UWO had a snow day today and were recommending that no one come to the campus unless necessary. So of course Shea and I decided to take a walk this afternoon to check things out.
They found Jason frozen in a snow bank tonight along with his ever-present digital camera.
This was a photo he took just as he left the bar. The time stamp says 2:39am but I know this is a mistake as he told me he would be home around 8pm or so.
The snow looks so deep and I can only imagine that my wonderful husband, being a good Saskatchewan boy, helped push out at least four cars on his way home. I'm sure he even helped push out one driven by drunken idiots (who promptly got stuck again!) And even though one car stopped to offer him a ride but then sped away when he approached, I just know this didn't shake his faith in humanity – just undergrads.
Hopefully Jason will thaw out tomorrow and I can go dig him out of whatever snow bank he's curled up in. But otherwise, I quite enjoyed being in charge of the blog for a change and can't wait to tell him how many comments my post got compared to his usual boring library school crap.
(NP: “First Snow of the Year” – Hawksley Workman.)
Ha. I think you missed posting today Jason because you didn't make it home from the bar yet!
Love
Shea
I love looking at my referrer logs to see the search terms that bring people to this blog.
Since December 1, that has been phrases such as:
“Is+April+the+highest+suicide+month?”
“How Long Until I Get My Acceptance Letter from UWO?”
“FIMS Porn”
Yep, that last one is for real. Somebody out there is looking for “FIMS porn”.
The most important question I saw though, one so important that it needs an answer in case the person comes back (I'd referred to this drink earlier in my blog but without the recipe) is:
“How do I make a rye & coke press?”
The answer is:
– 2 oz. rye
– 1/2 glass of Coke
– 1/2 glass of water
[Edit: 2009-06-15 – seeing someone once again hit this page led me to the Google results that brought them here which, in turn, led to another person's recipe – interestingly, posted because they also saw people looking for instructions on how to make this drink in their referral strings. That person says that 3 fingers Coke to 1 finger water is the proper ratio though we agree on 2 oz rye. The point being, the recipe does allow for some variance – many people subscribe to the theory that it's the pop that gives you the hangover since it dehydrates you so less Coke is better. Or it's easier on your guts. Or something. Oh, and some people think you have to put the Coke in first then the water and there are probably people who believe the opposite. I don't really have a preference or know if it matters.]
If you want to be all exotic, you can also add a slice of lime to create what the fransaskois call “Le Présse“.
I have verified this recipe with RiderFans.com, the source of all Saskatchewan-related drinking knowledge. (Somebody posted a message to see if Taylor Field served anything other than beer since his friend was allergic and this “recipe” was the answer he got in response.)
[Edit: Rory Litwin at LibraryJuice has a good essay on the information seeking behaviour revealed by web search strings and the implications for librarians.]
…Lindsay Holdsworth. Congrats to probably the biggest volunteer in the entire MLIS program. (I know she makes my head spin, just watching what she's involved with.)
Kathleen C. took some abuse tonight for breaking the “Spirit of Peer Mentorship” chain that led from Sabina to me to her. (The first two won the award, Kathleen allegedly broke the chain.)
But upon further reflection, we realised the chain was connected by nominators, not peer mentors. Sabina was my peer mentor but she also nominated me for the award. Then I nominated Lindsay. So that's the real Skull & Bones connection of the award. (We won't mention my summer nomination who didn't come through with the SoL victory nor the fact that, although of course we were both deserving, Lindsay and I each happened to win in a term where no one else from our cohort was nominated to split the vote. 
)
I'll have photos just as soon as I can figure out how to get my digital camera to talk to my computer. (Sometimes, they're like an old married couple on the step giving each other the silent treatment.)
Classmate of the Day: Jeremie LeBlanc for offering a ride to Molly Bloom's tonight after the summer cohort finished their final 506 class and then a ride home afterwards. Had a good visit with lots of students from summer term plus a couple grads who showed up as well.
