A couple of the other bloggers who supported Ryan Meili during the Saskatchewan NDP leadership race have issued challenges to their readers to donate to the Ryan Meili campaign to help pay off the last remaining debt that helped Dr. Meili finish a strong second place to eventual winner, Dwain Lingenfelter.
As the librarian of the group, I think I'll choose 324.6 which is, of course, the Dewey Classification number for political campaigns.
Now, I know most of the readers of this blog are from out-of-province and could give two whiffs about Saskatchewan politics. But I think it's important to show that librarians and politics go beyond former school librarian, Laura Bush.
So my challenge to you is this – if you find this blog entertaining or informative or useful, whether I'm writing about libraries OR politics – why not take a moment to send $3.24 (or $32.46 or $324.60 – if you're a rich librarian – I know, contradiction in terms! ) to Ryan's Donation Page?
Today is the one year anniversary of my starting at RPL (an occasion so auspicious, I commemorated it by posting a link to an album of mellowed-out cover versions of the Footloose soundtrack
on this day one year ago!). Still, this last year has gone in a flash
and it's hard to believe it's been twelve months already.
Here are a few random highlights from the past year…
– dressing as a “Human Whiteboard” for Halloween and getting co-workers to sign the whiteboard (a white t-shirt) with their favourite books and/or authors.
– taking the initiative to create a staff directory for our Intranet
that had photos of all staff members on it (partly out of selfish
reasons – I knew I'd be working with lots of different staff members
throughout the year and it was a quick way to familiarize myself with
everyone. I've had lots of compliments on it from others who find it
equally useful – almost as many as the number of complaints I initially
got from people nervous about having their photo anywhere near the
Internet. Interestingly, those two groups have on at least one
occasion been the same person!)
– I did some pretty heavy lobbying for the Ryan Meili campaign at work
(you don't have to work too hard to read between the lines of a column I wrote for the Sask Library Association's journal about advocacy in the workplace),
especially within our union, and that often got some big pushback (from
co-workers rather than my boss or other managers thankfully) but also
got lots of quiet support (having a few co-workers bring me cheques to
support the Meili Money Bomb was particularly gratifying.) I don't
think I ever told the story of the one event that made me realise,
perhaps more than anything else, that Ryan's result against Link was
going to be a lot closer than most people suspected! I won't tell that
here but promise that I will someday…
– Betting a co-worker one dollar that I wouldn't have to switch offices
during a recent reorganization that happened at RPL. I lost and moved
into my new location almost exactly a week ago.
– The RPL Kid's Christmas Party was a highlight of the year for getting to know my co-workers not just in their work roles but as parents and grandparents too.
– Realising my job title could be shortened to “OD Specialist”
– Asking if that could be printed on my business cards.
– Again, not exactly work-related but deciding to take the bus instead
of driving and paying for downtown parking seemed like a big decision at
the time but has turned out to be a great choice. I get so much
reading and other work done on the bus each day that the commute
(roughly half an hour each way) sails by. (Shea asked me the other
day: “You don't look up? Ever?” “Nope. Because if you do, there
will be a bus person who wants to talk to you!” I defer to Michelle L. who is the master of the librarian-on-the-bus anecdote.)
– oh, and since I'm the master of cheese and sentimentality on this
blog, I will also say that I'm looking forward to the next year to come
and some of the exciting projects the upcoming months will bring!
*I'm
backdating a few posts to this past weekend to keep up the illusion that I never leave the
front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending
quality time with my family.*
“Happy Labour Day” isn't the right phrase when a song like this is still way too relevant in today's world…
*I'm
backdating a few posts to this past weekend to keep up the illusion that I never leave the
front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending
quality time with my family.* The Deal With Disability's “About Me” page sums up the purpose of this eye-opening site very nicely…
“Hey, I’m Eva. I’m 26 and a recent college graduate. I like to write,
to take Digital photographs, and just chill. But this blog is not about
what I like. This blog is about how people treat me. You see, I am
physically disabled. Actually “severely” physically disabled. I have
Cerebral Palsy, which for me means I can’t walk, speak, or use muscles
in traditional ways. I use a power wheelchair to get around and spell
out what I want to say on a letterboard.
This blog will be videos of people treating me bizarrely. My video
camera is mounted to my wheelchair (very discreetly) and I basically
just press record whenever I go out and then edit the good stuff for
you! I will then write my comments on the event, which is usually what
was playing in my inner monologue while these insensitive people were
talking. Hope you enjoy. “
*I'm
backdating a few posts to this past weekend to keep up the illusion that I never leave the
front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending
quality time with my family.*
CustomizedCoupland is an opportunity for you to design your own cover for his new book – for a price of course! Still, a pretty cool mash-up of traditional publishing and cutting-edge technology. Coupland is a natural fit for this as well with his history as an artist and graphic designer. In fact, we just had an exhibit at the RPL's Dunlop Art Gallery that featured a Coupland piece.
*I'm backdating a few posts to keep up the illusion that I never leave the front of my computer for such things as camping and otherwise spending quality time with my family.*
WhatTheInternetKnowsAboutYou.com uses an unintentional security hole that exists in most browsers – the ability to see which links you've clicked in the past to turn them that generic “visited link” purple – to be able to view your browsing history (explanation here).
As they say on the site, this used to be a lot less worrisome when we just went to some basic sites but now, with people visiting social networking sites and URL's that tell a lot about us (which sites we hit on Wikipedia, sites we've hit via Google searches), the potential for malicious use is much higher.
The most excellent Common Craft videos on YouTube provided inspiration for this cool video from the Edmonton Public Library about their “Fine Free Day” promotion…
…although these are quite a bit better quality than usual since we got a real photographer to take them as opposed to me whipping out the iPhone and going “Hold it!” anytime Pace does something cute.
(Funny story – we were at Central last Saturday and one of the pages saw Pace run by. Then she looked up and saw me close behind and goes “Is that yours?” I say “yes” and she goes “But he's so cute!”)
NB: The preceding anecdote may have contained (very) slight paraphrasing for comedic effect.
After years of planning and preparation, today was a pretty momentous day for Regina Public Library. Having recently completed a major Program and Services Review which looked at all aspects of the organization – staffing, programming, facilities – today was the official implementation day for one of the key components of the new structure – a revamped staffing model and organizational chart.
As you can well imagine, there are a huge range of emotions over the changes that are happening – some staff are moving to new units or branches, others are moving their physical location – and that means that people are feeling excited, nervous, frustrated, sad and angry – often with all of these feeling swirling around at the same time.
My role at RPL is a fairly unique one in a number of different ways – for example, I'm the only in-scope employee in the HR department which is otherwise completely comprised of out-of-scope staff.
Another unique aspect of my job is the work that I actually get to do. The major responsibility of my position is all staff training and development which is fairly standard. But the other part is a bit more nebulous – “Organization Development” which you can read definitions of in various places but which for me, basically means that I have a pretty wide flexibility to do various things to help the organization successfully achieve its goals.
Sometimes that's helping a manager develop policy, sometimes that's talking to front-line staff to see what concerns they have about their day-to-day work. And sometimes, like today, it's taking 20 dozen doughnuts around to every single branch and unit in the organization as a small gesture of thanks to the staff for their dedication to RPL. Needless to say, I enjoy my job quite a bit!
) to Ryan's Donation Page? 
