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Half-Done Part II: My Statement of Intent

A week ago I blogged about how, since I was half done my second semester of three, I was half-done the program. 

But in my head, I've always thought of June 30/July 1 (okay, July 2 as I'm getting to this post a day later than I meant to) as the “real” halfway point of my program since that's the actual mid-point of my year in London. 

I thought I'd do something special for this milestone and so have decided to post the “Statement of Intent” that I wrote as part of my application for library school.  As with my “hypothetical Spirit of Librarianship acceptance speech“, it's just a wee bit over the top in a few places. Let me explain why…

I was incredibly nervous applying to library school for a number of reasons:

– I'd made note of the application deadline a few months before deciding to apply but when I decided to finally go for it, I checked the MLIS web site, only to see that the deadline had been moved up by ten days which put me in a pretty heavy time crunch to pull together everything that was required for the application. 

– I'd been out of school for so long that the only University professors who could write me reference letters were people I knew because they were part of the writing community. (I still had to remind them what they taught me and what my marks were.)

– my undergrad marks weren't awful but they weren't great either.  (Luckily I was above average in the classes I took with the two profs who became my two academic references.)

– I'd only done a regular BA, not even an Honours one let alone a Masters degree.

– I didn't hedge my bets by applying to other schools because I knew that Western was the only one with an accelerated program and I also knew I could barely afford to be out of the workforce for one year, let alone two. 

– two of my professional reference letters came by fax and e-mail respectively so I wasn't able to include them in sealed envelopes as was specified.  (Having seen how publishers look for any excuse to prune the slush pile and knowing that “not following submission guidelines” is one of the easiest ways to do this, I honestly thought this might get my application into the recycling bin right there, before they even looked at it.)

So feeling that all of that was counting against me and even though I had no idea what a Statement of Intent was, I knew it was likely my best chance to convince the powers-that-be that I should be admitted to this program. 

All of my undergrad classes in expository writing and creative writing, all of that time working with writers and reading manuscripts and books on writing techniques and theory – it felt like it all came down to this one letter (or am I just being “over the top” again?)…

Statement of Intent – Jason Hammond
They say that everyone has that one special teacher who touches their lives.  For me, it’s not a teacher but a librarian who fills that role in my own life.  Mrs. Tuttle was a kindly old lady who worked at the Indian Head public library when I was a child. 

My first experience with her was when my parents would take me to the library to pick out books.  I can remember how, even at that age, I was amazed that I could choose any book off the shelf, take it to the desk and then take it home with no money changing hands like I saw in every other transaction that I witnessed in the adult world. 

Mrs. Tuttle helped influence my reading habits like no one else (my parents, my teachers, my friends) could.  I still remember the day I took yet another Hardy Boys adventure to her desk and she gently suggested, “Would you like to try something a bit more…advanced?” I nodded cautiously then she placed a copy of The Hound of Baskervilles in front of me. 

As the months went by, she would continually suggest other classics I could try.  I didn’t always listen and managed to read a fair amount of Stephen King and Tom Clancy during that time as well.  But my love of books (and libraries) grew out of those early experiences in that small, rural Saskatchewan library. 

I excelled at English in high school, edited our high school yearbook and after some initial debate between doing what I thought would guarantee a good job (Business Administration) and what I knew I loved (English), I chose the latter as my major in University. 

Upon convocation, I was fortunate to find work with the Saskatchewan Publishers Group (SPG), a literary non-profit umbrella organization for book publishers in my home province.  I worked with this organization from 1997 to 2001 when I moved to Calgary with my then-girlfriend, now wife.  Again, I was fortunate to find work with another literary non-profit organization, the Writers Guild of Alberta (WGA).  Essentially, this was the flip side of the coin to what I was doing with the SPG – instead of running programs for publishers, I was running programs to benefit writers.  Taken together, these two sides of the same coin have given me a great knowledge of the Canadian book industry and convinced me that no matter where life leads me, I will be working with books in some way.  

