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Day Tripper, Sunday driver, yeah!

Spent the last couple days touring SW Ontario.  Here's the brief itinerary…

Thamesville
– this is where Shea's mom spent a summer when she was a teenager and
made a friend named…Shea who (obviously) became (my) Shea's
namesake.  Also saw the house that Shea's mom stayed in that
summer. 

Chatham
– we met “Uncle Barney” that Shea's mom stayed with during her summer. 
He was in a nursing home but pretty sharp.  I said we were going
to Montreal and would have to practice our “parlez-vous” and he goes
“well, bonjour to you too!”  He also got a short joke in about
Shea's mom which is pretty funny. (The picture was snapped right after he said “Oh yes, she was about this tall…”)


Leamington
– home of the biggest tomato in the world (why do Canadians love their
giant roadside attractions so much?)  and a Heinz factory. 
What more could you ask?  


Point Pelee National Park
– how cool is it that, not only is the southernmost point of mainland
Canada as far south as Northern California (as we all learned in
elementary school) but because it ends in a sandbar, you can literally
walk to this little wee spit of sand that is the actual furthest southern point?


Back through Chatham then head north along the…

St Clair River
– drop up to Sarnia along the St. Clair River which we heard was
beautiful.  Weird seeing Michigan across the river to the west
when I'm so used to thinking of the USA as south. 

Sarnia
– stopped at a hotel for night.  Up the next day and check out the
big bridge between the US & Canada (more exciting than it sounds –
honest!) 




Pinery Provincial Park
– a few classmates had talked about camping here this summer so I
thought I'd get a preview.  It was almost completely deserted at
this time of year and pretty incredible.  I saw a book in a travel
bookstore downtown the other day that talked about how kids have lost
their connection with nature.  I think a lot of adults have too.




Grand Bend
– very touristy seaside town that was fairly deserted (luckily) at this time of year

Bayfield
– stop for a picnic lunch of the shores of Lake Huron and tour their historic main street. 

Goderich
– picturesque little town designed so that all of the streets radiate
out from a central “square” like the spokes of a wheel.  Went into
the library on one of the side streets and was blown away by how
beautiful their library is. 




Stratford
– famous for the Stratford Festival, another very touristy town

And back home in time for supper.  Ended up going to the Oxford
Arms pub which had been recommended a couple days earlier by Mike
McArthur and who's sitting at a table by the front window watching us
walk up but Mike and David?  Funny stuff. 

I can't believe my blog has become a travelogue.  Jesus – somebody kill me.  Er, speaking of, Happy Easter! 
The Easter Bunny, she has risen once again…

Posted 17 April 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) °

One Semester Down, Two To Go

Hard to believe I'm finished my first semester as of today!  

I got my course registration list for the summer a couple days ago: 

506 Management
525 Managing Internet Information Services
566 Children's and Young Adult Literature
697 Individual Study
746 Special Topic: Introduction to Collection Development Practices in Academic Libraries

I'm going to do
my individual study on the relationship between Canadian book
publishers and libraries (the exact focus isn't finalized yet.) 
I'm pretty happy (and surprised) that I got into all of my first
choices – I've talked to a few classmates who didn't.  The most
disappointing thing is that there are about four other courses that I
could've easily substituted into this list as I would've liked to take
them as well. 

We had our final Lunch Bucket speaker series of the semester today and
it was a group of first termers with library experience plus Renee from
second term who's got a Library Tech diploma having a panel discussion
entitled:  “Here In the Real World: Life Before (and After)
MLIS”  Had about 15 people out which was a better crowd than I
expected on the last day of classes to be honest.  Great
discussion and my only regret is not taking my minidisc to record what
was being said.  When we did sessions at the SPG, we'd have
someone (usually Jill or I) designated to take notes and then we'd post
them online for future reference.  Have to admit I was a bit
disappointed that no one from faculty or staff showed up – I mean,
you'd think they might take an interest in a topic like this?  But
maybe they think they get all the feedback they need on the program via
other channels?  Who knows…

Quinn also had a good crowd out to watch “The Aristocrats” last night
even though there was a huge downpour.  Only one person walked out
and I think that might've been because he turned the lights down
completely and she couldn't work on her needlepoint. 