“For decades, reading studies have repeatedly found that 'heavy readers' not only read more books than light readers and nonreaders but also do more of almost everything else, including traveling, attending sports events and concerts, visiting museums, and participating in community organizations and politics. For many, reading is a way of being engaged with the world. These readers like to know about things and they read to find out.”
– “Reading Non-Fiction for Pleasure: What Motivates Readers?” – Catherine Ross in Nonfiction Readers' Advisory, Robert Burgin (ed)
Since I've mentioned a few times in this blog that many students end up not doing all the required readings (and are frequently given that advice directly by upper level students), I thought I'd do a post about the type of things I have read during library school because I think it is important to do some sort of reading obviously, even if it's not always what the professor tells you to read.
Required Readings
Even if people tell you to not even try to do all the readings, it shouldn't preclude you from trying to do some of them. I'm not going to admit how much I've done this year but it's higher than “none” and lower than “all of them”. 
Articles You Find For Assignments
LibraryLit will soon become your best friend but there are other databases out there and everybody seems to end up with their own favourite. I grew to like Emerald which someone pointed me to early as having lots of full-text articles (always an important thing to look for.)
Articles You Find Out of Interest
I've spent some time punching random subjects I'm interested in into online databases (like LibraryLit and Emerald among others) just to see what articles I can find. CPIQ has back issues of numerous magazines and CanadianNewsstand has newspapers.
Internet Articles & Web Sites
Doing Internet searches is sort of like browsing in a library as sites lead to other sites which lead to other sites and all of a sudden, you're nowhere near where you started but finding out about something completely unique and interesting.
Library Blogs
For the latest developments, news and plain old gossip in the library world, you really can't beat library blogs. There are probably hundreds of them out there. (That last one is a Wiki so it's easy to add yourself if you're a librarian blogger. <hint>) I've got about maybe twenty that I read on a regular basis (where “reading” equals scanning the RSS feeds than clicking on interesting sounding articles) and maybe that many more that I don't often visit at all.
Friend Blogs
This partly blurs the line with the last category but I have maybe a dozen blogs that aren't necessarily all about libraries or library school but that I read to keep up with friends lives and thoughts. Many of them are linked on the left side of this page.
Classmates' Papers
Anytime I heard a classmate talking about an interesting topic or project they did, I'd ask them to send me the paper so I could have a look. I often ended up learning more about the most cutting-edge issues, the most unique takes on library-related topics and lots of local or regional information I wouldn't get anywhere else.
Library Journals, Other Periodicals
Sam Trosow gave us shit for not reading any library journals early in our 501 class so I've taken that lesson to heart and sometimes like to go into the GRC and just flip through some of the journals, stopping to read things that catch my eye. It's especially fun to pick something you'd never normally pick up – I picked up some cataloguing journal once and ended up reading a very engaging article comparing the classification system for the Internet Movie Database with traditional library classification systems. I also try to at least glance through Quill & Quire every issue to keep in touch with my old life.
Serendipitous Searches
Probably one of my greatest pleasures in life is going in the library stacks and just wandering randomly waiting for books to find me rather than me finding them. I've come across a few this way (including the one that included the quote that leads off this post.)
Books With Library Connection in Broadest Sense
Ian S. and I spent an enjoyable couple hours at the Grad Club, I think before the summer course selection meeting, talking about “pop science” books – the latest trend in books where various authors are trying to come up with broad theories to explain some element of our society in a style that's accessible to a lay audience. “Pop society” – maybe that was the term we used? Anywho, some examples of these types of books we came up with which are great for giving a lot of material and ideas for virtually any essay or assignment you might do in library school include:
Blink – Malcolm Gladwell
Freakonomics – Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner
Free Culture – Lawrence Lessig
Linked – Albert-Laszlo Barabasi
The Cathedral and the Bazaar – Eric S. Raymond
The Ingenuity Gap – Thomas Homer-Dixon
The Long Tail – Chris Anderson
The Rebel Sell – Joseph Heath and Andrew Potter
The Rise of the Creative Class – Richard Florida
The Tipping Point – Malcolm Gladwell
The Triple Bottom Line: How Today's Best-Run Companies Are Achieving Economic, Social and Environmental Success – Andrew W. Savitz
The Wisdom of Crowds – James Surowiecki
The World Is Flat – Thomas Friedman
(Full disclosure – I have not read all of these books although all that I haven't are on my “To Read Soon” list.)