In October 2004, some difficulties at the SPG led to a staff vacancy and my wife and I jumped at the chance to return to our home province when this position was offered to me.  Unfortunately, those difficulties have continued throughout the year and so I made the extremely difficult decision to hand in my resignation in October 2005 and to pursue the career that I’ve had in the back of my mind as my “dream job” since my first meetings with Mrs. Tuttle twenty-plus years ago. 

In the course of my work with both the SPG and the WGA, I have worked with numerous librarians on a variety of projects and have continually been in awe of their intelligence, their sensibility and contrary to the “Shhh!” stereotypes, their passion.  

Allan Johnson who is the head of the Southeast Regional Library in Saskatchewan served on the board of the Saskatchewan Book Awards with me and had a skill I greatly admire but rarely see – the ability to cut through baggage surrounding any issue and get to the core point.  He was one of the few on the board with the necessary skills to help the Book Awards re-work its finances and improve its financial position at a critical time in the organization’s development. 

I have worked with Susan Anderson of the Calgary Public Library on that city’s Freedom to Read Week committee and was happy (but not surprised) when she told me of how it was members of the American Library Association who started the fight to keep Michael Moore’s Stupid White Men from being pulped.

I was honoured when Rosemary Griebel of the Calgary Public Library asked me to join her as a “community representative” at the grand opening of the new Crowfoot Crossing branch in Calgary.  (She maybe regretted the offer as I peppered her with questions about the behind-the-scenes workings of a library and her decision to become a librarian thoughout the day.)

In numerous readings I organized in various small towns around Alberta, it was always the local library that was the first place I would call for assistance.  Leslie Greentree at the Red Deer Public Library went so far as to allow me to crash on her couch the night before a conference we held at their facility. 

As an exhibitor at trade shows, I was often able to “sit-in” on sessions such as those at the recent International Indigenous Librarians’ Forum that was held here in Regina.  The issues that were being discussed were extremely interesting to me – protecting Aboriginal languages, serving remote communities, and the ongoing struggle for funding and recognition.   These are major issues that not only Aboriginal communities but small publishers and rural libraries are dealing with in Saskatchewan.  If I return to my home province upon completion of the program, I know these are issues that I will have to be prepared to deal with as well.  My main area of interest is the public library system and I look forward to a day when hopefully I can help contribute myself to what librarians offer – information, community involvement, and public service. 

This is why I am applying to the MLIS program at the University of Western Ontario.  Although I now know that Mrs. Tuttle wasn’t a professional librarian with a Master of Library Science degree, it’s because of her and indeed, all of the librarians and library clerks I’ve known over the years that I want to be a librarian myself.   

Thank-you for considering my application,

Jason Hammond

—

Oh, and one other detail I debated putting into the letter but decided (probably wisely) to leave out.  Mrs. Tuttle, that kindly old librarian, was the first woman I ever saw that had a mustache! image

(Update: Links to Other MLIS “Statement of Intent” Letters…
Chris Graves
Quinn Dupont)

Posted 02 July 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (3) °

Links of the Day – Ten Rules for the New Librarians + City-wide Wifi in Toronto

Just in time for all my classmates' co-op interviews, Michael Stephens has posted: Ten Rules for the New Librarians which includes some tips for interviews in the comments.

And from Michael Geist's blog, a Toronto Star story about a plan to implement city-wide wireless in Toronto. 

Posted 01 July 2006 § Jobs § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

The Most Frightening Film I've Ever Seen

I have a classmate who was raised in a Christian fundamentalist household.  She's in a children's lit class with me and we were talking about scary books we read as kids.  She said that some of the Christian children's books she read as a child was the most frightening stuff she's ever read because unlike say,  ghost stories or Dracula or Stephen King that all her friends read, she was taught that these Christian stories were real.  Vampires are fictional but the end of the world was coming.  Haunted cars don't exist but the non-faithful would burn in excruciating pain for all eternity.  And so on.

