Our second management class today made me remember another quirky fact about myself – I have never had a male boss in my life. Even when I worked at a gas station in high school, the owner/manager of the station was a woman. When I worked for a cable TV company in summers during college, both my immediate supervisor and my boss were female. When I started working for the Sask Publishers Group and the Saskatchewan Library Association, all three of my bosses between the two organizations were female. When I did a short stint at the Sask Motion Picture Association, you guessed it. When I moved to Calgary and started with the Writers Guild of Alberta, the Executive Director was a woman. When she left the organization, her replacement was a woman. When I returned to Saskatchewan, I went back to one of the same bosses I had originally. They say that the majority of managers in libraries tend to be men even though it's a female-dominated profession so it'll be interesting to see where my career takes me after I finish this program!
Went over to David & Sabina's on Saturday for a wicked supper. Shea took one of her specialties, I took some Bushwakker beer I'd been saving since mom and dad were here. Here's the recipe for Shea's (I don't have the recipe for the beer but wish I did!)
Spicy Potatoes
4 cups of small baby potatoes, cut in half
1/2 cup grainy Dijon mustard
3 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp water
(1 tsp paprika – we rarely put this but the original recipe called for it)
1 tsp hot sauce or to taste
Mix all ingredients in a bowl then mix in potatoes. Put sauced potatoes in a deep-dish tinfoil pan coated with butter. Cook on barbeque for ~45 minutes. (They could probably be cooked in the oven as well but what fun is that?)
Next time Shea makes them, I'll try to remember to take a picture and put it with this entry. (She's looking over my shoulder so I hope she takes the hint and makes them soon! 
[2006-07-06 – here's a photo. Forgot to take a picture when they came off the bbq so these are the leftovers…]
One of my classmates in 525 – Managing Internet Information observed on the blog he had to set-up for a class assignment that his “initial impression of Blogging was that most contributors suffer from Blogorrhea. That is, an inability to control the output.”
I admit that I suffer from a case of that disease. But I guess it's better than “blogstipation” which is even worse.
That's when somebody sets up a blog but then only posts to it on extremely rare occasions (I believe that fewer than three times a week with small entries and a difficulty in getting things out is the accepted medical diagnosis for blogstipation!)
The Acting Associate Dean, Lynne McKechnie, sat down with members of the Student Council and a few interested students last Wednesday to discuss any and all issues with the program.
It was a very good discussion and a lot of material was covered in the hour and a bit that the meeting lasted. As well, the idea of having these types of sessions on a regular basis was raised (apparently they used to be held each semester then interest died but seems to have perked up again.)
I wasn't taking notes but typed up this summary afterward when I realised there were a lot of people interested in what was being said who couldn't make the meeting due to a resume writing workshop being scheduled at the same time.
If anybody has any changes/additions/comments, you can post them as comments to this blog entry or e-mail me directly.
—
– the NCB wasn't built from a “standard college building” template as is rumoured but it *was* done
on a shoestring
– the process was the usual battle between engineers and architects with
the faculty reps caught in the middle and making lots of compromises
– the GRC was originally going to be in a corner overlooking the river
but this changed somewhere along the lines.
– students are getting a big new grad lounge (like they used to have in
previous FIMS locations when their space was big enough to hold
receptions and events.) This will hopefully be by fall and will likely be on 4th floor
– they're going to move the entire department in the next few years and
there's a possibility that FIMS might end up in the Ivey building (which
definitely wasn't built on a shoestring!) The wider University plan is
to move all classroom/department space to the centre of campus and put
administration things around the outside.
– there is a need for more career counseling while we're here
– there should be more quiet reading space in the GRC which is too
cramped and people tend to congregate there and visit (maybe the new
lounge will reduce this problem?)
– one possibility is to turn the group meeting room with a window into a
reading space.
– changes have come out of previous feedback sessions although they
haven't held one in a long time (maybe two years?) It's like anything
in that it seems to go in cycles – people were really interested then it
died down and now there's interest again
– Lynne clarifies that people still need to attend class, even if their
prof schedules a final exam (which they are allowed to do)
– Lynne also confirms that she informed a new sessional prof that they can't
use of Turnitin.com, a plagiarism tracking service that has a dubious
history of respecting copyright of papers that are submitted after concerns were raised by some students in that class
– one person raises a concern that sometimes it feels like we are treated more like high school students than graduate students and relates how she literally had to beg a professor for permission to leave class early to attend a lecture elsewhere on campus.