And the Book Zine is out (well, I got a preview copy last night after
they finished compiling them at the Grad Club.  Not sure if
they've made it to our mailboxes yet) and it's a great little
collection.  Easily the best list is Mike McNally's “Top Ten
Things I've Actually Said In Class To Astound & Annoy
Professors”.  I'm trying to convince Ella to scan in all the back
issues plus this one and put them online.  If anybody's taking
Preservation or Archives or whatever that stream of classes are called,
maybe you could do this as a class project? <hint, hint>

I'm off to drink some Bushwakkers beer at 7pm at Lyndsay's then we're
likely on the road all weekend touring around so I probably won't be
posting until Sunday or so.

Classmate of the Day: Just
because I'm in such a good mood and it feels appropriate, let's give it
to every single person in the Class of January 2006.  Yay
us! 

Posted 13 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) °

How I Know My Parents Love Me

They
bring me six bags of nacho chips that you can't get in Ontario and more
importantly, eight litres of beer that's made by the best damn brewpub
in Canada, Regina's Bushwakkers! 


 
Posted 13 April 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (3) °

10 Tips For New Library Students at UWO's Library School

Now that I'm a cagey veteran library student with a whole semester
under my belt (well, two days from now), I thought I would pass along
some of the wisdom (as opposed to data, information or knowledge) that
I've picked up in the last fourteen weeks.

Ten Tips For New Library Students in UWO's FIMS Department
1. Even if you're not a drinker, you will learn more in a couple
hours sitting at the Grad Club talking to classmates and colleagues
than you'll learn in two months of classes – good and bad profs, the
scoop on co-op jobs, what classes to take, who's bonking who – all the
important stuff. 

2. This is pretty obvious but a good professor can make a bad-sounding
class great and a bad professor can make what looks like a good class
into something resembling a visit to the dentist.  Multiple visits to the dentist actually. 

3. Even after a semester, you will be unable to pass an attendance
sheet around the strangely designed classrooms so that everybody gets
to sign it during its first pass. 

4. They give you an eight character password for your computer account
that has lower case, upper case, numbers, AND symbols.  This will
seem like overkill but after a couple weeks, you'll memorize it and
it'll be as automatic as typing your dog's name into the password field of your Hotmail
account.

5. The machines in the main computer lab have jump drive slots but
don't allow you to plug in headphones to listen to Internet radio
without hearing a high-pitched screech (well, you can fiddle with the
settings and maybe get it to a dull throb.  I won't tell you which
machine I've fixed as it's mine!!!)  The computers in the Grad
Resource Centre (the special library for library students) don't even
have USB ports.  Yep, you heard that right.  Do your work and
then e-mail it to yourself – how very 2002 of them. 
[2006/05/07 – Edit: This one is
contenious – see comments.  But even after this
comment saying
there are USB drives in the GRC, I haven't found them.]
[2006/05/09 – Edit: I asked
yesterday.  The USB ports are in the back  so if you want to
plug-in your jumpdrive, you have to get on your knees and reach around
to the back of the CPU's.]

6. Even though you are a library student, you aren't allowed to a) take
out any books from the GRC or b) access it after hours.  GRC
Unofficial Motto: “Let your future employers trust you – we
don't.”  (I know the limited number of books in the GRC are a
reason for the no-loans policy but even letting students take overnight
loans would be useful – from close at 8pm with the understanding that
the book would be returned by opening the following day under threat of
heavy fines and beatings.)

7.  Two words for a guaranteed successful group presentation:
puppet show! (Credit to David Jackson for the tip – which I haven't
been able to use but the Jeopardy game I ran in 503 came close in terms
of childlike wonder.)

8. The Spoke has way cheaper beer than the Grad Club.  It's
actually criminal in how much cheaper it is.  Of course, you're
also paying for the privilege of not dealing with drunken undergrads at the
Grad Club which is worth the extra buck per beer.. 