The idea that something is a LOT more frightening because you believe deeply that it's real was the thought that popped into my head last night as we watched Al Gore's documentary, An Inconvenient Truth,  downtown at the Rainbow Cinema.  Before this film, when someone asked me the scariest film I'd ever seen, I usually said “The Shining”.  Not now.  We've got a new winner and it's not just because it's scary to find out that Al Gore isn't actually a zombie.

Of course, there's a group of people who are criticizing the science and facts used in the film.  And to be fair, as with anything, you can't accept it at face value and should be critical yourself (at one point in the movie, Al Gore explains how he's traveled from the Arctic to the Amazon to study the issue and how he's given this lecture 1000 times around the world.  So my first thought is, “Isn't a single airline flight more harmful to the environment than driving for a year?”  (Don't quote me on this stat – I know I've read something to that effect but can't find the actual quote now.  Bad librarian!))

Anyhow, the film does end on a positive note and we even got a handout as we left the theatre listing
10 Things You Can Do To Stop Climate Change
1. Change A Light
2. Drive Less
3. Recycle More
4. Check Your Tires
5. Use Less Hot Water
6. Avoid Products With Lots of Packaging
7. Adjust Your Thermostat
8. Plant A Tree
9. Turn Off Electronic Devices
10. Encourage People To See “An Inconvenient Truth”

Of course, I also can't help but link to this tongue-in-cheek response to Gore's list.  Sample suggestions “Go on a random killing spree” and “Upgrade to a new Gulfstream G550”

Posted 01 July 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (2) °

Friday Fun Link – June 30, 2006 (Book Burro)

Book Burro is a Firefox extension that adds quick & easy comparison shopping ability for all your book buying needs.  (via Ubuntu Essentials)

Posted 30 June 2006 § FridayFunLink § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

CLA Update

Just reading the CLA Bulletin and it sounds like they'll post speaker's presentations as they receive them (although that's currently a non-existent link so who knows?)  But anyhow, if something shows up there, one of my complaints will have been unfounded (though I'd still love to see full video streams of all the sessions – how cool would that be?) 

Posted 29 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Library Students + Technology = Funny

The entire 525 class had to post thoughts on our latest assignment on our personal blogs so I've been reading through my classmates' entries in between finishing my final 746 assignment (as of tomorrow, I'll have completed all of the assignments for “Collection Development in Academic Libraries”.  Man, it looked like a very busy, very  top-heavy course seven weeks ago when the semester started but am I ever glad I didn't drop that class as I initially thought I might!)

Anyhew, here are a few of the funniest comments from the entries about people's Ubuntu experiences…

“I did not visit any warez sites or anything of that type while I was
searching because I know that most warez sites also offer ‘material of
questionable morals’. I was at school, and it would have been
inappropriate to view such materials.”

(I'm not sure if this was said seriously or in jest but I found it funny, especially when half the class misheard “blinklist.com” a couple weeks ago and ended up visiting “linklist.com” which is an entirely different proposition!)

“Public access computers can cause problems depending on what
environment they are located in…In my co-op placement at the University
of Windsor, I found the University also had computers for alumni, the
general public and even kids…I won't even get started on the times children used the
computers. It created the “occasional” noise problem.”

“I began my inaugural journey into the world of Live CD's very optimistically, but after about 2 hours was worn down.”

“I have developed a lot of patience from playing video games which
load from disc-based media and not a hard drive. Unfortunately, any
patience developed waiting for games to load has been countered by
impatience waiting for real life to be as exciting as video games.”

“Everything behaved like I expected it to, from Firefox to Solitaire. I think I may actually be better at Solitaire on Ubuntu.”

“After waiting an excruciatingly long time for
the program to load, [it just] made me realize just how impatient I am when
it comes to internet time.”

“I attempted to complete the assignment as it was described on the 525
course website but my efforts were thwarted by a completely packed Lab
B. Stunned by the shear amount of people crowded into that tiny room, I
slowly backed out of the room and skulked over to Lab C to complete the
assignment.”
 
