I think I sort of blew Pace's mind the other day when we were talking and I said “Daddy used to be little like you are now.” You could see the wheels turning and then he replied in a slightly awed voice, “Daddy no big? Daddy little?”
Yep.
Being a father really brings home how things repeat themselves. I remember spending hours as a kid looking through a shoebox of unsorted family photos my parents kept in the cabinet in the living room. And I'm sure that someday Pace will look at the millions of digital photos we're now taking and laugh at Shea's and my funny hairstyles and outmoded fashion sense.
Except I'm sure that Pace's equivalent of the somewhat ironic but lovingly done My Parents Were Awesome web site will take some form that I can't even imagine today – just as I'm sure that the parents whose photos are submitted to that page never could've imagined that their photos would be seen by thousands of strangers around the world.
Well, definitely last year anyhow and I think back in 2006 too from the look of things. I'm sure I did this in 2007 too but the post wasn't tagged, keyworded or referred to in any identifiable way. (Uhm, NP: “First Snow of the Year” – Hawksley Workman by the way.)
An interesting graphic of how different NHL teams break down by region/country, size, weight and age. I'm not going to do the math but I'll just assume that, with 40 players for a population of a million people, Saskatchewan is still the most heavily represented jurisdiction in the NHL on a per-capita basis, both on an annual and also an all-time basis.
I missed the end of Banned Books Week but meant to post this story – not just because it does a pretty good job of capturing the importance of Freedom to Read as a core principle in libraries – but also because it contains perhaps the greatest opening paragraph in a newspaper story of all-time:
“So much for the stereotype of library ladies as cardigan-wearing
schoolmarms, all pinched and prudish: Ottawa Chief Librarian Barbara
Clubb has just come out in defence of instructional guides for anal sex.”
Another in the never-ending series – Jason's fond memories of his semester in England…
Sometimes you just need a song that makes you get up and dance and this one fits the bill perfectly (especially when you're 22 and have a couple pints in you!)
(Sorry – embedding disabled by request. I'd link to a live or alternate version but the video is the equal of the song in the entertainment department.)
Someone sent me this and even as someone who's very interested in the idea of generational differences, I honestly can't decide what I think of it.
I'm sure it's a sincere idea aimed at building community and facilitating the exchange of information and experiences within the ranks of young librarians out there. But at the same time, I sometimes feel that we have too many divisions within the library world already – “are you an academic librarian? Oh, you're a public librarian…” (said with a voice like the person is holding their nose) or “You're a librarian? But do you have your MLIS. Oh…I guess I can still talk to you but maybe we shouldn't make eye contact or something.”
Then there's the fact that some young librarians act like old codgers and some older librarians are more youthful and full of life than most twenty-somethings I know.
But with all that out of the way, I think I'm probably just being grumpy because at 36, I'm on the downside of being a “young” librarian according to her criteria! So here's the details on the project…
By Michael on Librarians, Libraries & the Profession
Leah White writes:
My fellow young librarians and library workers:
I am now accepting submissions for an idea that I have been bouncing around for some time now. The Young Librarian Series is is a multimedia project. The basis is going to be a series of video interviews and guest posts on a blog graciously being hosted at tametheweb blogs. (ty Michael!!) Our themes will be generations in the library and being a Gen Y and young Gen X librarian; our experiences, our triumphs, struggles, cool projects that you might want to highlight, and so on.
Items the you might want to consider submitting: generational based posts, library inspired art projects, new media projects, such as videos, podcasts, or a created resource. Really the sky is the limit here and I’m very excited to see what people have to contribute.
The goal of The Young Librarian Series is to provide a sense of community for young librarians. A place for us to collaborate, to center ourselves in the field. To brainstorm. To think. To discuss and empower.
My guidelines are basic: you must be a part of Generation Y or young-ish Gen X, so 40 and under. If you just want to bounce ideas off me and send a proposal, that is more than welcome. I don’t care what font you use. I don’t care if there are one inch margins. I want to hear about your ideas, your experiences. And your fellow young librarians want to hear from you as well.
Please note: If I have spoken to you about doing an interview or contributing, its time to start formulating some ideas. Send me an email with any and all questions.
The email: younglibrarianseries@gmail.com
I so look forward to hearing from you and please, lets spread the word.
Wordoid is a site that will generate realistic-looking but not-in-the-dictionary words. (via Christian Bok's Twitter feed) Readability is a bookmarklet that will help convert web sites into something a lot more readable.
I was talking to a non-librarian who was in doing some training for a couple library staff members this morning. We kept talking about our “Circ” department and she finally admitted, “Everytime you say that, I keep thinking of Cirque du Soleil!”
