Joe Baker
Dunedin’s Lilliput Libraries are hand-crafted book-filled boxes set up on the fence line of a dedicated Lilliput Library guardian. Passers-by are encouraged to “take a book now, leave a book later”. John’s Lilliput Library needed a bit of a turn around; we needed some exercise. Thus the Swift bike and book tour was born. We decided that each tour member would take a book to John’s library and swap it with a book found therein. We would then cycle on to other Lilliput Libraries, exchanging our book whenever we found one we preferred. At any one time we would each carry only one book. We would then cycle back up to John’s with our single prized tome.
The 2016 North and East Otago Literature is Therapy Society (NEOLIThS) conference was held in the seaside village of Karitane last February. The keynote speaker was Professor Ivor G. Rudge who believes many patients are unhappy with their health providers but are unwilling to complain. Professor Rudge asks patients to write down their grievances. The process of transcribing their thoughts to paper is therapeutic for the patients and allows them to take more ownership of the issues. Professor Rudge also believes that disseminating patients’ concerns can inform health providers about what really irks patients. Professor Rudge presented various case studies. The first was a patient describing a typical encounter with his GP who we have called George (not his real name).