Head Tale

Scholarly Journal Submission Update
Just finished submitting the revised version of “Useless as Tits on a Bull: User Fees in Alberta Public Libraries” to Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Research and Theory.  As I said before, it's been an extremely educational process, I got some great feedback and even if they don't decide to publish it after this time around, I'm happy that my paper is 100% better than it was before.  (I doubt I'd revise it again it it comes back to me once more – at least while I'm still in school this semester.  It's been far too distracting as is.)  With that said, I would encourage anyone to submit your best essay to them.  Even if it doesn't get published, it's well worth going through the process.  I've asked for permission to reprint the two peer reviewers' comments and I'll likely also upload the revised paper at some point in the future as well. 

The In-Box Exercise
A popular job interview technique is the “in-box” exercise where you're given a hypothetical in-box full of memos, letters, reports, etc. and asked to prioritize everything, explaining your decisions.  That's what my first three weeks of library school have been like with an in-box filled with:
1) revising that essay for resubmission to the journal
2) student council stuff – both my required duties and a bunch of new initiatives we discussed at the last meeting
3) finalizing arrangements for the most ambitious Lunch Bucket Speaker event I've presented by far
4) trying to keep up with readings and assignments. 

In what might be marked as a “fail” in the real-world in-box exercise, the order I listed those things is also basically the prioritiy I've given them (you could probably also stick “write long, rambling blog entries” in at 3.5 before doing homework too!)  I've been amazingly lucky to not have a single assignment due until September 26 (how is that even possible in this program?) but the readings have been pretty heavy so far so that's time consuming as is.  My priorities will definitely re-arrange in the coming weeks…or else I'm in trouble. 

A gazillion years ago, my boss told me that the danger of working in non-profit organizations wasn't that the work was too easy, it was that it was too easy to let yourself get stretched thin.  She said the kind of people attracted to non-profit work tend to be the kind of people who can't say 'no' and get in trouble because of it.  (Er, do you see anyone around here who fits that description?) 

Groccery Checkout
Gotta give a big plug to Grocery Checkout, a locally-owned company that's about to celebrate their one year anniversary in November.  Shea and I have used them a few times this year to order and deliver groceries to us.  Their prices are comparable to most grocery stores, they save you the time and hassle of shopping as well as the expense of getting to the store (especially if you don't have a car and have to take a cab or don't want to always be doing “mini-runs” on the bus.)  They don't offer as many  “specials” as grocery stores do but you're also less likely to do all those impulse buys.  They used to charge a flat fee of $7.95 but recently revised their pricing so that the basic fee is $6.95, if you order over $100, it's $4.95 and if you order over $150, it's only $1.50!  Great for ordering heavy canned goods, great for getting frozen goods home in summer without them melting on the bus, great if you have a household with two or more people and can order $150+ in groceries at a time.  Their delivery schedules vary depending on how busy they are but we put in our latest order last night and had our groceries by 7pm tonight.  Give them a try if you get a chance!

Classmate of the Day Catch-up
Did I ever explain this for any new readers?  In addition to the Friday Fun Links, another recurring feature on this blog is “Classmate/Colleague of the Day” where I name somebody around FIMS who's done something cool or memorable or fun or somehow made my life more enjoyable (ie.  basically, any reason I want.)  So yeah, let's see if I can shotgun a few COTD's for the last week to “catch-up”…

Monday – I didn't get the name but the guy at the Registrar who gave me a form with the University's seal confirming my enrollment without charging me $5 like the woman at the front desk wanted to is my first CotD not connected to the program I think. 

Tuesday – Karina Miki-Douglas did an awesome presentation in our 532 – Journalism class with a display, props, handouts AND free Runts candies.  You could tell she took Instructional Strategies with Jennifer Noon!  (She also won a contest and its her photo of the clock tower that's on the front of the SOGS dayplanner.  Tres cool!)

Wednesday – everybody on Student Council.  We've got a lot of exciting ideas for new projects this term and if we even manage to implement half of them, it would be amazing. 

Thursday – Corey Redekop, who is a recent FIMS grad with a novel coming out next year gave me the honour of seeing previews of the four covers under consideration for it.  (Him and I disagreed about which was the best though!)

Friday – I spent an enjoyable few hours at the Grad Club this afternoon with two PhD students, Tami Oliphant and Margaret Kipp, discussing all manner of things from blogs to intellectual freedom to social bookmarking technology to the publishing industry (Tami is teaching a course on Publishing in Winter 2007 and everybody should take it – it's going to be awesome!)