“Being an upstanding, moral student, I did not do this but found it very coincidental that the two print-outs attached to this report happened to be sitting on the printer, apparently without an owner, when I walked by after doing some experimenting with Ubuntu's settings.”

“I did try to look for “Bare Naked Ladies” (as in the band — however
there was a pop-up window asking if i wanted to see the filtered or the
unfiltered results. I chose the filtered results. Thinking back, maybe
I should have chosen the unfiltered results to see what would happen.”

“I find that my wireless connection is not working… at all. I spend several minutes cursing… Fuck. Word of the day.”

“I
posted on the class sharepoint, and then cruised off to look for a
nasty pornography site, which was rather embarrassing – not only was I
in a public lab, but I’d never actually looked at pornography on the
internet before. Ah, the things one must do to become a librarian.“

Great to see that other library students like to have some fun with their assignments as well – although admittedly, my write-up for this one was pretty boring. 

Posted 29 June 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

525 Assignment #5 – Secure Public Access Computing

By: Jason Hammond
UWO Student Number: 250352538
Mailbox Number: 140
For: Professor Gord Nickerson
MLIS 525 – Managing Internet Information Systems

Activity
#5 Report – Secure Public Access Computing

My
Experience With Ubuntu
At the risk
of losing any “geek” credibility I may have, I have to admit that I’ve never
used any version of Linux before.  All
of my geekier friends have and many have raved about their experiences.  But for some reason, I’d gotten the idea in
my head that Linux was too hard to install, too unfamiliar of an environment
once installed and didn’t support the things I wanted to do (though I’m not
sure exactly what those things were – Games? 
Windows applications?  File
sharing?). 

So this
assignment was a great opportunity to gain some experience with Ubuntu, a
desktop-focussed Linux distribution that is extremely useable, compact (the
program and all related files fit on a single CD) and self-contained (it ships
with various open-source software programs including OpenOffice, Firefox, Gimp
and others which should cover 99% of the average users’ computing needs.)[1].

My experience
was a bit frustrating initially.  The
first time I loaded the program, it seemed to take a long time to load (as I
knew it would since it was being loaded from CD.)  I sat staring at what appeared to be an empty screen for about
five minutes before deciding to re-boot. 
Now, because I’m a male and a quasi-hacker, I don’t read
instructions very often.  If I would’ve,
I might have realised that I had to reset the screen resolution after
booting.  Instead, the second time I
tried to boot Ubuntu, I figured this out by moving the mouse around until I saw
that the top left menus were there but just out of the range of what was
displayed on the monitor at that resolution. 
Once I realised the screen resolution was incorrect after the initial
install, I found both the menu item to change the screen resolution and then
the best resolution to use (I went from 1280×1024 to 1024×768.) 

After I got
Ubuntu to the proper screen resolution, I spent some time clicking around the
menus, just familiarizing myself with the interface and also loading some of
the programs (many of which I was familiar with from using them on my home
computer.)  I had a weird flashback to
the first time I sat in front of an Apple IIc many years ago after working on
early 286-era PC’s – everything was similar but different to what I was used
to. 

Ubuntu in
Library Usage
In discussion
with classmates, we weren’t quite clear if the intention of this assignment was
to test Ubuntu as if we were users who were bringing a copy to the library to
protect ourselves on public access terminals (no chance of keystroke logging
programs or viruses, more control of settings & software being used) or as
an option for public libraries to use on their terminals instead of
Windows.  I suspect the latter option is
what was intended so that is what I will focus my write-up on.  (I did visit the London Public Library with
my Ubuntu CD but found their public access terminals that had CD-ROM drives
were locked down so the drive wouldn’t open – so the issue of personal security
might be a moot one, depending on the configuration of the library’s
systems.  Frighteningly enough, the LPL
terminals don’t appear to clear histories after each user so I was able to see
where the person before me had been surfing. 
This might also be because I logged on before their 30-minute block was
up but either way, as a security issue, it should be of grave concern.  At any rate, another possibility in
libraries might be booting from an Ubuntu install on a USB drive but I didn’t
try this myself. 

