It was a highlight of my young career as a librarian to get to spend a year and a half working in RPL’s Outreach Unit serving visually impaired, homebound, and other special needs patrons across Regina. Here’s a pic I snapped when our monthly book club (the group listened to audio books but otherwise operated […]
I’m seeing lots of discussion (and some hand-wringing) about the threat to libraries after Amazon announces the “Kindle Unlimited” plan which gives you access to 600,000 e-books plus thousands of audiobooks for a Netflix-like $9.99/month subscription. Librarians and other defenders of open access and the public library were quick to respond: I mean, if this […]
Usually it’s the Library Assistants who do this type of thing but today, I got to pitch in to play host to a visit from a school group. It was a great chance to exercise some “librarian muscles” I don’t get many opportunities to use and many of the things I learned in my Children’s Librarianship […]
The branch I work at is the newest in the Regina Public Library system. Since it opened just about two years ago it has had the following two pieces of art hanging in the YA area… These pieces have provoked a mixed reaction to say the least. Some staff and patrons felt that these pieces […]
I find increasingly that I have a few standard lines that I repeat to myself as little koans of wisdom. One of these is “Don’t just look at the numbers; look to find the story behind the numbers.” This graphic, which is making the rounds on social media today, sums this idea up perfectly. A […]
The TD Summer Reading Program is once again in full swing at libraries across Canada. Here’s a pic of Pace and I with one of the entertainers (Walden the Wizard?) I brought in when I worked at Southeast Regional Library. Pace seems a bit uncertain of this wizard’s powers! 😉
No minimum page counts. No incentives. No countdown clocks. No video game ban threats. Instead, according to this article, just put books in front of kids in the places they’re most likely to get bored and watch what happens. This article’s theory is especially interesting in light of the typical library summer reading program which does […]
At the beginning of the year, the teacher said that any kid who read 300 books would get a prize at the end of the year. Pace ended up reading around 400 books (and probably more that we didn’t always remember to write in his reading log), got a pretty cool “Thunder Maker” toy as […]
This is a picture of me sitting at the circulation desk of the Indian Head branch library that I grew up with and ended up as supervisor for in my first job after doing my Master of Library Science degree.
Here are a few things that caught my eye this past week… What are the best new products nobody knows about? (Quora) How We Die – Then and Now: Comparing Causes of Death, 1900 v. 2010 (Infographic) What Radiohead Song Always Moves You To Tears? (Reddit) How Poverty Taxes The Brain (Infographic) Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” […]
