Lukas Koster's Space

David Mitchell reading

On Saturday June 5th, 2010 I was at Teylers Museum in my hometown Haarlem to attend an interview by publisher Lidewijde Paris with author David Mitchell on the occasion of the launch of the Dutch translation of his latest novel “The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet”.
The story is set around 1800 on the small artificial Island Dejima (Deshima, Decima) in the harbour of the Japanese town Nagasaki, a trading post of the Dutch East Indies Company VOC. The Dutch at the time were the only western people allowed in Japan during the Tokugawa period. One of the novel’s main characters, doctor Marinus, is based on one of the first directors of Teylers Museum, Martinus van Marum.

The event was more a smart and witty conversation between friends than an interview, although Lidewijde Paris tried to get wandering off David back on the right track a couple of times.
I really enjoyed the opportunity to meet the author whom I admire very much since I first read Cloud Atlas. I have actually used him as an example of an author in a couple of posts on my library blog.

This time however, David Mitchell gave me an idea for an entire new post when he explained about the way his “oeuvre” is constructed: every single novel is part of one grand work, and several “virtual” sub-stories and characters live their own lives within this intertwined pool of stories. This implies that a story is not confined within the physical or virtual boundaries of one volume. Interesting!
When afterwards I had the chance to have my copy of “The thousand autumns of Jacob de Zoet” inscribed, I tried to explain my idea to David. I did not expect him to hear everything everybody told him. But when I walked away and saw what he wrote, I noticed he had listened…

It was a very enjoyable afternoon.

LJC

On June 4, 2010, the 4th Dutch Library2.0 Happe.Ning event took place in Haarlem. This is a kind of un-conference that is un-organised by different groups of members of the Dutch library 2.0 online social network Bibliotheek2.0.
This time the Happe.Ning was un-organised by people from my hometown Haarlem: Wilma, Jan, Peter, Ad, Janneke, Erik-Jan and myself. We work for a number of different organisations in the library and information area. The funny thing is that, as Jan pointed out, we probably would never have met in the first place without the Bibliotheek2.0 and twitter social networks.

The 2010 event was aimed at giving participants hands-on experience with a number of web2.0 applications that are interesting for libraries: videoblogging, mobile location aware services, Twitter, Foursquare, focusing on the central theme: the old story that printing was invented around 1430 in Haarlem by Lourens Janszoon Coster, and not by Gutenberg. Historians now say that Coster never even existed! This became the secondary theme of this un-conference: information and truth. How can you know that information is valid, but also: does it always matter?

After the introductory session with coffee, tea, cake and cookies the participants went out on the streets of the old medieval town in small groups, with their own assignments: videoblogging, finding historical Coster related objects and photographing them, or tracking a virtual/real life Coster through Twitter/Foursquare.

My own part in this was to play the role of Coster (my last name being Koster) and check in on Foursquare at a number of historical locations. For this purpose we had created a Foursquare account ‘Lourens Janszoon Coster’ and a linked Twitter account ‘ljcoster1’.

But during my field trip through Haarlem the large degree to which web 2.0 is dependent on the techological infrastructure made itself very clear: I just did not have a mobile internet connection on my smartphone, due to the T-Mobile network capacity problems in The Netherlands at the time. My smartphone was nothing more than a dumb phone.
But what to do to save the day and not let the participants wander aimlessly around, waiting for guidance?
Fortunately, there was a workaround. After going back to our HQ it became clear that you don’t have to actually be at the location you sign in for on Foursquare. You can just do it from a laptop or pc via a client like Tweetdeck that allows you to set a different geolocation and check in from there, even if you are somewhere else completely. So that’s what I did. I just conveniently checked in to a number of Foursquare locations sitting on a chair in our HQ. After entering the final location (Coster’s alleged residence and/or place of birth of printing, now a pub) all I had to do was to rush over there and sit down enjoying a nice glass of beer, waiting for the participants to find me.