Advantages
of Ubuntu for Public Access Terminals in Libraries
– obviously,
the cost of Ubuntu (ie. free, even including shipping[2]) is its biggest advantage. 
Although the Gates Foundation has been very generous in donating
Windows-based PC’s to libraries in the US and around the world[3], they are less forthright about their plans to continue
supplying both free software and hardware upgrades in the future (although Mr.
Buffett’s recent gift[4] may make this more likely.) 
They also do not come right out and say that grantees must use Windows
software but it is strongly suggested[5].  Ubuntu frees a
library from these financial worries completely, both in terms of the operating
system and the open source software that is used in conjunction with
Ubuntu. 

– the
security provided by a non-Windows system, simply based on the fact that Linux
is not yet a major target for hackers, is another huge advantage

– some claim
that Ubuntu is a more stable platform than Windows though my research found
people on both sides of this issue. 
Personally, I was able to crash both the Word-equivalent (while trying
to load the Fax Wizard) and the image editor, things I regularly manage to do
in Windows XP.  So that’s a tie in my
books. 

Disadvantages
of Ubuntu for Public Access Terminals in Libraries
– the biggest
stumbling block would likely be familiarizing staff and patrons with an
unfamiliar interface.  All operating
systems have a basic similarity in what they do and how they’re set-up but it
can be intimidating to have something as simple as the equivalent of the
Windows “Start” button in a different place, especially for less
computer-literate users.

– even though
Ubuntu is very user-friendly, it still may need a fairly tech-savvy network
administrator to install and maintain. 
But this is only speculation as the answer to this question is beyond
the scope of this assignment which asked us to assess Ubuntu on a single
machine, not as part of a network configuration. 

– support and
troubleshooting (for both the network administration and staff) would be a
related issue but there appear to be very active, responsive online forums for
this operating system[6] that would be of assistance.

– a much more
technical take on some of the disadvantages of Ubuntu is available at: http://blogs.ittoolbox.com/visualbasic/dotnet/archives/ubuntu-why-9461

Other
Thoughts
Most programs
seemed to work well for me – I loaded a fairly large document into the
OpenOffice and although it seemed to appear as it would in Word including
tables and graphics, it was disconcerting to see the page count change from 55
in Word to 46 in OpenOffice, even though I couldn’t account for the
difference.  Similiarly, I was able to
access my USB key without problem but couldn’t browse the photos on my digital
camera except via the import function of the GThumb Image Viewer.  I also couldn’t get an existing MS-Office
database to load in OpenOffice’s equivalent program although I tried changing
the file extension to OpenOffice’s “odb” instead of “mdb”.  I couldn’t get Java to install in Firefox,
even after manually downloading the Linux version, which would have allowed me
to run certain Java-based programs.  I
didn’t spend a lot of time trying to figure this out and I’m sure it is doable
but along with a few other question marks – recognizing graphic cards,
recognizing wireless network cards, playing video files – that were raised in
discussions with classmates, I realise that Linux is still perhaps deserving of
its reputation as being less user friendly than Windows, even for all its
recent improvements.  One other question
I didn’t answer but assume is possible is saving customized settings for
programs (ie. Firefox extensions or even just the preferred screen resolution)
to a USB or local hard drive rather than having to reconfigure software every
time you boot it from a CD.


[1] Wikipedia –
Ubuntu.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_%28Linux_distribution%29  (Accessed: June 27, 2006)

[2] Ubuntu –
ShipIt.  https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ (Accessed:
June 27, 2006)

[3] Gates
Foundation – Public Libraries.  http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Libraries/USLibraryProgram/
(Accessed: June 27, 2006)

[4] ABCNews
“World’s Richest Man Donates 85% of Fortune to Gates Foundation” http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/MellodyHobson/story?id=2118501&page=1
(Accessed: June 27, 2006)

[5] Tennessee Government –
Gates Foundation FAQ.  http://www.tennessee.gov/tsla/lps/pachug/FAQ.pdf
(Accessed: June 27, 2006)

[6] Ubuntu
Forums.  http://www.ubuntuforums.org/  (Accessed: June 27, 2006)


Posted 28 June 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) °

CLA Session Notes – "Systemic Barriers to Library Use: Libraries Engage the Socially Excluded"

These are my notes from probably the best session I attended at CLA (okay, it tied with Michael Geist's session on copyright but those were two totally different things.  Or were they?) 

