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"You Look Beat Down" (and a stroll down memory lane)

Is it a bad thing when multiple people tell you that you look beat down (or a variation of this – ie. “You look really tired”) within a one week period?  I'd heard about the way this program wears you down, especially if you go straight through in three semesters, but was going pretty strong well into my second semester so thought I would be able to continue my run into my final term.  But between student council stuff taking way more time than I expected (and being way more stressful than I expected) plus a job hunt and a pretty heavy semester in general, I admit it – I'm beat! 

The good news?  One month from today and barring a major meltdown (true, which could very realistically happen but at least would be entertaining for onlookers) I will be officially finished my Master of Library & Information Science degree.  (Technically, our last day is December 8 but because I'm in a joint distance class with U of T, we're on their schedule so our last class is in the evening on December 13.  It could've been worse – originally it was scheduled for December 20 I think.) 

I can't believe how fast this year has gone.  It seems like only yesterday that I sat down in Orientation at 9am on January 3 with Michelle D. from Regina (with Emma M. on one side and Jessica Van M. on the other), having absolutely no clue what to expect.  Emma and I got talking and I found out she'd been in Regina at RCMP training before having to leave due to an injury so that gave us some common ground to chat.  (Emma also later told me she was jealous that Michelle and I knew each other already, having met each other in Regina before coming to London.  I think we may have been the only two in our cohort that did know someone else there!) 

I remember our collective shock at hearing that we would indeed be having our first evening class that day (that wasn't really clear from the advance materials – some people thought we'd have orientation then not start classes until the next Monday with the undergrads!) and then how grateful we all were that Professor Trosow realised what a long day we'd had and let us out early. 

I remember that our orientation also finished early so I decided to head home (a 10 minute walk) and ended up walking part way with this tall guy with blonde-brown hair who said he was from Victoria and a philosophy major. 

“I read some study in <obscure academic journal> that said librarians are the most left-wing profession around.” 
(me: “yeah…and?”  also: who the hell does this guy think he is – don't they screen for left-wing credentials at library school?)  Turns out that guy who I didn't know what to make of on day one became one of my best friends in the program.  (I still don't know what to make of him though!)

Anyhow, I get home for a bite to eat and to relax, only to have everybody's worst nightmare – late for your first day of school – realised!  I somehow got it in my head that our night classes started at 7pm but when some niggling doubt made me check my schedule at 6:30pm, I was like “Arrrgggghhhhhh!”  I sprinted to class in six and a half minutes, snuck in the back of the room as quietly as I could (trying to be as casual as one can while huffing and sweating all over the place) only to be invited to move closer to the front, along with some of my fellow back-rowers, by the prof who has poor eyesight. 

The next morning I was up bright and early for my first cataloguing class.  I'm not much of a morning person usually but I remember how excited I was that morning and how I thought “yeah, this feels right.” 

I'm debating doing a list of personal highlights from the year but that'll have to wait for another entry. 

Here's my first-ever photo in London Ontario.   I remember driving out of the airport thinking, “do people randomly pull over on the side of the road to take pictures like they do back home?” 


Posted 15 November 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (2) °

A Book Meme

Saw this on Etc., the blog of the instructor for LIS765 so thought I'd give it a shot:

One book that changed your life?
I'd say “Diary of Anne Frank” when I was pretty young, probably around the age that Anne is in the book.  After that, I went through a phase where I felt like I had to read it on at least an annual basis as some sort of…tribute?  (That's not the right word.)  Commemoration?  Obligation?

One book you have read more than once?
Other than the one I just listed?  I'd say I go back to “Slaughterhouse Five” by Kurt Vonnegut probably as much as any book. 

One book you would want on a desert island?
Ahh, this question is always a balance of finding a book that you could enjoy the most and a book with lots of content that you could return to endlessly.  Being a practical sort (and a trivia master after last week's come-from-behind victory! ) I'd probably go more for the latter with something like an encyclopedia or, if limited to one volume, an almanac. “The Complete Shakespeare” is another popular answer for this question I think. 

One book that made you laugh?
I recently wrote about The Poo Bomb so I'll go with that.

