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 […]
Sometimes I wonder why I keep this blog up, basically every day, for over ten years. Looking through some old blog posts recently, I realised that librarians are natural archivists and that’s part of the reason. For example, looking for something else, I realised that I’d posted the responses I got prior to the 2007 Saskatchewan […]
(As a general rule, I don’t do disclaimers on my blog. But given the fine line that exists between my place of employment and my interest in this issue as a taxpaying citizen – not to mention the fact that I’m someone who grew up in rural Saskatchewan and previously worked for a regional library […]
I made a quick video of some of the highlights from the DEARSask protests that happened on Friday. These read-ins saw nearly 6000 people at 85 sites across the province protesting the drastic cuts to the province’s public libraries. My biggest problem making this video? Way too many pictures to choose from! So this video includes a […]
I honestly felt like I was going to break the “Angry” emoticon on Facebook the past two weeks – so much bad news about cuts to libraries but also to education, STC and other vital services coming across my news feed. Thankfully, today I got to have a much more enjoyable day, continually clicking the […]
Tomorrow, there will be various Drop Everything and Read “read-ins” at over 60 locations across the province including the offices of most MLAs to protest the drastic cuts to Saskatchewan’s public library system. If you’re a support of libraries, why not swing by one of the events to show your support? And if you can’t make it in […]
So on Monday, I heard that some library colleagues from the Palliser Regional Library system who’d been laid off were going to be at the Sask Legislature. Since it was my day off, I decided to tag along. I was able to join them in the NDP’s Caucus Office for a while before the afternoon […]
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 […]