To put it in perspective, I wrote maybe a page in my notebook at most sessions I attended.  I took six pages at this one. 

This session featured:

Annette DeFavri, Coordinator of the Working Together: Connecting Libraries to Communities Project, Vancouver Public Library, BC

John Pateman, Head of Libraries, Lincoln County Council, Lincoln, England

Brian Campbell, Director of Systems and Special Projects, Vancouver Public Library, Vancouver, BC

Background on the Project from OLA Website
(CLA didn't have this much info in their conference blurb and I couldn't find a web site specifically for the Working Together project):

“Working Together” is a demonstration project funded by Human Resources
and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC), Office of Learning Technologies
Community Learning Network Initiatives (OLT), that is intended to run
for a period of three years, with annual funding approval.



There are four library systems participating across Canada: Vancouver
Public Library, Regina Public Library, Toronto Public Library and
Halifax Public Library. Within the three years, the four libraries will
develop and test models of working with marginalized or economically
disadvantaged communities in order to identify what these communities
expect from libraries and to determine approaches of what and how
services may be best delivered; as well as demonstrate ways that
libraries can transform how they work with these communities by
providing experience, models, tools and a philosophy which encourages
working with these communities as an important part of library service.



In Toronto, the project is being carried out in the Flemingdon Park and
Thorncliffe Park communities where a high percentage of families live
below the low income cutoff measure and where many new immigrants
settle to begin to look for employment, education and English language
skills.



The poster session will share the experiences of the first year of the
“Working Together” project: community asset mapping, meeting the target
communities, developing programs and partnerships, planning for the
next phase

Here are the notes I took from each speaker's presentation:

Annette DeFavri
– Why is this project needed?  Socially excluded people tell them that libraries are for people: who read, who are smart, who can use computers.  When they do come to the library, they don't want to  interrupt staff who always look busy, they feel that there's a “high school or secret club vibe” that they're not a part of, they have anger towards institutions, and that they often don't feel welcome because they're not welcome. 

(I'm man enough to admit that I teared up as she went through the responses of people as to why they don't use the library.  This would be the first of many times during the presentation that this happened.)

– a lot of these barriers are rooted in librarian's professional culture
– fines are a huge barrier – libraries should look at ways to eliminate or forgive them
– even bigger than the fines issue is that people simply don't feel comfortable discussing fines or coming in to talk about them. 
– librarians need to assess “library context” for what they do but also the “community context”
– librarians don't have a culture of change, we don't listen to community, patrons
– unequal relationship between staff and patrons.  Often staff don't wear name tags so we know their name but they don't know ours.
– food and drink policies can be an issue for people who carry their food with them. 
– library culture is currently “collect and protect” but should be “community information providers”
– we need to remember that without people, there are no libraries
– instead of arguing about whether to call them “customers” or “patrons”, we should call the people who come into our libraries what they are – “neighbours” (was this a point from the Stephen Lewis speech that she reiterated?  My notes aren't clear.) 
– librarians need to take risks everyday
– Annette is starting a new CLA interest group on “community access” (may not be the exact title.)  If you're interested in joining, e-mail me and I'll pass along her e-mail address. 

