In through the outfield

Walking in London is the quickest route to health

As a keen London walker I was disappointed to have missed Walk to Work Day last week. However with spate of good weather recently I have been walking my full morning route from London Bridge to St Pancras every day.

I am lucky that my journey takes me along the Thames past the Golden Hinde, Clink Prison museum and Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. I then stroll over the Millennium bridge with the best view in London as I approach St Paul’s Cathedral.

I have often suspected that it is often quicker to walk than to go by underground, and this has been confirmed by the BBC website. In central London there are 109 journeys between Tube stations that are quicker to walk (taking into account time spent waiting for trains).

Stephen Fry in the British Library Basements

After my recent blog post about the rather exclusive location deep below the reading rooms of the British Library, I was surprised to discover this week that Stephen Fry was there before me. He was there as part of a fascinating documentary in which he helps to build a copy of Gutenberg’s (and the world’s) first ever printing press. You can still catch this fascinating program via the wonderful BBC iPlayer service.

I love the way he demonstrates the principles of typeset printing using an old John Bull Printing Outfit whilst sitting in the British Library Café. I have fond memories of that game from my early youth.

Alex Bellinger interviews me for SmallBizPod

As I mentioned in my previous blog post on our first Facebook event at the Business & IP Centre, Alex Bellinger the founder of SmallBizPod was there with his microphone. His podcast based on interviews at this event were delayed a little by Alastair Darling and his 2008 Budget, but have now gone up on the site here.

Although I felt I rambled on a bit, Alex seems to have kept most of the interview in the final edit. It is a mixture of chat about the Business & IP Centre and the role of Facebook and blogs to promote it to a new audience.

The show also included a cross section of interviews with some of the 50 or so members of our Facebook group who showed up on the evening. Talking of which, I see our membership has now grown to nearly 1,400 members.

Promoting new books with video

It would seem that for some publishers the future of book promotion lies in video.

So much for the film or TV series of the book, how about the dramatised promotional video of the book that has yet to be printed.

You can judge for youself by ‘viewing’ the forthcoming title from Blake Publishing. The Overnight Fame of Steffi McBride is the memoir of a fictional young soap star who becomes a national icon to be  published in September 2008.

“All Steffi’s dreams come true when she lands a starring part in the country’s biggest soap opera, has a number one Christmas single and wins a Bafta. The whole country falls in love with her, including the pop star she had a crush on all through her teenage years. But someone out there knows a secret about Steffi’s past and heartless media revelations blow apart everything she ever believed to be true about her family and about herself.”

It’s not quite my cup of tea, but I’m sure they have done their market research.

The British Library Basements

Easter is the busiest time of the year at the British Library (so be warned if you are expecting a quiet space to do your research). In order to help cope with the volume of requests for books from our capacious basements in St Pancras, staff volunteers are requested.

As a member of staff who rarely visits the basements this is an opportunity not to be missed. After all, the basements are the very foundation of the library, from both a physical and information perspective. The four double height basements containing the bulk of the library’s 15 million books stretch down to 75ft or 23m below ground level. The construction of these required digging the deepest hole ever seen in London. I could hear the nearby sounds of trains on the Northern and Victoria Lines when I was in basement 3.

I spent a fascinating couple of hours re-shelving books in the humanities modern section. However, my trolley contained a random selection of topics giving a revealing glimpse into the subjects being researched above ground, as well as the incredible breadth of knowledge stored below ground.

One fact that often surprises visitors to the basements is that the books are not stored according to any classification system. Although the British Library has adopted the Dewey system in the Reading Rooms, this would not work in the basements. The explanation is simple enough - the sheer volume of new books (6 miles or 13 kilometres) each year means that they have to be added onto the end of the previous set in acquisition order. Any other would require constant shifting of the book stock to make room.

So, for instance if they were in alphabetical order by Title, the Z’s would slot nicely in at the end of the sequence but any new A’s would require moving the whole lot. This results in some vary odd pairings of books on the shelves. I re-shelved a book on Islamic terrorism literally cheek by jowl with a volume on right-wing Jewish politics.

The photos above come from a website Subterranea Britannica which has a detailed article on a visit to the basements.

Nice Girls and Quechup + clarification from a Director

(Since I wrote this original post I received a comment below from Glen Finch a Director of Quechup clarifying my problems).

As someone who monitors Web 2.0 developments I was aware of Quechup and their controversial email spamming techniques.

However as they had claimed to have turned over a new leaf I was somewhat surprised to receive an email from Nicegirl, who indeed did look like a ‘nice girl’ with her adorable puppy.

Intrigued, I registered with Quechup and was somewhat disappointed to be greeted with this page.

Yet another example of empty promises of Web 2.0?

I should say that I was somewhat suspicious of Nicegirl’s user name. As I would be receiving an email from father@christmas.com.