Real Books For Pleasure
I think I've mentioned on the blog already that before library school, I averaged about a book to a boo
k and a half read per week. Since getting here, I'm lucky if I read one (non-school related) book per month. (I just checked – 24 non-school related books this year so two per month. Not as bad I as thought considering how much other types of reading I've done that wasn't book length – though I've learned that this type of reading counts too! Lots of the books that I did read were powered through during semester breaks though.)
The Best Article I Read All Year
Finally, our managment professor talked about an article from the 1950's (?) on how much of management theory is bunk and really, people just stumble from decision-to-decision making the best choices they can, given the limited information they have. He read it as an undergrad and said it was the best article he ever read as he progressed on through grad school and his eventual doctorate (of which he was sure to mention on every slide of every Powerpoint he ever created but that's getting off-topic.)
Anyhow, that leads me to my favourite article that I've read this year, interestingly enough, something that was either assigned or found during this semester's 506 class (mabye there is something to management after all? 
). Barb J. sent it to me because it talked about Regina Public Library but beyond my natural bias for the topic, the actual subject matter was just incredibly inspirational. It's called “Lasting Lessons in Leadership” (PDF) and talks about why Ronald Yeo, one of the former head librarians at Regina Public Library was such a successful manager which in turn, made for an innovative, nation-leading library system.
(I asked the original publisher of the article for permission to reprint the article but never heard back from them. But since the original journal (10MB PDF) that included the article is available freely online, I didn't think it would be a problem to reprint it here. Shhh!)
Classmate of the Day: Time to resurrect a long forgotten “feature” of this blog – classmate of the day, where I acknowledge people who have made my life at library school a bit more fun, enjoyable or easy. We have a double winner today – Linda B. who hosted an incredibly fun farewell party for a few people from our cohort – some who are done for good, some who are done for the term – on Saturday night at her home. Also have to thank Lara A. who gave me 24 beer as a very personalized Advent calendar (and as a thank-you for helping her move a couple times this year.) I've only got a couple weeks left here but will do my best!
I also like the beer stein. Highbrow | T-shirts, mugs, mousepads & gifts
(Thanks to Meshell for the tip!)
And here's the reason my entries have been a bit on the light side the past couple days. (Who knew you could have 40 tabs open in Firefox at a time?)
Our mini-conference for LIS532, the joint class with the journalism students, is on Tuesday. Feel free to drop by the board room on the fourth floor of NCB to take in presentations anytime between 10am and 3pm. I'm up at 2:20pm if you want to come out and hear more than you ever wanted to know about online broadcasting.
Wikipedia Brown: A Mini-Mystery for the Internet Generation (via MetaFilter)
As with any sector, there are a lot of unchallenged statements, pieces of accepted wisdom and politically incorrect sentiments in the library world that seem to be lurking just beneath the surface. But for a profession concerned with freedom of expression and sharing of information, this restraint seems to be especially preposterous. So here are a few I've come across…
(Disclaimer: these aren't necessarily things I believe, they're just some provocative statements I've heard (or heard hinted at) over the past year. Okay, some that I believe. You have to guess which are which.)
Five Things You Can't Say About Libraries
1. Libraries basically exist to serve the middle class and for all the talk of serving everyone equally, do an extremely poor job of serving both upper and lower classes (and not surprisingly, especially how they serve marginalized people.) To put that another way, John Pateman says: “libraries are used most by people who don't need them and least by people who need them the most.”