This incident illustrated even more the fact that on the web it is very hard to judge the reliability of information. This, and the technological problems, were part of the end of the day’s evaluation. Of course there were also positive experiences. All gathered information will be mashed together in the event’s website as soon as possible.

See also:

• #hap4 on twitter
• twub for #hap4
• #hap4 on flickr

No, it’s not a typo! I am using “twip” to describe a trip I made with people I met on Twitter. This time we went on a day trip to Maastricht with Wilma, Janneke, Ad, Neeltje, and Mieke. On the way we visited Dannielle at her place of work, Fontys library in Sittard.

In Maastricht of course we visited the Selexyz Dominicanen bookstore, in an old church. Great for coffee and cake! Oh yes, and books.

On the trip we discussed a couple of library related informal projects we’re involved in: Happe.ning in Haarlem and #followalibrary.

April 1st (no joke!) I attended the UgameUlearn symposium in Delft, focused on user experience in libraries. Some first impressions: this symposium is totally different from all other library conferences I have been to: it’s a lot of fun, besides very interesting and inspiring. Four great speakers (David Lee King, Michael Edson, Gary Vaynerchuck on Skype, Michael Stephens), a catholic priest (Father Roderick), music, a magician, a belly dancer, Stevie Nicks, and a two hour break combining lunch/market/gaming/speakers corner.
I had the opportunity to present our new Library of the University of Amsterdam mobile website there in 7 minutes, which was fun to do.

I will try to write some more detailed thoughts on my library blog Commonplace.net later.

It was also fun to meet a number of people that I knew online only in real life!

Last Sunday, first day of spring, March 21 2010, I visited the Dolhuys (“Mad house”) psychiatry museum in my hometown Haarlem, together with 4 people I actually got to know on line. All are working in libraries or information management and all are active on twitter, blogging etc: Wilma, Janneke, Erik-Jan, Peter.
Apart from work-related things, we also have social and cultural events like this, and we are also organising a library 2.0 unconference “Happe.Ning” in Haarlem in June, together with a couple of other local library twitter people.
All because of twitter and the like.

I was in Ghent, Belgium (or “Gent” in the original Dutch spelling) March 1 – 6 this year, for some IGeLU Steering Committee meetings, not the least with the local University of Ghent Library organising committee of the IGeLU 2010 conference. But also for Datasalon 4.

Of course I visited a number of bars and restaurants, which may be interesting for IGeLU 2010 participants as well:

• Mistral Brasserie – Near IBIS Opera hotel. Good food, Flemish and local specials, international, not too expensive.
• Café Theatre – Near IBIS Opera hotel, in the Opera building. Very good food, not cheap.
• Café des Arts – Opposite Café Theatre, nice and cosy restaurant/bar. Good food, Flemish and local specials, cheap.
• Vier tafels (“Four tables”) – Very nice restaurant in old “Patershol” area. International fusion and local traditional cuisine. (Just learned: closed during IGeLU2010 for summer vacation!)
• Kasserolleke – Nice restaurant in old paint seller shop on Vrijdagmarkt square. Good local food, not too expensive.
• ‘t Gebed zonder Eind (“Endless Prayer”) – Small cosy bar/restaurant, near IGeLU 2010 venue. Good local and French cuisine. Cheap. Reservations necessary.
• Bistro Bijloke – In concert hall in historical “Bijloke” hospital compound, old and new architecture.
• Mondada – Very nice lunch place, opposite Ghent public library in shopping mall, not too far from IGeLU 2010 venue. All kinds of bread rolls, coffee, soup, salads.
• Soup lounge – Near Vrijdagmarkt square and Patershol. For lunch: large bowl of soup with bread and fruit for €6
• Het Salon – Lunch restaurant just around the corner of Ghent University Library, not too far from IGeLU 2010 venue. Soup, salad, bread rolls. Students and University Library staff.
• Quetzal Chocolate Bar – All kinds of chocolate food and drink. Just around the corner of Ghent University Library, not too far from IGeLU 2010 venue.
• De Dulle Griet – On Vrijdagmarkt square. More than 250 types of drinks, mostly beers.
• Het Waterhuis aan de Bierkant – (“The waterhouse on the beerside”). Lots of beers.
• Het Oeverloze Eiland (“The shoreless island”) – In Patershol area. Something between bar, lounge and snack restaurant. Nice.

Update August 17, 2010

• OR Coffee – On Walpoortstraat 26, almost opposite “De Vooruit”. Coffee, lunch, and free WiFi!
• Multatuli – Huidevetterskaai 40,  a bit out of center. Very nice location and food. Closed on Mondays.

Update August 25, 2010

• Chez Leontine – Restaurant between “Het Waterhuis aan de bierkant” (beers) en “Het Dreupelkot” (jenevers). Excellent local food! Great surroundings. Friendly and knowledgeable staff.  Beers from the neighbours.

Update August 26, 2010

• ‘t Klokhuys – In Patershol area, near Vrijdagmarkt Square. Good local food. Try the “zurkelplets”. Lots of clocks.

Update August 28, 2010

• Het Dreupelkot – Very nice selection of all kinds of Belgian “jenevers” (“Dutch gin“). Just ask the people behind the bar what to sample.

Wilma van den Brink interviewed me for her blog, about the comparison between digital developments in the music and publishing industry (in Dutch).

Watch the video here:

Muziek versus boeken – Lukas Koster from JeBibliotheek on Vimeo.

The Royal Library, National Library of The Netherlands, recently published the Literatuurboek/Book of literature as an online web exposition.

As I wrote in an earlier post, I contributed 5 chapters to the book, which you can see here: http://www.kb.nl/galerie/literatuur/lk.xml

Four months after my first visit to Israel, in Jerusalem, I was given the opportunity to go to Israel again, this time to Tel Aviv for the Ex Libris System Seminar 2009. Tel Aviv is a modern city, only 100 years old, located on the sea, far from the West Bank, Gaza and Lebanon. The allegedly 4000 years old port of Jaffa (Yafo), originally an Arab town, is part of the Tel Aviv-Yafo municipality.
Unlike Jerusalem there is no large orthodox Jewish neighbourhood in the city center.

But on Shabbat (when religious Jews are not allowed to work, which includes operating machines), my experiences were:

In our hotel:

- No scrambled eggs, but only boiled eggs
- Bread toaster had been removed
- Espresso coffee machine (button operated) had been removed, only ready made coffee
- On the other hand, besides the Shabbat elevator (stops at all floors, no need to press a button) the other elevator operated normally

In the streets:

- No buses, only taxis
- Tel Aviv quiet (less cars, shops closed), Jaffa very busy

Hotel reception says everything is closed, but the Tel Aviv Museum of Art is open (fortunately)

In our hotel in East Jerusalem (Arab area), there were no such restrictions.

In Western Europe it is unthinkable that there is no public transport on Sundays. Even without the problematic Jewish-Arab relationship Israel is a very complicated society.

Main Avenue flags
Originally uploaded by lukask

Went to the USA for the very first time January 15-25. Spent first couple of days in the Rocky Mountains in the snow, in Grand Lake, Colorado, with my pals from the IGeLU Steering Committee and some of the PWG Coordinators, before going to Denver for four days of meetings with ELUNA and Ex Libris.
Some observations:
- Although America seems very familiar (because of American movies, TV, books) it is also completely different from Europe
- No tourists in Grand Lake, they are a summer resort
- Lots of snow, but locals complaining about lack of snow
- Although out of season, lots of bars and restaurants open, but they close at 9 PM!
- Americans are very friendly
- Americans serve very big meals, breakfast, lunch and dinner; it is normal to take half of it home
- Haven’t seen any live moose, only a lot of other forms (labels, pillows, signs, …)
- Snowshoeing is nice
- Buffalo Bill has picked a very nice place to be buried

See my pictures, and Guido’s