Category Archives: Work

Happy Work-iversary To Me!

Today marks 13 years since I started at Regina Public Library on September 8, 2008 (and I got to celebrate by taking a rare opportunity to exercise some front-line librarian muscles by reading a couple stories to a grade 3/4 class that visited our branch today!) If I had a traditional 30-year career, I’d be […]

“The Walls Are Closing In On The Unvaccinated”

An Angus Reid poll showed that 75 per cent of Canadians agreed with the statement “I don’t have a lot of sympathy for people who chose not to be vaccinated and then got COVID-19.” In B.C., 53 per cent favoured making vaccines mandatory in public places to make life harder for unvaccinated people, while another […]

Friday Fun Link – Fair Dealing Decision Tool (Maybe?)

Somebody sent this tool around at work so I thought I’d post it here (though if you know how I feel about copyright, you’ll know that I’m also not the best person to ask about whether something falls under copyright or not as I have a *very* generous understanding of what constitutes “fair dealing”!) 🙂

Music Monday – “This is how you play/This is how you play/This is how you play/The lick”

A co-worker’s son is the bassist in this band… “The Lick” – People of the Sun 

20 Signs You Have A Good Boss

The importance of good bosses can’t be overstated. RPL has had a number of people in supervisory/management positions over the dozen or so years I’ve been there and I would say I’ve honestly seen both the best and the worst in terms of how they approach supervising other people. Here is just.a sample of the […]

RIP Mick Burrs (Steven Michael Berzensky) 1940-2021

PICTURES OF THE DEAD (from “Dark Halo”) The dead leave us only images of themselves: souvenirs in washed out colours, dried petals pressed in family albums, shadows that stain our papered walls.  They abandon us in our rooms, teach us how to converse with dust, will not let us forget them. But in our glistening reeds […]

Some Quick Thoughts On The Stabbing at Lynn Valley Public Library in North Vancouver

Shea and I often talk about how strange it is that librarians are one of the few professions where practitioners actively visit local examples of their workplace in other communities when traveling (she doesn’t have a strong desire to visit hospitals in other places when on a holiday – that’s for sure!). I think there’s […]

Freedom To Read Week 2021 – Day Five – Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Calgary #FTRW Committee Council Presentation (February 2004)

Through my work with the Writers Guild of Alberta, I became involved with the Calgary Freedom to Read Week Committee.  I can’t find it online now but my memory is that this committee of writers, librarians, publishers and social activists was formed after some MLA held up some book in the Alberta Legislature to denounce […]

Toxic Positivity

I saw this in the context of someone dealing with cancer but I can think of lots of other situations – workplaces, volunteer organizations, schools, families, life during Covid in general – where everyone is encouraged to act as if everything is good and positive and happy instead of acknowledging that things might be less […]

Throwback Thursday – #tbt – Boxing Day Classic (Multiple Years)

When I was in high school and later, in university, the neighbours across the street hosted a Boxing Day road hockey tournament every year. This was followed by an airing of the latest Don Cherry “Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em” VHS tape that one of their two boys got from Christmas, finger foods, basement beers and […]