Day 3: The Land of Castles and Parliament
Our First Library Outing
Our first trip was to Edinburgh to see Scottish Parliament! It is such an unusual-looking building. We saw some of the country side on the way here, and it was gorgeous. Across the street is Holyroodhouse Palace , but sadly someone was in residence. Kelli and I wanted to go in-her love of dishes and my love of the royals! Of course they will be gone the day after we leave. The Parliament is so pretty inside that I think people would get over the outside appearance. Not only do they have a private meeting room for us and coffee or tea and cookies, but they have their own napkins, which is about the coolest thing ever!
The Meeting
The people we are talking to have just had a huge budget cut and their job titles have just changed, I’m sure this has been a difficult transition, but you’d never know it from their presentation. They gave us so much information, but perhaps the most important was how to deal with budget cuts. Growing up in Jefferson City, MO (the state capital) I was immersed in politics, but never had much interest in it, but the way they conduct their business for the MSP was very interesting. Sir Russell spoke about being a buffer between the staff/parliament and the Scottish government. They never release what they are asked, everything is confidential and they have to be impartial. I’m sure that 10 years ago I wouldn’t have been interested in anything like this, but now it seems not only fascinating, but essential to how government offices work. Besides giving us insight into their former day to day lives, they also gave us information on how their roles will change with the budget cuts. They also had two library students among the group who were also taking classes online and face to face. It was interesting to see how our programs varied and how much they were the same. One library student does take seven hour train rides to class, which put my two and half to three hour car drive to shame. They study things like book binding and traditional aspects of librarianship as well as others. They also use Moodle to communicate when they aren’t in class. Edna was so adorable in her little pink sweater with the black hearts, she reminded me of Baby Spice. According to her, everything matters-even the stuff you hated. One day it will all just click. She also said bill ourselves and our skills for the job. Sell our skills to employers and how the library can use us. She was so passionate about her job and she hopes to study the information seeking behaviors of new parliament members as compared to the older. She also mentioned that she and her classmates have online pub meetings, which sounds a little sad and a lot awesome, I’m suggesting it in my next group assignment.
- Edna Quote: “Parliament is independent of the government and impartial to insure that democracy can prevail.”
- Thoughts on jargon: “It’s important but we don’t talk about cataloging, but we do want to know how people get there and they get there from our cataloging.”
- Librarians vs. Google: “Google can find you 12 million hits, but a librarian can find you the one you need.”
I’m also taking a web class this semester and I enjoyed listening to their little red-headed, red-sweatered, red-shoed IT person. She said they use social media such as Twitter for certain committees and use 4square and Facebook. I like that they use live volunteers to test their website, I know I had to test my own website for errors and I’m sure there is a way to test usability via the internet, but having human subjects sounds like a great idea. They had a list of questions that they had to answer and they just watch as they work through the test. After having one weekend of my web design class I could see why this would be beneficial. While there are websites to show you your programming errors, I’m not aware of any that would give you the feedback that having a live volunteer would.
The tour of the Parliament building was amazing; they had some great art work. I was surprised to see their signs in English and Gaelic (pronounced with a long “a” like bat). I had never heard it pronounced like that before, but found it very interesting. The Chamber was the best part of the tour, the room was beautiful. We couldn’t take pictures, but they had these cutouts all over the room: picture
At first I thought they were bottle shaped, but discovered they were supposed to represent a person. I felt bad for only thinking they were a bottle since Scotland is known for their Whisky, and then Edna said everyone else thought it looked like a bottle too. Over all, we had a great visit. They were very informative and honest with us during their time of difficult transition.
The tour of the Parliament building was amazing; they had some great art work. I was surprised to see their signs in English and Gaelic (pronounced with a long “a” like bat). I had never heard it pronounced like that before, but found it very interesting. The Chamber was the best part of the tour, the room was beautiful. We couldn’t take pictures, but they had these cutouts all over the room: picture
At first I thought they were bottle shaped, but discovered they were supposed to represent a person. I felt bad for only thinking they were a bottle since Scotland is known for their Whisky, and then Edna said everyone else thought it looked like a bottle too. Over all, we had a great visit. They were very informative and honest with us during their time of difficult transition.
Play Time
We had fish and chips and I feel like I’ve had a truly UK experience. It was not very good fish and chips, so now I feel like a tourist again. Edinburgh was fabulous!
Another Red Bus . . .
When I pictured Scotland, I think I pictured the Royal Mile minus all the tourist shops. Taylor, Valerie, Kelli, and I decided to take the train back, while everyone else took the bus back to Glasgow. We took another red tour bus ride in hopes of seeing the castle. To prove how friendly everyone was, here’s the story of our bus driver. Somehow in the shuffle he didn’t give us any change, so I asked him about it and he was kind of rude, and not wanting to be “that” American tourist I just dropped it thinking he was right I had just lost the change. Then fifteen minutes later, he finds us on the top of the bus and brings us our change and was deeply sorry about the mix up and blamed it on the nice weather. We were glad he was so nice, but shocked when he saw us again later in the day and apologized profusely once more.
I think we got off one stop too soon because rather than going up a steep hill, we found a huge looming staircase. Luckily, I take a step class in the off season. We opted to pay to go into the castle and boy were the views worth it.
I think we got off one stop too soon because rather than going up a steep hill, we found a huge looming staircase. Luckily, I take a step class in the off season. We opted to pay to go into the castle and boy were the views worth it.
The Scotland Monument
On the train ride back, I sat next to a local and struck up a conversation about the yellow fields (rapeseed). She had all kinds of recommendations and was very interested in librarianship. She had no idea people actually wanted to be librarians. I told her about the places we were going and was familiar with all of them except for Innerpeffray. I thought maybe I was saying it wrong, but even when I showed it to her she had no idea what it was, I think other people on our trip found that none of the locals knew it. It’s a mystery!