9. Timmy Heroin's is the main food vendor in the building.  You
may weep (as my classmates did last night) upon realising it is closed
for the summer. 

10.  Get involved right off the bat – join committees, attend
social functions, hang out at the Grad Club (again, even if you don't
drink).  If you have a good idea for something that should be done
– do it!  Live by the motto that it's easier to ask forgiveness
than permission. 

Bonus:
11. Even though you're in library school, you will have no time for
pleasure reading (unless reading photocopied articles about RFID chips is
pleasurable for you.)

[2006/05/07 – here's another one I thought of having just gotten my finalized first semester marks the other day:
12. Marks in this program basically range from 70-85 with very few exceptions.]

Anybody out there reading this, feel free to post your own advice (singles or top 10 lists or whatever) in the comments section.

Classmate of the Day:
Fiacre  O'Duinn.  My parents are in town so on the one night
when we don't have a 502 class to get up for the next day and after
handing in a major assignment for our Tuesday night class, I elect to
come home instead of going out to the bar with the majority of my
classmates (kind of the reverse of what happened through the whole
semester.)  Apparently it was quite a blow-out and Fiacre was
looking pretty rough today.  And why is it that anyone with an
Irish accent telling drinking stories makes them automatically sound
way better?

Posted 12 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § List § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) ° Tagged:

The Naive Librarian Award Goes To…

After an intense (?)
build-up, the Spirit of Librarianship Award goes to… (drum
roll)…me.  Without being too egotistical, I'm not too
surprised.  I heard I got more nominations than some people got
votes, I was the only one from first term nominated (and only the
second first-termer to win it) so I got lots of votes from classmates
while other nominees had to split votes between their cohorts. 
Plus a little bird told me the other day that I should definitely 
come to the “Destressor” so I had a pretty good idea how it might go
down.  But until they announced my name (as I sat with a mouthful
of samosa) I didn't know for sure of course. 

I have so many thoughts on this, let's see if I can get to them all…
– my personal compromise with my whole ambivalence about the award was
that I asked the committee if I could accept on “Behalf of the Class of
January 2006”.  (They said it wouldn't fit on the plaque.)
– I also wanted to accept it on behalf of the other nominees which I
think I sort of managed to say in the rambling speech I gave.  On
one hand, it's just a silly award.  On the other hand, it's pretty
important thing and it's too bad there have to be winners and er, not
winners for something like this. 
– I also tried to say that I thought the award was sort of a way of
identifiying people who thought being a librarian was more than getting
a piece of paper, more than getting a good paying job.  (I was
talking to someone after I heard I was going to be nominated and joked
that this award was for “The Most Naive Librarian” – someone who
believed in libraries on a very “kumbaya” level.) 
– Quinn's gone forth and organized a movie night featuring *The
Aristocrats* for Wednesday night at 5:30pm and I think everyone reading
this should attend if they can – it's a great film.  I managed to
give a little preview of the joke and a plug for the movie night during
my speech. 
– this has nothing to do with the Award but I managed to fill out two
extra anonymous entries for the Book Zine near the end of the Destressor but I think it will be easy
to recognize mine.  They're the ones with beer spilled on them.

It's 2am and I've just woken up for a power nap after drinking an
outrageous amount of beer at the Destressor.  I've got to polish
my 501 Annotated Bibliography now but when I get a chance, I think I'll
try to type up a “what I would've said if I'd put a little more thought
into it” Oscar-winning acceptance speech. 

Posted 11 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (4) °

Sometimes I Post Just To Say I've Posted That Day

[2007-03-20 – this page continues to be one of the most hit pages on my site for reasons I cannot figure – I assume it is the mention of either Darth Vader or Eminem.  But those terms have millions of other sites that should be ahead of mine in your searches.  So if you have hit this page, can you please leave a comment to tell me how you ended up here?  Thanks in advance!]

Broke the fast
and instead of going to the Westside Diner with David, Sabina, Ella for
breakfast as I have pretty much every week since getting here, we
decided to shake things up and go for Dim Sum (Translation: “Tiny
filling goodness”) 

David and Sabina are going to Alberta for the break so we asked them to
say 'hi' to Calgary for us.  They have a day to kill in Calgary
when they get there waiting for Sabina's brother who's arriving on a
later flight so we suggested spending the day on the patio at the Ship
& Anchor (one of the best patios I've ever been on).  But
they'll probably go the Badlands which is okay too, I guess. 

Went to school but none of my outstanding (in the sense of “yet to be
returned”, not “wow, that's an unbelievably exacting answer to a
hypothetical reference question!”) assignments were back yet.  Too
bad – I had some fun with my final reference question and am looking
forward to seeing how I did. 

Of course, my mark can go one of two ways since, instead of the usual
paint-by-numbers answer the RQ's have become for most of us, mine
became a surreal narrative of a patron, standing in my living room
berating me as Scots in kilts berate my classmates.  There's also
references to a grasshopper, a frog and Darth Vader.  Even if I
get a bad mark for doing that, I hope I managed to break the boredom
that marking those things must be.

Came home and watched a video Shea got from the library on Montreal (we're going for a week during break) then had a nap (I love
naps!) then had supper and now working on one of my two outstanding (in
the sense of “yet to be handed in”, not “wow, that's cracker-jack
wicked-ass writing!”)

(Do you ever get the sense I post just for the sake of postings without having anything to say?  Yeah, me too…)

NP: “Shake That” – Eminem.  Shea asked me to download this song,
not having heard it before.  I play it, she likes it but doesn't
remember asking me to download it and simultaneously, we both realise
why it sounds so familiar – it's the song voted most likely to be
pumping in our next door neighbour's apartment at 3 a.m.  Kinda
funny actually – even when I'm cool and hip and back in school, I'm
three months behind all the trends.  (Oh well, better than three years I guess.) 

Posted 10 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

One Week and Two Assignments Left

I'm doing an
annotated bibliography on the corporatization of public libraries for
501 (sort of a recurring theme with my work here so far) and then I
have to do a Request for Proposals for 505.  Then I'm done my
first semester of library school.  How crazy is that?  Next
week is going to be busy…

Monday
– Final 503 class, should get back a bunch of assignments including my
final Reference Question and marks for our final group
presentation.  Then Destressor at Grad Club where they present the Spirit of Librarianship Award.
Tuesday
– M&D arrive in the afternoon for a 12 day visit.  In the
evening, I have my final 501 class where I'll hand in my annotated
bibliography.
Wednesday
– will probably do a bunch of running around with M&D, shopping and
local sightseeing/orientation then in the evening, we're hoping to have
the first of what might become monthly library-themed film
nights.  Quinn's taken the lead on this project but is trying to
get me into an usher outfit.  Unlikely!
Thursday
– we have our final Lunch Bucket Speaker of the semester at noon. 
It'll be a panel discussion called “Here in The Real World: Life Before
(And After) MLIS” featuring three first-term students speaking about
their experiences in the program versus what they found working in
libraries.  Then I have my final class of semester is 505 at which
time I'll hopefully have my Request for Proposals ready to hand in
(though I can hand it in next week if I need the extra time – very
generous of the instructor to make this option available for the class
knowing how busy we'd all be at the end of term.)  Then I might
just have a beer at the Grad Club to celebrate. 

Then I'll relive high school by coming home drunk and having my parents look at me disapprovingly.  Ah, good times…
 



Posted 09 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (1) °

Quote of the Day (if the day was Tuesday)

There were a
bunch of what appeared to be commonly mis-spelled words written on the
board when we went to 501 on Tuesday night.  Our professor glanced
at them, sees one that's “regorgitate” and quips “Isn't that what
happens when you re-elect George Bush?”

Posted 07 April 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

The Bionic Librarian

Some days I feel like the Bionic Librarian. 
I keep my digital camera in my left jacket pocket (Quinn called me a
shutterbug today – I think I've taken 300 photos in the short time I've
had the camera and I'm always pulling it out at any gathering we have),
I have a jump drive swinging from my neck, I have a Sony Discman in my
right front pocket (no I-Pod or I-Pod Shuffle yet but it's getting
closer – perhaps as a reward for finishing this semester?), my laptop
is often in my backpack (although not every day – only if I know I'll
need it at school.) 

Of course, I still don't own a cell phone and basically refuse to have
one.  So maybe I'm not quite Lee Majors yet (even though there was
nothing more I wanted to be when I was 10 years old).


Posted 07 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

How To Be The Best Professor, Heck, The Best Teacher Ever

My Grade Two
teacher is my favourite teacher of all-time.  Her buying the class
doughnuts on a monthly basis has a lot to do with it.  But I think
we've got a new champ. 

Proof? 
– give a kick-ass introductory class and an even better wrap-up class that draws tears from many in the class
– use PowerPoint so effectively that a so-called tech guy (ahem) takes
a couple weeks to realise he's even looking at PowerPoint slides
instead of some unique, no-projector required type of overhead
transpencies due to their black text on white background minimalism and
lack of stupid caveman graphics (a technique that will inspire his own
PowerPoint presentations from this point onwards.)
– make
your students realise they're part of something bigger than themselves,
bigger than their jobs, because of their choice to become librarians
– draw on your vast real world experience for practical examples
– know your material inside and out
– show the full range of your reading (without being showy)
– be funny with quips, ad-libs, stories and self-deprecating stories
– explain the material in a logical, well-paced, engaging manner
– be a firm, demanding marker but provide extremely constructive
criticism.  (One classmate put it to me like this: “When I do
poorly on one of her assignments, I want to apologise for disappointing
her.”)
– inspire your students so much that they spend hours coordinating a homemade group gift
– inspire your students so much that many of them sign up for your
advanced cataloguing even though you assure them that it will not be fun.


Thanks Elisabeth! 


PS – thanks to all who read this blog and especially those who leave
comments.  I'm in a time crunch pretty much all the time these
days so I'm not responding.  But I do read and appreciate your
thoughts.

PPS – I've also got a few e-mails since posting my Alberta user fees
article.  I do plan to respond to everyone but it may take me some
time to get to it (one week of classes left, two major assignments left
to do = Jason is a very busy guy!)  I do want to clarify a couple
things though – I have lived in Alberta (2001-2004) where I did
work in the arts community so I am very familiar with the dynamic arts
community that exists in the province, mainly Calgary and Edmonton but
in other places as well.  I was also part of the Amnesty
International Observer Team for the G8 that was held at Kananaskis so
I'm also aware of the activism that does exist in the province. 

I don't think I portrayed Albertans as “cowboys” or “rednecks” anywhere
in my paper – the “cow cliche” thing that runs through it and provides
the sub-heads stuck around even after I changed my title from “The
Two-Headed Buffalo” because I liked it and honestly thought of it as an
homage to my Western roots (what is The Calgary Stamede anyhow except
the biggest two week long celebration of Western Heritage in
Canada?) 

The only time I use the word “redneck” in my paper is to refute this stereotype by showing that Alberta does have  progressive ideas – especially The Alberta Library Card in the context of my paper. 

“Despite it’s “redneck” reputation,
Alberta is home to some extremely progressive organizations and ideas.
For example, the Alberta Library card is unique in Canada allowing
anyone to borrow books at nearly any public, academic or special
library in the province.”

I know a lot of Albertans are extremely sensitive about their
reputation, especially outside their province, but I am originally from
Saskatchewan, I have family in Alberta and visited there at least once
a year every year of my life plus, as mentioned, the three years I
lived there.  I love Alberta.  I love its energy, its youth,
its beauty.  I just think the extremely conservative nature of the
province in general is unfortunate because it keeps the province from
being probably the best place on earth to live.  Seriously. 

Posted 06 April 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Photo ‡ Comments (0) °