Camping is a strange thing – you pay a lot of money to basically live in the wilderness with all the attendant dangers and risks. This summer, we’ve had a few… Pace hit himself in the face with a metal scooter while attempting a trick, cutting his face, giving himself a fat lip and loosening […]
This article is from the US and talks about libraries in Philadelphia, Denver and San Francisco but I know firsthand that librarians and library workers across Canada and right here in Regina regularly deal with people who are drunk, on drugs, or occasionally even actively using on library premises in washrooms or elsewhere. It presents […]
Yesterday’s “One Love for Manchester” concerts, pulled together only a couple weeks after a terrorist bombing at an Ariana Grande concert are being compared to the 1970’s “Concert for Bangladesh“, the 1980’s “Live Aid“, the 1990’s “Tibetan Freedom Concert” and the 2000’s “Live 8” as another in a long line of notable benefit concerts – this being […]
Yesterday was the last day of the Saskatchewan Transportation Company which was shuttered as part of the Sask Party’s extreme cuts in their last budget. Founded in 1946 by Tommy Douglas’ CCF government as a way to connect and serve a widely distributed and (at the time) mostly rural province, STC hit highs for ridership in the […]
Former Reform MP and first leader of the Sask Party, Elwin Hermanson, came out of the woodwork (there’s a Hermanson/hermit pun in there somewhere) recently to weigh in on the backlash to the Sask Party’s cuts to public libraries… It’s hard to know where to start with such a clueless and misinformed post. But I’ll try… […]
There’s a hierarchy in rural Saskatchewan… First, you lose the hospital. The grain elevators close and are replaced by an inland terminal in a bigger town down the line. You used to have a handful of churches and soon you’re down to two or one or maybe even none. The local school closes and the kids […]
I recently came across this picture I took at one of my branch libraries soon after I started working as Branch Supervisor for Southeast Regional Library in 2007. Like the communities where they’re located, many rural libraries are often relatively “conservative” in the dictionary (as opposed to the more loaded political) sense of the word […]
The 2016 Saskatchewan Provincial election took place one year ago today. Like me, I’m sure you’re shocked to realise that “Cut rural library budgets by over 50%” wasn’t listed in the Platform the Sask Party ran on during that election. They also didn’t release a budget prior to the election so voters could make a fully informed […]
Wanna know a secret? Although I’ve signed each of the various petitions that are available, attended rallies and done a lot of other work, both visible and behind the scenes, I haven’t formally written to my MLA or Minister Don Morgan or Premier Brad Wall about the recent cuts to Saskatchewan’s public libraries yet. As this blog, with over […]