One book that made you cry?
“Barb's Miracle: How Barb Tarbox Transformed Her Deadly Cancer into a Lifesaving Crusade” was a book I had to read when I was a juror for the Alberta Book Awards.  I expected a typical preachy, self-help-type book but this story,  with its brutal honesty, shocking photographs and inevitable but tragic conclusion had me in tears everytime I opened it.  We didn't name it to the shortlist but I think I suggested to the other jurors that we ask if the Awards committee could make this book a “special mention” in the program, something they (the other jurors and the Awards committee) agreed to.

One book you wish had never been written?
Well, I like Ranganathan's “every book its reader” law so I hate to pick one book that should never have been written.  But with that said, the one that popped into my head was the “autobiography” of Posh Spice (who later admitted she'd never read a book in her life – hmmm.) but again, I'm sure there are people who  enjoyed this book so why judge? 

One book you are currently reading?
“What's Going On In There?  How The Brain and Mind Develop in the First Five Years of Life” which was written by a neurobiologist (and mother of three) named Lise Eliot.   It's a bit heavy on the science but if you get past that, very informative on all aspects of childhood mental development. 

One book you have been meaning to read?
From working in publishing, from reading about books endlessly on the Net and in magazines and from watching the authors featured on “The Daily Show”, from wandered through bookstores – new and used, from friends' recommendations, I've amassed a list of books I'm interested in reading that's twenty single spaced pages long (I'm planning a future blog post on “Librarians as packrats” – even this list is a symptom of my own disease.) 

So instead of picking one book, here is a sample pick from each letter:
Ancestor's Tale, The – Richard Dawkins
Buying of the President 2004
Crowfoot: Chief of the Blackfoot – Hugh Dempsey
Dark Fibre: Tracking Critical Net Culture
Economics As If The Earth Really Mattered – Susan Meeker-Lowry
Five Legs – Graehme Gibson
Guns, Germs and Steel
How To Grow A Young Reader
I Capture The Castle – JK Rowling's Favourite Book
Jihad Versus McWorld – Jere Longman
Killing Bono – a guy who grew up with Bono, had his own band and wanted to be a star too but didn't make it
Letters To A Young Activist – Todd Gitlin (modeled on Rainier's letters to a young poet)
Master and the Margarita – lots of recommendations
Never Let Me Go – novel about clones who are raised for parts but live in society
Oster Conspiracy of 1938 – plot to kill Hitler told like fictional thriller
Pride and the Passion – recounts glory days of New York Islanders
Quotable Book Lover
Role of Failure in Engineering
Seven Types of Ambiguity – intricate fiction, same story told from perspective of seven different characters, one section each
Three Day Road – Joseph Boyden
Upstairs in the Crazy House – mental illness, poverty
Village of Small Houses – Ian Ferguson
Weathermakers – cited by Stephen and Avi Lewis at CLA as a book they both really enjoyed
(no x so here's another w) Works, The: Anatomy of a City – Kate Ascher – explores how NYC works
Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, The
Zen Guitar

My “To Read” list was getting so long, I started putting mini-summaries with some of them (as you can see) so I'd have a bit of a clue as to what they were about when I went back to the list.  Pretty heavy on the non-fiction.  What else does this list say about me?  (Er, don't answer that.)

Now tag five people:
I'm a (wannabe) librarian so I like sharing.  So I challenge anybody who comes across this post to do this meme.  Heck, if you don't have a blog, you should start one just to do it!  Or post your own answers in the comments of this post if that's too much work. 

Posted 14 November 2006 § List § Main Page § Meme § PopCulture ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

A Tale of Two (Four?) Libraries – It was the worst and worst of times then the best and best of times

Not very often but sometimes, I really don't like libraries.

I was over at the University today for a group meeting and afterwards, went to the Business Library because the catalogue showed that they (as well as our main library Weldon, the Taylor library and a few others in the system had a copy of a book I wanted, Copyight Guide for Canadian Libraries.) 

I picked the business library because it is (arguably) the closest to our building and also because they showed two copies available.  I scribbled down the call number and off I went.  When I get there, I go to the basement (if you haven't been to the business library you should go – for all the money Ivey supposedly has, not a lot seems to get directed to the library.  Or to be fair, I think it's just a total lack of space.)  But neither book is on the shelf, either at its usual spot or in the oversized section although the I know the catalogue had said both were “in library”.  I take a quick glimpse on nearby shelves knowing books often get misplaced or misshelved but, though I find some other useful books, I don't see the one I want. 