– she also agreed that there's no reason tentative classes couldn't be
released two semesters ahead of time since they know the information and
it would help students plan.
– the downside is that even if they mark “tentative” in big red
letters, someone will always come to complain if a class they want to
take ends up not being offered. Also, a tentative list wouldn't have
times or professor names, just the names of classes that they're
planning to offer
– talk about oversubscribed courses and class sizes (45 for required, 35
for electives and 10 for PhD courses unless there's a good reason for it
to be less – limited equipment, first-time prof, prof with other job
commitments, etc. Lower numbers are requested by the instructor.)
– Lynne also talks about how they schedule classes – they try to do one
required class per day (or possibly two – although they once had it so
first-termers had THREE in one day!) then schedule the most popular ones
opposite those since there's no conflict if first-termers are all taking
required courses. Then they slot in the rest of them trying to go by
clusters – ie. don't schedule two public library courses in the same
slot if you can help it (within limits such as “the availability of a
sessional instructor who is in practice (or a sessional instructor who
works in the profession?)
– someone suggests that two new required classes should be advocacy and information ethics
– they have fourteen slots during the week (three per day times five
minus one since they never Friday evening classes) and usually have
about 22 courses to fill those spots so conflicts will happen.
– they will have feedback sessions again in the future (the scheduling
for this was unfortunate as it was at the same time as the
resume-writing workshop that many potential co-op applicants were attending)
– as mentioned, Lynne was great at providing some institutional memory
of what has gone on before in various ways. The GRC used to have 30 000
volumes – who knew? They used to make you meet with a prof to get your
course selection form signed – which provided an opportunity for the
prof to assess your path, give a bit of guidance and just get to know
you a bit. There used to be a “History of Libraries” course but as with
some that are on the books but not offered, they need faculty to teach
them. If a course isn't taught in a two year frame, they usually remove
it (unless faculty might be coming in that can teach it.)
– the entire faculty meets regularly to discuss what's being offered and
to review syllabii, especially for the required courses
– profs do have some flexibility to adjust the plans for the required
courses to adjust for their skills and interests.
Ten Books To Feed The Imagination
– includes the usual suspects such as Roald Dahl and J.K. Rowling but a couple surprises as well.
(via The Guardian)
Classmate of the Day: I reminded Holly that she had a “birthday” today when a group of us sent for supper this evening which ended up getting us all a bite of the brownie when the waitress overheard. Happy “Birthday” Holly!
This catalogue of books that have been nominated or won Saskatchewan Book Awards was one of the last projects I worked on before I came to library school. It was a Centennial project with a committee comprised of reps from the Sask Book Awards, Sask Writers Guild, Sask Library Association, Sask Publishers Group and Sask Education. (I represented the SPG.)
The committee recently had their wrap-up lunch which made me realise I should post a link to the catalogue here. I am very impressed with how it turned out. Duncan Campbell who works at Coteau Books did the design and as usual, did an amazing job!
Spirit of Saskatchewan: A Celebration of Books – A Resource For Teachers, Teacher-Librarians and Librarians (Warning: 1.5 MB PDF file)
It could be worse…
A person could be trying to figure out what Ontario people were saying and doing after moving here from South Africa.
(Via a message posted on our 525 class listserv.)
I honestly don't know what a Calgary Flames fan should do with the Edmonton Oilers one game away from the Stanley Cup Finals in a run that's reminiscient of Calgary's similar run two years ago, the last time NHL hockey was played.
Most of the posters over at the CalgaryPuck message board are adamant that you do not cheer for Edmonton if you're a Calgary fan. I talked to my Calgary-born and raised cousin last night and he refuses to cheer for Edmonton no matter what happens. (His exact words might have been a bit more poetic – except without any rhymes in sight.)
I know there are reasons to cheer for Edmonton – it's great to see a Canadian team still in the playoffs, it would be even better for hockey in this country if they were to win the Cup, it helps a small market team in terms of revenues, they're a Western team and probably who most of the people in Saskatchewan cheer for after their amazing Gretzky-led teams of the 1980's, it's another Cinderella run for an Alberta team that squeeked into the playoffs.