John Bateman
– heads and hearts are the barrier, we don't think and we don't feel
– self-criticism of our profession is hard
– libraries are used most by people who don't need them and least by people who need them the most
– it's a fundamental shift in how we operate but we should move to a “needs based” library service, not equal to all because that never works.  (Someone asked in the Q&A how we can maintain our neutrality by being activists like this and Brian Campbell responded that there is no such thing as neutrality and that by saying you're neutral, you're admitting that you're part of the status quo that causes these problems.)
– “needs based” means we treat people differently based on their needs
– “needs based” policies can work in any library anywhere
– we need to actively engage local community.
– improving things for excluded people will improve things for all patrons
– 20% of patrons are active, core users who want more of the same thus the status quo.  Of this 20%, 47% want free books, 26% want space savings, 20% want trusted source/help
– 30% are passive/lapsed users who use library infrequently or who used it once but no longer do.  To reach this group, there was a “Love Libraries” campaign in the UK which showed this group wanted better selection, facilities, author events (although the study was sponsored by publishers so maybe it had a bias?)
– 50% are irregular or non-users, don't read beyond library needs, we need to do more with outreach services (schools, bookmobiles, sales or giveaways) which are all traditional services, just taken to people
– need to differentiate: “community outreach” works in the community, “community development” works with the community
– overall, librarians need to shake-up our culture of comfort and see world thru eyes of disenfranchised

Brian Campbell
– Brian starts with a moment to acknowledge the street person who was murdered a couple nights ago just as the conference was getting underway.  Who was he?  Did he have a family?  Did he use the library or was he turned away?

(cue more tears, not just me but probably most of the audience.  We'd seen the gathering of other street people to leave flowers and console each other when we&#39
;d gone on the pub crawl.  Did he have a family?  Obviously.  Did the library turn him away?  Who knows – some definitely would have.)
– how can we become relevant to people like this young man?
– there's a corporate invasion that's changing the language of libraries
– libraries serve middle class traditionally even though they are the people who can afford books, they can afford to pay for commercial information services (ie. home internet access)
– poor are afraid of us because of our rules, culture, environment
– lack of pictographic signs in libraries is a major issue that a literate person rarely considers
– we need to give understanding of how libraries work to people who don't come to them.  Think how foreign would it be to enter a library for the first time?  What is that desk for?  Can you take any book you want or only some?  Do you need a key to use the washroom?
– libraries get lumped with schools, prisons and other unfriendly institutions
– think what institution we most resemble when you walk in the door?  At least at his library, the one it most resembles is a prison.  What's the first thing you see when you go through the electronic gates at the front?  A guard. 
– our economic system demands poor people, it's not through their individual choice or character that they are poor
– we need to think how they see us, not how we see them
– we also need to realise that this process is ongoing and can't have an end point
– we need a human element, not just focus on numbers
– we need to lose our fear of different/other people
– library schools need a Community Development course
– “Working Together” – December 2005 Feliciter article has more information and background about the project

If anybody who was at the session has more information or can think of anything I've missed, feel free to e-mail me and I'll add it.  Sessions like this are exactly why I think the CLA should have transcripts of every session available after the conference.  There were no less than three other sessions I wanted to go to at the same time as this one and it was literally a random pick that made me choose this one.  Many of my colleagues who wanted to attend this session didn't make that same choice. 

Posted 26 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

CLA Conference – Holly's Take

[2008-03-21 – Holly is a classmate who I think posted her impressions on our class's private Yahoo! group and who gave me permission to reprint them here.]

The good:
Sessions – “Is one stop shopping all we dreamed it would be? The Single search interface in action”

This
was great, it was a LAC librarian and two librarians from Memorial
University who are doing research on the usability of the single search
interface in their online catalogues. The LAC research was done via
survey on their website, and the Memorial one is with their search
technology that they’ve tested with a small group of undergrads, grad
students, and profs. The university used a capture program so they
could actually record and analyze how information was searched and what
threw people off track or was inconvenient, so it was very interesting
to see which aspects of design were a problem. Also, they noted that
undergrads would just go crazy and click on every result to see what
they could find; profs and grad students would take their time and read
through everything.

The government info track sessions were good;
learned some helpful reference tips from a U of T prof in the first
session, learned about various efforts to save digital government
information in the second and about the future of gov docs in the
third.