Having been scared/scarred by 503 RQ's where we were told “You must NOT ask the reference librarian for assistance!”, I didn't ask for help when I left and instead hiked up to to Weldon.  (I probably should've double-checked the catalogue but another strange feature of the business library is they don't seem to have even one terminal down among the stacks and only 1 or 2 in the main reading area.) 

So anyhow, I go to Weldon and same thing – no copy at either the regular or oversized spot.  Here, I do go to the catalogue and realise what's happened.  The reason I didn't find it at the business library is that the book has been given a different call number there compared to all other UWO libraries!  (I'd only glanced at the holdings locations and the top call number when I did my original search, assuming the call number would be the same at all locations.) 

[Can anybody out there who works as a cataloguer (Jen?) or took Advanced Cataloguing tell me why this would happen, especially when I thought that Western had central processing for items?]

Looking more closely at the catalogue, I also see that Weldon has a copy but it's a “no loan” reference copy (fair enough.)  So now armed with the proper call number, I go back to the business library but even though it's in the same area (KE2994 instead of KE2799) and I had already scanned the nearby areas the first time, I still don't find either book!  Again, I refuse to ask, partly because I don't feel like going upstairs only to have to turn around and crawl back down the stairs again (really, it's a truly scary place!)  and instead, decide to try my luck at the Taylor library.  “This is a fun day for a UWO library tour” I try telling myself. 

I go there, not holding out much hope by now to be honest, but when I go right to the spot, there it is.  Sweet sweet digital copyright text…  Delicious taxonomy of bibliographic control.

On the other hand, I happened across this library catalogue whild doing some other research tonight and it made all my anger go away.  Try the visual search and the digital catalogues – very cool!  

Posted 13 November 2006 § Internet § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (8) °

Blog Roll

Looking at my stats and realising how many people come here via links from other sites makes me realise that I've been a bit remiss about providing permanent, recirporcal links to the blogs that bring people here or just that I check on a regular basis. 

Consider that rectified.  Somewhere over there
<—–
…is now a list of some of the blogs of people I know that are updated on a semi-regular basis

I also have dozens of blogs bookmarked but that are either not updated very frequently or only tend to have assigned rather than original content (many of the blogs I've seen that were created for the 525 or 765 courses.)

If I'm missing your blog and you'd like it listed, feel free to e-mail me.  On the other hand, if I've linked to you and you want to remain anonymous, let me know that too ASAP.

I tried to put a little descriptions of each blog that will pop up when you mouseover the link so if you have a better suggestion than what I put (some of them are pretty bland “LIS Student”-type things.) I'll take that too!

Finally, I thought I'd try to define my own blog in ten words or less.  “Blog of an LIS Student about his experiences in library school.”  (Crap, that's eleven! )

Posted 11 November 2006 § Blog § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (2) °

Buttonfly at the Grad Club

Sorry for the late notice but tonight at 9:30pm, classmate Linda Bussiere will be playing at the Grad Club with her band, Buttonfly.  There's no cover and it's a great chance to see an excellent local band, have a visit with fellow MLIS Students and perhaps quaff a beverage or three.  Hope to see many of you there!

Posted 10 November 2006 § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Lose Yourself

With apologies to Eminem, one of my favourite things, both at school or in the workplace, is when I lose myself in a project and all of a sudden, two or four or eight hours have passed.  Last time I looked at the clock, it was 3am and I was thinking that I should probably go to bed soon.  Now it's almost 7am and having worked on my final genealogy project for the last four hours, I figure I might as well wait up until Shea gets home from work in an hour. 

For our final assignment, we can do a presentation on any genealogical resource so I'm going to do something called: “Your Digital Footprint: Non-Traditional Genealogy Strategies on the Internet.”



I plan to talk about how our children (and grandchildren) might someday do genealogical research about all of us using intentional things like our blog posts and our posts to message boards as well as unintentional online traces like organization newsletters, workplace archives, University web sites and so on.  I'm also going to talk about things that are going to increasingly be a factor in recording your digital footprint – social networking sites, even better search engines, even better web sites that we can't even imagine, the invisible web becoming more visible and so on.

I'd post a draft of the Powerpoint but I have a couple fun, unique things I can do with this presentation that I want to keep secret.  (I'll try to remember to come back and post it after I present on November 22.) 

