generating much discussion in Maori and mainstream media forums.

We have accumulated donations of about $12k, mostly through $20 and $50 donations from individuals around the globe (including many Americans) and the generosity of the legal profession offering free representation is amazing.

We have accepted the services of Sacha Judd, Andrew Matangi & John Glengarry from Buddle Findlay, assisted by Rochelle Furneaux, who have agreed to work pro-bono for us (bless them all I say). They have been guiding us for the last few days and are busy preparing a objection to the PTFS / Liblime application should one be necessary.

We believe we are well placed now to mount a strong legal challenge and we think we have enough in donations to cover filing fees, document costs and other disbursements. While It goes completely against my nature to turn down donations to Horowhenua Library Trust, in all conscience we should stop the fundraising drive at this stage. Rest assured if is necessary to challenge the PTFS application all the way to the High Court then we may well be coming back cap in hand!

PTFS have issued a press release saying they are willing to hand the NZ Koha trademark over to a non-profit representing the Koha community. That organisation is the Horowhenua Library Trust, elected by the Koha global community, and we would be delighted to accept that offer and add the NZ Koha trademark to the store of other Koha community property we currently hold in trust ie domain names and trademarks. It would be a very simple matter for PTFS to assign the existing application to Horowhenua Library Trust and we invite PTFS to do so. The Library Trust has never stopped any Koha user or developer or vendor from carrying out their business. Our track record over the last 12 years of releasing the Koha code and supporting the Koha community to go about its business unimpeded is exemplary and we have no intention of ever changing that approach.

Plea for help from Horowhenua Library Trust

Horowhenua Library Trust is the birth place of Koha and the longest serving member of the Koha community. Back in 1999 when we were working on Koha, the idea that 12 years later we would be having to write an email like this never crossed our minds. It is with tremendous sadness that we must write this plea for help to you, the other members of the Koha community.

The situation we find ourselves in, is that after over a year of battling against it, PTFS/Liblime have managed to have their application for a Trademark on Koha in New Zealand accepted. We now have 3 months to object, but to do so involves lawyers and money. We are a small semi rural Library in New Zealand and have no cash spare in our operational budget to afford this, but we do feel it is something we must fight.

For the library that invented Koha to now have to have a legal battle to prevent a US company trademarking the word in NZ seems bizarre, but it is at this point that we find ourselves.

So, we ask you, the users and developers of Koha, from the birth place of Koha, please if you can help in anyway, let us know.

jransom at library.org.nz


Background reading:

• Code4Lib article: How hard can it be : developing in Open Source [history of the development of Koha] by Joann Ransom and Chris Cormack.
• Timeline of Koha :development
• Koha history visualization
  

Help us
If you would to donate towards the cost of mounting a legal challenge creditcards can be used on paypal below:

Cheques made out to Te Horowhenua Trust can be posted to Levin Library, 10 Bath Street, Levin, 5510. Bank deposits can be made to Te Horowhenua Trust, Westpac Levin, 030667 0299274 00 ref: Trademark.

Otherwise, any discussion, public support and ideas on how to proceed would be gratefully received.

My keynote from KohaCon11

It Takes a Village

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