(That naturally made me wonder what the effect on customer service would be if we had trampolines and (more) spotlights at our circ desks? Of course, we'd probably turn people off when we said “That will be $250 for the show – thanks for coming!” like the other Cirque does! )
Oh, and another “Saskatchewan in so small” connection. The external trainer comes in and goes “You look familiar” to me. I don't recognize her right off but she looks familiar to me as well. As the training's happening, I keep trying to place her – Undergrad? Friend of a friend? Summer camp (except I've never been to one.) Then it hit me – she was the lead sales person for the other team one summer when I worked for Image Cable!
If you click through to the Image Cable link, you'll see that I tell an anecdote about how we out-sold the other team quite badly over the summer. I like to think it was all due to my great personal charm and winning personality. But chatting about some of those old times with my former colleague today, I learned a couple things I didn't know about at the time (well, I sorta suspected but didn't know for sure) that helped explain why there was that huge discrepancy in how our two teams performed.
Just goes to show you that you never know the whole story – no matter how much you think you do. There's also a huge lesson in there about management that I won't get into here. But yeah, everybody prefers to be managed in a different way and it's a delicate balance at the best of times – even for college kid door-to-door sales drones.
When we went to Moose Jaw for Noah Evanchuk's nomination a couple weeks ago, someone mentioned that they hadn't seen a lot of politics on my blog recently.
I have no idea what I babbled as a response but the truth is that this blog was never meant to be a political outlet and that focus on all things political only came about as I got more and more involved in the Ryan Meili campaign. Once that was over, I explained that it was only natural that I'd fall back to my pattern of posts on libraries, technology and various assorted other randomness that caught my eye.
Or at least that's what I thought…
I'm not consistent with how I tag entries but I took a quick look at my list of keywords and this is how the Top 5 rank (with a tie at #4):
Internet – 263 LibraryRelated – 247 Politics – 190 LibrarySchool – 188 List – 188 VideoClip – 187
Hmm, colour me surprised. I never would've guessed that Politics would rank so highly as a keyword for posts on this blog, even after three months of pretty much using that tag on every single entry I did.
Okay, so the whole premise of this post – to talk about what it's not – has been shot to hell.
So let's do some quick hits on what's been happening lately in politics, quit denying that I'm not a political blogger, and keep boosting that “politics” keyword count until it's #1, baby!
Chris Szarka running for City Council – Longtime Roughrider and Grey Cup Champion, Chris Szarka has announced that he's running for Regina City Council in Ward 10 (which happens to be my riding.) His bio is at the bottom of this City of Regina election page but it doesn't give any great insight into his platform. For example, you'll likely never hear a candidate say they want to raise taxes and Mr. Szarka doesn't disappoint – he wants to lower taxes too! He was interviewed on the evening news tonight and said he's in favour of a domed stadium for Regina, a fairly contentious issue in the city these days. Hard to say how he'll do against a well-established Councilor but one would suspect that the name recognition will be a huge boost in a city without a lot of celebrities. The incumbent, Frank Flegel, is a local realtor and although I have nothing against realtors per se, we do seem to have a lot of them on our City Council so should Szarka win, it's probably worth it just to have someone else in that chair – especially someone who will bring new blood and new ideas.
Dwain Lingenfelter and Danielle Chartier Win Their By-Elections This news is a couple weeks old too but as widely expected, both NDP candidates won by-elections in their respective constituencies. Dwain Lingenfelter, as new party leader, got the bulk of the ink on this so I'd like to shine the spotlight on Danielle a bit.
I first heard about her when there was talk that Ryan Meili was going to run in Saskatoon-Riversdale and she was a potential opponent. I visited her campaign web site (now redirecting to her MLA page on the NDP site). I was a Ryan supporter but looking over her bio and other materials, couldn't help but think that she seemed like an ideal candidate for this riding. (And there was also potential for a familial rift as Shea was really excited by her candidacy.) Luckily, I should've known better than to doubt Ryan's political instincts and it all worked out in the end.
Shea and I met Danielle in person at the NDP convention and both came away even more impressed. I know she doesn't want to be a one-issue candidate but she is an extended breastfeeding mother and for Shea, still nursing Pace at 2 1/2 years, that's a pretty big deal. In fact, I don't know if this is the case but would suspect that Danielle might be the first breastfeeding MLA in the Legislature. But as I said, she's not a one issue candidate – she's a very intelligent, thoughtful, community-minded person who appears to have a very bright future in politics (and winning the riding that was home to the last two NDP Premiers probably doesn't hurt if you're a believer in luck/karma/lucky charms!)
Death of the Provincial Liberal Party A lot of the commentary after the by-elections focused on the very poor showing of the Liberal candidate in Saskatoon who almost got less votes than the Green candidate and the fact that the Liberals chose not to run anyone against Link in Regina at all. I'm an NDP supporter but I find this a sad turn of events – there are people in this province who aren't having their views represented with a weakened Liberal party and that's quite unfortunate. I'm also nervous that this moves our province even more towards a US-style, two-party system – something that's long been the underlying dichotomy of this province – the socialists and the, uhm, not-socialists – but which becomes more overt in the current political climate.
