I'm sitting in a motel room in downtown Ottawa, having arrived safe and sound earlier today. Here's some random thoughts on my trip so far…
– my absolute favourite part of flying is take-off and landing during that brief window of time when you're able to see the city you're at from above with everything below you identifiable but on that “Lego Little People” scale. I will refrain from making some faux-deep observation about how it reminds you that we're all ants, scurrying about. (Ooops, too late.)
– you know an area that always gets overlooked when libraries are designed? Bathrooms. The Ottawa airport and many others have great bathrooms – infrared sensors on everything, no-touch entrances (ie. no doors that you have to push or pull open), hourly inspection logs, lots of urinals and stalls, etc. I'll always remember the story of a European businessman who bought a failing gas station chain. The biggest single investment he made after the purchase was completely upgrading the bathrooms across the entire chain. Soon the company was at its highest profit level ever! Of course there are differences between providing comfortable rest spots for travelers and library patrons. But if we're really competing with places like Chapters, inviting bathrooms needs to be part of the equation.
– I was able to go for supper and later, dessert with a few friends from FIMS and it was nice to catch up with everybody and hear their thoughts on libraries, being new librarians and what's happened with fellow colleagues that I've lost touch with.
– I would say that Ottawa is home to the most librarians per capita in the country by a far margin.
– apparently 98% of these Ottawa librarians went to FIMS.
– that reminds me, I haven't updated the “Spirit of Librarianship” page for a couple semesters. (Er, anybody at FIMS who's reading this happen to know the winners and/or nominees in the past couple semesters?)
– the FIMS triple cohort in the fall of 2007 which I'm sure I heard was going to be a “one time only” intake has apparently happened again this fall.
– is somebody updating the stats on the ratio of new librarians being pumped out to librarians that will be retiring in the next few years? I hope that balance isn't being thrown completely out of whack, especially with these triple cohorts and ANOTHER library school supposedly coming to Ottawa in the near future.
– so far, being in Ottawa during an election campaign is like…being in Regina during an election campaign. Not much to compare since I've only been here for a bit but I would give Ottawa the edge in lawn signs.
– this is my third time in Ottawa, once with my folks when I was younger, a couple years ago for the CLA conference when I drove a vanload of FIMS students up and now this trip. It's a weird sort of deja vu, being here for a library conference, staying in the same area (in the same “budget” price point although I've upgraded from youth hostel to “hotel that appears to come with a free hooker with any room booked” according to one of the FIMS colleagues who came here tonight to pick me up) and planning to wander past many of the same attractions as last time.
– just a bit more on that “free hooker at the hotel” thing. That's an exaggeration but I did look in a nearby window when we were leaving and saw two elderly people sitting at a desk in their room playing cards. With a bottle of vodka and a bottle of water between them!
– with all that said, I don't know if I'll ever reach a place in life where I'm comfortable paying more than $100 a night for a room (this place was $90 but I'm obviously paying for the proximity to downtown rather than the ambiance.) When I went to a CanCopy conference way back in 2000, they put us up at the Westin Harbour Castle in TO. I had to ask and then, when I heard the rooms were $350/night, bean to wonder if I could somehow go check into a hostel and get paid the difference?
Five Things That Will Probably Happen When I Play With My Old Rec Hockey Team For The First Time in Seven Years Tonight 1. I will very likely puke after my first shift. 2. I will likely suffer an injury of some sort, probably to my groin. 3. I will need a wheelchair to get around at work tomorrow. 4. I will do this. 5. I will puke again at various points throughout the game.
As for Ottawa-based folks who've been writing, I think Sunday seems to be the consensus for getting together. How does brunch sound? Is there a good place in or near the Byward Market? How does 11am sound? Other suggestions for locations/times greatly accepted.
Exciting news! I've been asked to attend the Canadian Library Human Resources Summit in Ottawa on October 6-7. It's sort of short notice but an all-expenses trip paid to Ottawa so who am I to complain?
Here's the blurb I was sent which explains a bit more about what the summit is and how it came about:
“The Canadian library community has an invaluable data resource through the research of the 8Rs Research Team on the state and future of human resources in the Canadian library community. To assist practitioners and management to use the research, in 2005 then CLA-President Stephen Abram struck the President’s Council, composed of individuals from a variety of practice settings. The President's Council in the past year has focused primarily on information gathering, with the major project being the Info*Nation website (http://www.cla.ca/infonation/). These projects have helped to bring in other contextual information to the published 8Rs report, and have continued to raise the profile of the work that has been done thus far.
The key question for the next incarnation of the President's Council is how to map out the next stage of work: an action-oriented national strategy. This strategy should include actions designed to ensure that the sum of work already accomplished by the President’s Council is maintained. CLA has offered to lead a community-wide effort in partnership with other associations and organizations that can commit resources to achieving the project goals.