But here's the reasons not to cheer for them.
– I have a long-standing dislike of the Oilers, pre-dating my being a Flames fan. This is because, when I first got into hockey in the early 80's, I became a New York Islanders fan as they were the ultimate team at the time – winning four cups in a row led by Mike Bossy (my favourite player of all-time) and Saskatchewan-born Bryan Trottier and Clark Gilles. I used to love goaltender Billy Smith for his “unique” goaltending style of swinging his goal stick like a scythe when Gretzky was lurking behind the net.
– as much as I hate to admit it, whenever you argue with an Edmonton fan about which team is better, they have the ultimate trump card in that the Oilers have won 5 cups and the Flames only have 1. Calgary had TWO chances to double their number of Cup wins in 2004 and couldn't get the job done.
– Edmonton fans have had a couple stabbings and other hooliganism during their playoff run celebrations on Whyte Avenue (which they blatantly have begun calling “Blue & Whyte” Avenue copying Calgary's much-more organically developed “Red Mile”) while Calgary fans tended to congregate incredibly peacefully for the numbers (50 000 on 17th Ave after games during the final series.)
– Edmonton is running out of beer due to this playoff run. I'll say that again: “Edmonton is RUNNING OUT OF BEER due to this playoff run!” That's an insult of the highest order to hockey fans everywhere and if you do have allegiance to the Greasers, should be enough to make you cheer for somebody else!
Had our first 506 – Management course this morning and it was actually pretty good. I had this fear that some Ivey-esque (that's the name of the business school here – some rich dude “bought” the naming right on it. I wonder who'd buy the naming rights to FIMS? The JK Rowling School of Library Science? The Stephen King School of Information?) business professor would show up in a suit & tie expecting us to wear similar outfits and speak in nothing but business buzzwords. But only one classmate wore a tie (and that's his style of dress anyhow – I'm no fashion critic but if I remember it was a dark black blazer wtih a deep red tie. Well, it wasn't a dark blue IBM suit – that's for sure!) so it's all good.
The prof actually seemed to take pleasure in pointing out the buzzwords he'd used in his lecture notes so that's a good sign as well. The workload isn't horrible but we have weekly reading reports which means no slacking off on the reading at all (like you could get away with a bit more in first semester.) One of the books I got from Chris Dixon is the text for the class (I didn't even realise it was – just sounded interested when I claimed it) so that's going to help a lot. The less photocopying I have to do in this program, the better.
Yeah, so anyhow: “Compression Depression”…
The prof is new to UWO and had to finish teaching some courses in the States so we didn't start until two weeks late. So to make up for the lost weeks, the rest of our classes will be half an hour longer (which means they start at the even more ungodly time of 8:30am instead of our usual morning start of 9am.) Which is fine and makes sense. Except that there are two Stat holidays that fall on Mondays over the summer and if you have a class on Monday, as far as I've heard from people, you won't be asked to make those up. (And worse, I don't have any classes on Monday so I don't get these “extra” days.) And there's one Stat on a Friday and same thing – no make-up classes. And some profs end up cancelling the odd class or not holding a class during the last week or whatever. So I'm not sure why we have to have a “compressed” schedule for 506? I guess some people feel they're paying for 14 weeks and they better get 14 weeks, dammit! But for me, I think we're in a professional program and I'm happy to have fewer classes (in any course) if it means more time to work on my other projects, my reading assignments or my extracurricular activities (I'm a bit behind on trying to get a May “Lunch Bucket” speaker as the two people I've contacted both have seemingly fallen through. Well, I'm still waiting for a reply from one but not holding out much hope.) I guess nobody's going to riot if they don't have a Lunch Bucket in May. But personally, I was really excited about the possibility of organizing an event every month while I was here. Oh well. More time for required readings.
Speaking of which, I got 95% (!) on my first assignment of the semester. Trust me – I can't believe it either. I've been feeling a bit burnt out and undermotivated the last couple weeks (especially compared to how gung ho I was last semester) realising that this semester is going to be a lot busier than the last one and my workload is pretty top heavy as well until the end of June. So getting that mark back gave me a bit of a boost and made me feel that my first semester wasn't a fluke (of course, there are many, many marks to come that could drop that ball right out from under me.)
