Poem and Cartoon

Win a copy of Networking and the Future of Libraries 2 - Managing the intellectual record, in this issues caption competition. The book, edited by Lorcan Dempsey, Derek Law and Ian Mowat, is a highly topical range of edited papers from UKOLN's major international conference held at the University of Bath in April 1995 which examine the future central role of networking for the library and publishing community. Contributers to the book include Nicky Ferguson, Stevan Harnad, Joan Day, Paul Evan Peters, Margaret Hedstrom, Sheila Corrall and Brian Perry.

So, here's the picture...

This was taken at the Netskills launch in early February 1996, and shows Donal demonstrating networking tools to a group of enthusiastic trainees. But what is he saying? Or illustrating with his hands?

Entries for this competition has now closed; the winning entry, and the best non-winning attempts, are available from issue 3.

Poem Corner

Another helping of verse to help you unwind over a steaming keyboard...

Snow
Polly Clark

Your words are falling on me,
Not one at a time, but in half-words,
In soft phrases; the exquisite fizz!
Of a single letter on my tongue:
I walk home in a blizzard
Of everything you have said to me;

And not only words; your touch
Babbles warmly on my skin, syllable
By syllable you're obliterating
The dark needles of the fir trees, a crow
Is trying to scythe himself free
Of the fragments cohering
Into one great white word

This poem appears in the Web magazine Living Poets (http://dougal.derby.ac.uk:80/lpoets/), Volume 1, Number II, February 1994.
It is reprinted by permission of the editor.

Cartoon

Don't groan **too** loudly...