VISION: To develop a national strategy and action plans that will ensure an adequate supply of well-educated, well-trained librarians and information professionals who will meet Canada’s knowledge and information management needs in the first three decades of the 21^st century.
GOALS:
· To build upon the President’s Council work and to recommend specific actions that will lead towards the achievement of this vision.
· To propose and promote specific actions and outcomes to be undertaken by organizations and associations on key human resource issues.
The Summit’s agenda will involve research presentations on several different human resource concerns we are currently facing in the library community, including the accessibility of MLIS education, leadership development models, and continuing professional development for staff. These presentations will include models that could be adopted by the Canadian library community to address the concerns. After the presentations, small breakout groups will discuss whether these models (or others) might be feasible from their perspective, and report their discussions back to the larger group.
The Summit delegates represent a range of library sectors (academic, public, and special; representing individual libraries as well as associations). The delegates tend to be senior administrators, human resource managers, and/or executive association members who have much experience in the field and have the ability to speak to their area’s need for and interest in a particular strategy.”
I booked my flight tonight and will get to Ottawa late on Saturday afternoon. I'll have that evening and all day Sunday to be a tourist before going to the conference on Monday and Tuesday (anybody in Ottawa want to get together for supper and/or drinks?).
I don't know what they're calling us but the seven “youth delegates” as I think of the group of new librarians who've been invited have also been asked to blog about their experiences so I'll be sure to post that URL when it's up.
But it makes sense in some ways. In fact, I had a conversation today with someone and we both wondered if I may be the only professional librarian working in the HR department of a public library in Canada? Who knows? Maybe I'll find out at the Summit…
Something like 15% of American citizens believe Barack Obama is Muslim. Including the woman in this video. But I'm not posting this clip to make fun of her. I mean, the woman does say she's a Hillary supporter! (Okay, maybe I'm making a bit of fun. )
At any rate, even when it has nothing to do with her, it sort of feels like Sarah Palin week continues here on the Head Tale. In fact, in a different multiverse, I think Sarah Palin could've been the woman in this clip. And by the way, did you ever notice that Sarah Palin is an anagram for Sarah Plain? Didya? (Er, also “PS Anal Hair” )
Yet another groundbreaking Google project was announced a month ago. I didn't blog about it at the time but I recently rediscovered it via the Vancouver Law Librarian blog which made me realise the full scope of this project already. So I thought I better pass it along.
So Google's announcement that it will be digitizing archives of newspapers from around the globe is pretty cool. And not just just the articles, but also ads, headlines, and photos–in short, all that peripheral content from outside the day's story.
There doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive list of newspapers participating, and coverage does seem a bit patchy still. But a few random searches pulled hits from the Vancouver Times from as far back as 1864, and the Vancouver Daily Post from 1865. And on the proud Canadian front, the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph (according to Google, the oldest newspaper in North America) is also there, along with a 1822 copy of the Montreal Herald.
“A girl I once caught reading Fahrenheit 451 over my shoulder on the subway confessed: “You know, I'm an English lit major, but I've never loved any books like the ones I loved when I was 12 years old.” I fell slightly in love with her when she said that. It was so frank and uncool, and undeniably true.”
My parents got invited to the Investors Group cross-Canada comedy tour stop in Regina tonight and invited Shea and I to join them. The second comedian, Tim Nutt, began his act this way…
“Alright Regina! How y'all doing? Thursday night in Regina – must be exciting – let's go down to the nice theatre and hang out with our financial planners.” (I laughed at that.) “What're we going to do next? Go down to the liberry (yep, he actually mis-pronounced it), find some noisy people and shush them?”
The worst part? This joke brought the house down too. Old stereotypes die hard I guess. So in all fairness, I'll throw a similarly lame joke back his way and even give you a choice of punchlines.
“How many comedians does it take to change a lightbulb?”
1. Two – one to ask the librarian to read the manual to them and one to change the bulb.
2. None, they're all in the dark anyhow.
3. Just one – as long as his name is Dewey!
Hey, lookit me! I'm a cum-median.
(He did point out during one badly received, sexist joke that “You may not be aware that you are at a comedy show. There is an outside chance that I may be joking, you know.” And to be fair, he was still the funniest of the three comics who performed including a guy who'd been on “In Living Color” back in the day.)
The other day, I was at our local mall and popped into the bookstore. On the shelf, I saw a new title called “The 100 Greatest Canadian Albums of All-Time”. This one caught my eye and was quickly in my hand as I turned to head for the cashier. But then I thought, “Twenty five bucks for a book I'll only read once? And that'll be a pretty quick read at that? Don't I work in a library? They might have it.” So the next day, I go in and do the search and not only is the book in the system but it's at Central Branch, checked in. So at noon, I walk up a flight of stairs, find the proper area and by my bus ride home that day, I'm reading away. Sometimes it's the simple pleasures in life, no?