But given that limited summary of what I'm doing, if anybody has any thoughts or suggestions of non-genealogy web sites that might be good for this type of research, potential advantages or problems, what the future may hold and anything else related to the topic, I'd love if you posted a comment or e-mailed me. 

Posted 10 November 2006 § Internet § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (2) °

Friday Fun Link – 40 Ideas We Need Now (Nov 10, 2006)

This Magazine’s current issue has a cover story on “40 Ideas We Need Know”
which has many prominent thinkers contributing their thoughts on “a big
idea whose time has come.” Copyright reform, the Hipster PDA (which I
use myself – who knew I was hip?) and “a safe place to pee” is just a
small sample of the range of ideas being covered.
Posted 10 November 2006 § FridayFunLink § Main Page § Politics ‡ Comments (0) °

OLA SuperConference 2007 Program Released

If you're an OLA member, you might have received a copy of the 2007 SuperConference program in the mail today.  If not, FIMS alum, Jennifer Cyr (aka Canuck Librarian) has a link to the conference program on her blog as well as some thoughts (Jen's on the conference planning committee.)

I was able to attend for a day and a half last year and it was a great experience that I'd highly recommend to anybody.  This year's line-up looks great too.  The keynote speaker is Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing, the world's most popular blog, and that's worth the price of admission right there.  (He's also an award-winning  science fiction author, a copyright activist and he happens to be Canadian to boot.)  Beyond the keynote, there are always a lot of excellent sessions on all manner of library-related topics.  Plus Jen mentions a FIMS reception which sounds like a great event too.

Last year, I took in the annual “Top Tech Trends” panel, a presentation by Michael Stephens on “the blog people” and a presentation on a major cross-Canada study of children's reading habits.  I got to meet a whackload of people (including Jen), bumped into a bunch of people I knew from Saskatchewan and ended up hanging out with a mix of conference organizers, FIMS alumni and Saskies after a big party they had at the close of the day I was there. 

Vendor relations is on the schedule for Winter semester and I know that last year, that class did a day trip in to take in the conference trade show.  You get a reduced price to attend as a student but another option many FIMS students took advantage of was volunteering which gave them free admission to the conference (only on the day they volunteered I think but still enough to get into at least a session or two.  I may be mistaken on what volunteering gets you.)

Someone asked me at the FIMS mixer if it was worth attending and if I haven't made it clear, I really think it is.  One piece of advice – don't be afraid to just start talking to random strangers if you go.  The conference will only be as useful as you make it but I think you get as much, if not more, from the chance to meet people as from the sessions. 

Posted 10 November 2006 § Canada § Library § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Tips For Designing A Web Page

Having done a lot of web site design over the years, I thought of doing a list like this in first semester right before our 505 web site assignment was due.  I never got around to it.  But now, having spent quite a bit of time in the last few weeks helping fellow students who are taking classes where they have to design web pages, I've been inspired to put this list together finally.

I'm not an expert in current web design technologies but did design quite a few  web sites from 1997-2000.  I think a lot of the fundamentals I learned then still apply today, especially for the 505 web site assignment which asks the students to build a basic, static web page. 

Tips For Designing Web Pages
– name your home page “index.htm” or “index.html” so web browsers default to it instead of calling it “my site.html” or something similar which may lead to broken links or possibly even let people see your underlying directory structure (this is what happens at UWO)

– on that note, don't put spaces in any of the web page filenames on your site.  If it's long or multiple words, call it “aboutme.htm” or “about-me.htm”  or “about_me.htm”  (I prefer to not use any dashes or underscores personally but if you do want to use one of these techniques to make your file names easier to read, dashes are better because they can still be seen in Word documents that automatically underline web site addresses.)

– same thing for the names of images (“myfriends.jpg” not “my friends.jpg”)

– it's not essential but it's also a good idea to consistently use lower case for all filenames

– always use WIDTH, HEIGHT and BORDER=”0″ tags for your images

– don't use clip art images, especially for “e-mail me” or “under construction” notices

– even many people have high speed connections these days and it's not as much of an issue as say five or ten years ago, try to keep image file sizes small.  Do this by scanning at 72dpi and resizing so that the actual dimensions of the page match the size you want it to be on your web page (ie. 200×200 pixels rather than putting a 1000×1000 pixel graphic in a 200×200 defined space.)