2. A related point. For all our talk of serving everyone equally and fairly (which is a fine and noble goal), maybe sometimes you have to serve people according to their needs even if it means one group receives “special” or extra service. (also John Pateman – who I apparently am in love with! 
)
3. Libraries are not in competition with Chapters (or Starbucks or Blockbuster) although this is a fairly common sentiment, especially in recent library literature and the library school classroom. Those are private enterprises and libraries are public institutions (at least for the time being) and in my mind, this means they aren't (or at least shouldn't be) considered competitors. Does a high school “compete” with the television news to educate teenagers? Only in the loosest sense. Does a hospital “compete” with a pharmacy? Not really.
4. Libraries don't do nearly as good of a job at promoting the full range of services and programs that the library offers as they could. For most people, “library = free books” (I think one study I saw said that 80% of people use the library for borrowing books and nothing else.)
5. Andrew Carnegie may have built the majority of libraries that exist across North America but he was still a robber baron who made his fortune off the backs of his workers and we shouldn't forget that either. Put another way – your second half of life can't buy a pass for the first.
Five Things You Can't Say About Librarians
1. This is buying into the stereotype a bit but stereotypes often have roots in reality. So, in my opinion, we could probably all use a course in assertiveness training. Not to become domineering, loud personalities but to help us to not be afraid to ask for what we want or do something we want to do.
2. Another stereotype that I find has its roots in truth. A lot of librarians don't embrace technology and the possibilities it allows in a way that they should or could.
3. Just because you can give somebody access to something, doesn't mean you should give somebody access to something. (This was put more succinctly by a professor, talking about how we'll get used to educators in our libraries whining “But I'm a teacher…” as justification for any request they might have. “I wonder what the equivalent phrase for a librarian would be?” she wondered aloud. “Probably 'But of course your six year old has a right to look at pornography!'”)
4. Some librarians are terrible at their jobs. They hate work. They hate patrons. They even hate books!
5. On the flip side, the majority of librarians are some of the coolest, smartest, most creative, most amazing people you will ever meet. (Yes, librarians.)
Five Things You Can't Say About Library School
1. Why do librarians need a Masters degree when a range of other professionals – from teachers to nurses to engineers to pharmacists – get by with an undergrad degree?
2. Library schools are more about “school” than “library”.
3. Students might feel like a McDonald's hamburger – processed and fried assembly-line style to be spit out at the end – by their library school experience.
4. Not every
professor is a wonderful teacher and out of all the classes you take
(we do 15 in this program), there's a pretty good chance that anywhere
from one to three of them will be complete duds. (Trust me on this
one!)
5. Just like journalists become public relations officers to earn twice the salary, librarians should probably go get a business or a computer science degree if they want to make the really big money in this profession.
By the way, the IMDB link above says that Party Girl was the first movie to be shown in its entirety over the Internet. <Johnny Carson voice> I did not know that. </Carson>
And speaking of trivia, “Murph and the Orillia Silencers” lived up to their “nom du semaine” by going out with not a bang but a whimper last night at the final Trivia Night of the semester. After a first round where we thought we'd finally done the impossible and got 20/20 (except we got three wrong – most career goals after Gretzky was Howe but the three sports guys at the table somehow talked themselves into Messier; the most common blood type was O, not AB and I would've got that but I didn't hear the question as I was lolly-gagging; and then the worst, I jokingly said the Wall Street Journal was the highest circulation daily before guaranteeing it was USA Today. And the answer was…the Wall Street Journal.) So, after a couple third-round come-from-behind victories in the last few weeks, there was no comeback and instead, we went down in a burning platter of fried pitas and chicken wings.
Here's hoping Melissa implements a “virtual trivia” option for next semester for those of us who won't be there in person anymore but who let probably too much of our lives revolve around knowing the name of Ziggy Marley's band (trick question – it was the Melody Makers, not the Wailers) and which Simpsons character has a superfluous third nipple (you'll have to Google that one yourself!)