Also went to a cultural-type session on the library of
Alexandria – the ancient and the new one- which talked about how
countries from around the world contributed to re-build a library in
Alexandria. It was a nice break to hear about more positive things in
the library world.

The not so good:
I agree 100% with Paul
and Kelly re: the food and the random trade show “entertainment”. At an
early morning session I went to, the speaker brought Timbits for
everyone b/c she felt bad about us being up so early and obviously we
weren’t going to have anything beyond water available.

Also, first
timers breakfast was poorly organized. The food wasn’t served on time
and the speeches started after we all had food, so it was running
behind, once you finished your plate you couldn’t have anything else
and the waiters were taking away plates during the speeches, which was
a distraction. Not worth the money, for an $18 for breakfast in a
hotel, it was disappointing. I was impressed that early on, Barbara
Clubb made the rounds and made an effort to speak briefly with everyone
at the table.

Re: the tradeshow, I found the government booths to
be informative and “student-friendly”; corporate ones, not so much (not
that that was a surprise). It’s nice to do a tour around and talk to
exhibitors on the first day, and then on the second day vendors were
trying to get rid of as much stuff as possible so they didn’t have to
take it home, so it was a good time to stock up on free stuff.
Also,
for those of you who remember Trish (from U of A) from the pub crawl,
here’s the site where her shirt’s from: http://www.librariangear.com/
It’s a site with library related t-shirts, etc.

Posted 25 June 2006 § Library § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

Half Done!

Math is apparently not my specialty because when I wrote an entry or two ago that the summer semester was half-over as of Friday, it took a conversation with Lindsay today to make me realise that for anyone in the program planning to do it in one year straight (three semesters of five classes each with no co-op), the year is officially half over as well.  (I'll give her the Classmate of the Day for that tip.)  Hmm, who else in my cohort is doing the “Suicide Five” (as I heard the 100% accelerated version of this program described to me by a former grad before I got here)?  I can't think of any off the top of my head but I'm sure there's a few of us.  Definitely mixed feelings on this – we learn so much in such a short time doing it that way but I wonder if it's getting absorbed?  A normal two year program might've been better for that but might've been worse too – I mean, could they stretch some of these classes out anymore than they already do?  And in some ways, the accelerated program more closely simulates the work world – you have multiple projects on the go at all times, you get them done to the best of your ability in very short timeframes and then you move on to the next ones. 

It's a minor
milestone but realising I'm half done the program (already) has put me
in a sort of philosophical mood.  I often find myself thinking about my
classmates – where they'll end up, what their careers will be, what
it'll be like if we get together at an alumni reception at a CLA
conference in ten or twenty or thirty years except we're the grizzled
old veterans telling the new recruits about the “good ol' days.” 

I know that day will come soon enough.  I can't believe how fast the last six months have gone, how much I've learned, how many fun and memorable experiences I've had, how many cool people I've met.  It's funny to think back to getting that acceptance letter in November and how excited I was, arriving at the end of December and how nervous I was, starting in January and how gung ho I was (that exhuberance dropped off a bit, I have to admit).  The program's both as tough as I heard it was but also easier in some ways.  I think I have a pretty big advantage having worked with books/authors/publlishers (and often by extension, librarians) for the past ten years but I also have some big weaknesses – my writing style isn't always the most scholarly technique being a big one.  Another thing that's both a strength and a weakness – I tend to be very opinionated about, well, pretty much everything, and I'm usually not shy about sharing those opinions (this blog being a prime example  – there's been one or three minor flare-ups about things I've written here.)  Sometimes I wish I was more of a person who just kinda kept my head down and did my work and didn't make waves.  But then I think “what fun would that be?”  

I guess that's it for now.  This semester has also been incredibly top heavy and I think things will be (a bit) calmer for the next seven weeks. Then Shea and I already have our summer break pretty much filled with plans.  Then it's final semester (nice to see the class list for fall is up already – perhaps some of those opinionated musings had some effect?) and then we'll see what's out there for me when I'm done.

Posted 24 June 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged: