Six Hot Picks: Matt Finch & Brendan Fitzgerald
LIANZA WERE FORTUNATE TO HOST A SERIES OF EXCELLENT STRATEGIC WORKSHOPS IN SEPTEMBER FACILITATED BY DR MATT FINCH AND BRENDAN FITZGERALD. WE ASKED THE DYNAMIC DUO FOR THEIR SIX HOT PICKS!
1 READING
(hard to be a librarian without some nod to the written word!)
Struggling through Joyce’s Ulysses at the moment and couldn’t do so without the help of http://rejoyce.libsyn.com/. My advice – Avoid the pain, read The Most Dangerous Book by Kevin Birmingham instead and admire the courage of Harriet Weaver, who subsidised Joyce to the tune of £350 a year; and Sylvia Beach, who eventually brought out Ulysses in volume form in 1922.
Additionally read anything by emerging Australian Author Jane Rawson: From the Wreck or A wrong turn at the Office of unmade lists.
With my library-nerd hat on, I’d recommend Leorke and Wyatt’s Public Libraries in the Smart City, a nuanced riposte to some of the hype around libraries’ place in the urban future. I’m also looking forward to the script book of Phoebe Waller-bridge’s Fleabag – an amazingly well-wrought bit of TV comedy which is worth a watch as well as a read. Finally, Laina Dawes’ fascinating What are you doing here? A black woman’s life and liberation in heavy metal gives an often-unheard perspective on loving the hardest rock music, which leads us on nicely to the next category:
2 MUSIC
Being in New Zealand and enjoying many a car conversation with Matt about Mohawks and Mosh Pits has reminded me how important music has been to me. From my teen years where the Clash and Led Zeppelin collided with the likes of Mother Goose and Max Merrit to now a more ‘mature’ world where the indie of Andrew Bird and Bill Callahan collide with Bach and Vivaldi. I like that Carl Sagan quote when he asked what music to put on Voyager: ‘I’d send just Bach ... but that would be showing off.’
Brendan’s playing it cool, but he knows that our road trips were also soundtracked with Cliff Richard’s ‘Wired for Sound,’ Harry Belafonte, and Kajagoogoo too. In terms of new music, Tirzah’s album Devotion restored my faith both in new music and British culture last year. Ann Magnusson’s concept record The Jobriath Medley tells the true story of America’s first openly gay rock star and is a great example of how you can do history and non-fiction through music.
3 VINYL
I love the fact the world just does stuff you don’t expect, for example without the ‘rappers and scratchers’ of hip hop my favorite analog format would have likely died – and now they come with digital downloads so you get the best of both worlds.
I travel so much that I mostly depend on digital sources for books, music, TV and movies, but it is good to return to other media when you can. There’s a great vinyl collection in Copenhagen’s central library! My cousin tried to teach me scratching when I was like 11, but he would only let me do it on Meat Loaf records, which he considered to have no value.
4 PODCASTS
Podcasts let you enjoy a whole other universe. Gems like No Such thing as a Fish and The Mysterious Secrets of Uncle Bertie’s Botanarium appear out of nowhere alongside Tony Martin’s Sizzletown: A late night call in podcast.
I love You Must Remember This, Karina Longworth’s show digging into the true stories of Old Hollywood. And in libraryland, I’d go for The Library Pros which is recorded in the US.
5 THE FUTURE
We all have one – at least for a time. It’s really enjoyable working with libraries and community organisations wrestling with how to push into their own future/s especially when discussions about social connectedness and community harmony are at the heart of those conversations. And it’s pretty heartening when you see tangible results such as the Palmerston North Youth Space or the Artful Dodgers Studios in Melbourne.
The future is an excellent place for people to come together because it hasn’t got here yet. It’s just a story which we’re still in the process of telling. That’s what I like about it.
6 THE PEOPLE
It’s been great fun working with Ian and Kapiti Coast, Linda and the team at Palmerston North, Melanie at Rangitikei and of course Ana and Helen at LIANZA. Hope to see you all again soon.
I’ll second that. Really good conversations took place on this trip, and I’m particularly pleased that people attended both to their obligations under the Treaty of Waitangi and what it would mean to go further than the law, to truly begin to address and put right some of the injustices of the past. I was so grateful to NLNZ’S Stefanie Lash for showing me the Treaty itself and talking about the links between archives work and future foresight.
Brendan Fitzgerald; established 641 DI in 2017 as a consultancy aimed at building capacity in NFPS and libraries through project design, research and better understanding of digital inclusion.
Matt Finch; is currently an executive education facilitator at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School and has extensive experience helping libraries around the world with strategy, change, innovation, and community engagement. Matt creates workshops and activities that engage stakeholders, build staff skills and confidence, and help organisations to change and innovate. Matt was a keynote speaker at 2017 LIANZA Conference.