– don't use multiple fonts or fancy fonts on pages – stick with Times, Arial or Verdana. 

– with that said, you can use different fonts for headings but it's best to create these as jpg image files so that the end user is guaranteed to see them as you intended (they might not have the “Trek69” font on their computer for instance)

– make sure important information goes “above the fold” (ie. without having to scroll down) on each page

– never make someone scroll left to right. 

– don't put something about “This site best viewed at (resolution) or with (browser)”  Your job as a web designer is to make a site that any browser on any platform can view consistently. 

– have a good, well-thought out navigation system to the major sections of your site and always make sure you have a “Home” link on every page

– put dates on all pages and make sure you include the year too as “March 16” will mean nothing in two years. 

– ideally your full contact information should be on every page but at a minimum, you should have an easy-to-find e-mail link for people to contact you. 

– don't use background images

– as with books, black text on a white background is the best for readability

(I reserve the right to have broken any or all of these rules on both my previous web sites as well as my current ones!)

And just for a laugh, here's a column I wrote
probably six years ago or so for my old job on the very same subject. 
At the time, part of my job was to prepare monthly profiles of our member publishers as well as authors, book reviews and an “advice column” on some topic related to publishing. 

Funny to see how so many of the things I tried to do in web site design
back then are things I try to do now.  Some of the tips are crap though – I don't think anybody uses meta tags anymore and that thing about browser safe colours is pretty outdated.  But I like that even then, I believed that a) content counted and b) hits didn't.

(And yes, I know I broke my own rule about putting a date on every page which is why I'm not exactly sure when I wrote the column.)

Posted 10 November 2006 § Internet § LibrarySchool § List § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) °

WIFI@yourlibrary

Our genealogy class got out early today so that people could either work on assignments, do research or come down to LPL to vist the “London Room”, the library's local history room.  I'd seen the room briefly during our LPL tour in Public Libraries class but had a couple hours to kill before I had to be anywhere so decided to come down and look around a bit more in depth. 

I did that but have to admit I had an ulterior motive in coming down as well – I knew that LPL had launched a free wireless service in mid-October and hadn't had a chance to check it out yet so thought this was a good opportunity. 

So now I'm sitting in their reading lounge on the second floor (which is where they recommend as the best place to pick up a signal.  I started at a carrel in the stacks on the third but couldn't get connected so decided to do the proper thing and ask at the reference desk just like I learned in library school!)

I know how distracting clackety-clack can be in a classroom setting (even if I'm guilty of contributing to it myself sometimes) so I wonder if telling people to go to the quiet reading area in the library is the best solution.  But nobody's giving me the evil eye yet so I guess it's not as loud here as in a small classroom. 

One of my “can't wait for it to happen” ideas will be the day that some type of free, high-speed Internet access is available citywide in all major centres and preferably right across the country anywhere you might go – populated or not. (I think cell phones can do this but I'm talking about real, on your laptop with a full-sized keyboard and screen access rather than the thumb-buster and eye-strain inducer that is the cell phone.)

But my experiences with the free high speed being offered in Toronto was less than satisfactory (you need a cell phone to get access which I don't have – but my impression and what I've heard from others is that the speed is quite slow, even once you get on.)  so I doubt that'll happen anytime soon.

In the meantime, I think libraries should have a role in making Internet access available to anyone in the country.  Most libraries already provide high speed access terminals so for the cost of an $50 wireless router, they could extend this service to anyone with a wireless-enabled device as well (although some libraries still seem to limit access to card-holding local patrons which is unfortunate.)

There's probably a good reason for this.  One of the concerns with providing Internet access which was raised at the LPL board meeting I attended at the end of September was with people using the access for illegal activities.

I am not a lawyer (although I play one at library school ) but my take is that the situation is similar to a service organization who maintains a bulletin board in a small community but who can't be held liable for any communications conducted via that bulletin board.  (Again, I am not a lawyer so that might just be something I picked up from an old episode of Street Legal.)

So yeah, I didn't need to enter a name or password or library barcode to get access to the Internet here at LPL.  Once I found the “hot spot”, I simply turned on my computer and was off.  Now, I'm off again…to search for the Anarchist Cookbook…

Posted 08 November 2006 § Internet § Library § Main Page § Politics ‡ Comments (3) °