Book Expo Canada

I'm off to Book Expo Canada on Sunday and Monday.  I went once before in 1999 or 2000 and it was a blast – Jack Stoddart marched an elephant through the trade show area as a publicity stunt, I got my photo with what was, at the time, the world's largest book, I got a whackload of free books and other cool stuff and had a variety of other book and not-book-related adventures.  Will post again when I get home Monday night.

Experiences of Male Patrons in A Children's Library?

I'm doing a topic of my own choice for one of the assignments in our children's library class and have asked the half dozen or so men in the class for their assistance.  But I figured I might as well put this out to anybody who happens across this blog as well since I'm looking for the widest variety of experiences (if there's a woman reading this, feel free to have your husband/partner/father/son if over 18 write to me.)

Here's the e-mail I sent to my classmates…

I'm asking for your assistance by sending me a short summary of  your experiences and thoughts on the topic of being a male patron going into the children's library or children's section at your local branch. 

Some things you might consider: when you go to a children's section, do you go alone or with someone (female friend/wife/children/someone else)?  What time of day to do you go?  How often do you go?  Which branch(es)? Do you feel comfortable going to the children's section of a library?  Why or why not?  Have you had any interactions with staff that were positive or negative?  How do parents who are there tend to react to your presence?

There are a couple reasons I want to do this as my topic – when I told someone I was taking this class, they said “Oh, you must be the only guy” and I replied, “No, there's about half a dozen of us.”  But this made me realise that even being a male who was interested in this area was seen as abnormal somehow.  Then I talked to the course instructor who said they used to have a part of this class where the students visited a children's library but had to cancel it because the men felt so awkward

Anyhow, I'm not planning to hand in the paper until later in the semester but if you can e-mail me your responses as soon as possible, I'd appreciate it.

George W. Bush performing U2's "Sunday Bloody Sunday"

I heard the audio version of this a few months ago but someone went and made a video to accompany it.  Brilliant!

10 Skills For Library School Success at the University of Western Ontario

1. Time Management
One of my professors told me this in my first week and I've heard it repeatedly since – the biggest secret to succeeding in library school is to manage your time wisely.  Being a compressed program makes this especially difficult as do the number of assignments we have – not all are intensive or hard but all do take up your time.  I have no idea how some of the people in this program with families or part-time jobs do it.  I bought a 12-month wall calendar which I've never done before and it's probably one of the wisest things I've done here. 

2. (Speed) Reading
You will be asked to read A LOT in this program.  Books, scholarly articles, journals, web sites, more scholarly articles, textbooks, handouts, magazines and did I mention scholarly articles?  None of this will be reading for pleasure either so if you want to try to do that, add more reading (although it's almost a relief to do this type.  I'm currently reading The Da Vinci Code and I think I'm enjoying it more than I would've in “real life” precisely because it's such a great “escape” novel – even if the actual writing sucks.)  The other recurring piece of advice I got from past and current students when I started was to not even try to keep up with the reading assignments – it's “unpossible” as Ralph Wiggum would say. This was also wise advice.

3. Reading In General
This one seems obvious but you should probably be a bookish-type who does a fair bit of reading already if you choose to come to library school.  I don't know – maybe that's not an absolute requirement (or it's more of a requirement if you're going into public libraries?) but I just don't get how anyone could come to library school and not consider themself a reader and/or book lover.  That'd be like going to engineering school and saying you don't like bridges.  (Are jokes about engineers building bridges universal or is that a University of Regina thing?)  As well as reading lots, you should probably read widely as well – fiction, non-fiction, genre fiction, etc.

4. Interpersonal Skills
This is important anywhere – school, work, family – but being able to get along with various types of people is especially important in library school.  Contrary to stereotypes, this place isn't filled with bookworm introverts – for the most part, people are pretty balanced and well-adjusted.  But it does range from ultra-introverts to massive extroverts so being able to get along with all types will definitely help you out – in your everyday studies but especially when you're thrown into random groups and have to work on projects together. 

5. Public Speaking
This one's important enough that I think they should probably do a brief session (one afternoon?) during the first week of library school to help people who maybe don't have a lot of experience doing public speaking to learn the basics.  We don't do a huge amount (probably 1-2 things per class depending on which classes you're in) but it's something that's very important, not only in library school but beyond.  And since it's people's number one fear, having a grounding in public speaking would be a big help rather than being thrown in the deep end which is what seems to happen now.

6. Computer Usage
This one is probably obvious as well but you should have at least a basic familiarity with computers and computer programs and probably more than that.  This is a point of contention in library schools – the push-pull between how things have always been done and librarians who want to be on the cutting edge.  (One publisher I know referred to “chip-head” librarians who are embracing any and all new technologies in an attempt to fundamentally change the stereotype of their profession as a bad thing that's getting worse about the current library system.  Er, guilty as charged! )

7. Typing
Sort of related to the last point, you should probably be a better than average typer if you come to library school.  I mean, all of your five or six weekly assignments will still get done eventually if you're a two-finger typer but you just save yourself so much time by being able to type quickly.

8. Stress Management
Because of how busy this program is, dealing with the stress of assignments – readings, group presentations, essays, projects – can be a challenge at times.  Apparently exercise and a healthy diet are good ways to do this; drinking massive quantities of beer and eating pizza six days a week is not so good. 

9.  Photocopying
Take the time to learn your way around the photocopiers in the GRC when you first get here as you'll be spending a lot of time (and money!) with them.  Most people don't buy the textbooks and because of the twisted world of Canadian copyright law (it's okay for students to photocopy individual articles/textbook chapters for personal use but not okay for a prof to scan that chapter and distribute it electronically to their class for the students to print out themselves) so endless photocopying it is.  Don't get me started on how idiotic this is. 

10. Perspective
This is library school.  At the same time that it's one of the most important things you can choose to do in society (in my completely biased opinion), it's also not rocket surgery.  No one dies here, no one goes to jail, I don't think anyone hardly even gets kicked out.  Unless you're applying to do a PhD,  whether you got 76% or 86% on your assignment doesn't matter.  In fact, no one will likely ever see the assignment but you and the prof.  And let's be honest – we know that some profs aren't reading our works that closely either and the marks are about “artistic impression” and “technical merit” as much as anything.  One prof admits as much saying “I don't know the difference between an 76% and a 78%.  But I do know the difference between a B+ and a B-” which makes sense to me. 

Bonus Link of the Day: Right before I came to Grad school, there was a thread on “How To Live With A Busy Grad Student” on AskMetaFilter that had some good tips, especially for those of us with partners/spouses/families.

Friday Fun Link – June 9, 2006 (Top 100 Corporations)

Business Ethics magazine has released their list of 2006’s Top 100 Corporate Citizens. I’m not an expert in who’s good and who’s not so good but found a couple names on the list that were a bit surprising to me. (via Kottke)

It’s also interesting to compare this list to Fortune’s recently released list of “America’s 100 Most Admired Companies”.

CLA Ride Share?

For anyone who doesn't know how they're getting to the CLA conference in Ottawa next week, Shea did some research tonight and found that we can rent a mid-sized
car (something like a Grand Am) for $256 with unlimited km that would fit 4 comfortably.
 We could also rent a 7-passenger van for $342 which would probably be
best to take no more than 6.  It's got a km limit but 2100km should be
more than enough to get us there and back.



Anyone riding with us would also share the cost of gas and insurance (unless
somebody has a VISA or CAA that covers rental insurance for vans?  Mine
covers insurance but only for cars.) 
Oh, let me know if you're willing to share driving as well. 



We would ideally like to go up Wednesday morning-ish (8 or 9am?) and
come back Sunday afternoon although we are willing to be flexible to meet the
wishes of the most people in the car pool.



If you are interested, please e-mail me and we can work something out.  Shea
and I are likely going to rent a car no matter what since it's cheaper
than bus/train so it would be great if we could share this expense a bit.

"Best of London" Poll

I've posted a survey of the “Best of London” on the message board that Lauralee Gilmour set-up.  I'd encourage everybody who reads this who is (or was) in London to sign up for an account on that message board and fill it out.  It would be great to have a collected wisdom about the best restaurants, bars, activities and so on in London. 

Why I Hate Personal Weblogs

My fellow blogger and former co-worker, Cenobyte sent me this: Why I Hate Personal Weblogs

Here's an excerpt the author of this article suggested that bloggers should post at least once a month:

Statement of Audience

I realize that nothing I say matters to anyone else on the entire planet.
My opinions are useless and unfocused. I am an expert in nothing. I know
nothing. I am confused about almost everything. I cannot, as an
individual, ever possibly know everything, or even enough to make editorial
commentary on the vast vast majority of things that exist in my world. This
is a stupid document; it is meaningless drivel that I do not expect
any of the several billion people on my planet to actually read. People who
do read my rambling, incoherent dumbfuckery are probably just as confused as
I am, if not moreso, as they are looking to my sorry ass for an opinion when
they should be outside playing Frisbee with their dog or screwing their life
partner or getting a dog or getting a life partner. Anyone who actually
takes the time to read my bullshit probably deserves to ingest my fucked up
and obviously mistaken opinions on whatever it is that I have written about.
Signed: ——
——–

She also sent me this:



So I sent her this (which is funnier because it's true):

If you squint really hard, Carolina's uniforms look like Calgary's and hey, any team that has Mike Commodore is fine by me!  (Oh man, when I e-mailed her, Carolina scored with two seconds left in the period.  Now I go to post this on the blog and Doug Weight just scored for Carolina to put the 'Canes up 4-0 with 17 minutes left in the third.  I really hope Edmonton loses in four straight!)

Happy 100th Birthday…sort of.

That last post was apparently my 100th post since starting this blog in February.  Help yourself to a slice of virtual cake with everybody else at the party…        

Field Trip Photos

Just a couple shots from our KidLit class trip to Toronto last Friday.  I don't know how the picture of JK Rowling's signature at the Osbourne Collection got on my digital camera because you're not allowed to take photos there!


And a bonus image: the best use for an air conditioner…