So all of the header graphics on every sub-page in this blog have been broken since Day One and I couldn't figure it out (true, I did't spend a lot of time on it, preferring to think “Okay, when I have time at the break, I'll take care of this and a few other lingering problems with the blog.) But anyhow, an idea hit me last night and I check this morning and yep, I'd made the link to the graphic a relative link rather than an absolute one so yeah, of course the graphic is going to be broken every time the blog creates a new directory to archive posts or whatever. What a maroon I am!
Roy Romanow (wouldn't a federal NDP leadership look good on him?) has an article in the latest issue of The Walrus about the history of Canada and where our nation is now:
The Walrus Magazine | A House Half Built
Instead of taking a fifth class, I'm doing an independent study this summer on the relationship between book publishers and public libraries in Canada. Last night I finished the first section, a Literature Search of articles, books, web sites and other materials that dealt with this topic and as I talked about in an earlier post, if it's sometimes hard to let assignments go or to stop adding to and editing them, this one was ten times harder to stop revising and adding to.
When I'm done the whole project, I'll probably post it here for anybody that's interested. A hard copy also goes on the shelf in the Grad Resource Centre for the permanent record. (Looking through the other ones, I was a bit surprised there haven't been more done. This seems like such a great option for people to explore literally any topic they're interested in. I've heard that sometimes people want to do them but the hardest part is finding a supervisor who'll agree to monitor the project.
In that regard, I was very lucky as Lynne McKechnie (who's also teaching me Children's Literature) basically suggested the topic to me when I was in talking to her about some different stuff. I'm pretty glad she agreed to do it – in a faculty full of extremely busy people, I can't believe how much work Lynne does. She's the Acting Associate Dean, she holds the Cleary Research Chair, she teaches our Children's Lit course which (surprisingly?) has one of the heaviest workloads for assignments of any class I have (which means it's also a doubly heavy workload for her reading and marking them.) This week, she's in Toronto for the CAIS conference presenting a paper she did with some of the PhD students so she only gets to run over and join us for part of our field trip. I'm getting tired just thinking about it all!
This Friday, our Children's Literature class is going on a field trip to Toronto.
First, we're going to visit
The
Osborne Collection which is a public collection of rare children's books and which includes two other collections – the Lillian H. Smith Collection and the Canadiana Collection. The site features info about their current exhibit (Books as Toys: The History
and Art of Pop-up and Movable Books) as well as links describing the
three collections in greater detail.
Then in the afternoon, we move on to The
Canadian Children's Book Centre. Their website features resource links, book
reviews, publishers websites and links to author/illustrator
websites. A Classmate of the Day Award to Linda Bussiere for compiling these links and web site summaries to help us get excited for the trip. Our prof joked that she'd booked a yellow school bus to take us for the two-hour trip into Toronto so that we would learn sympathy for some of the things young people endure (at least I hope she was joking!)
If I remember to take the digital camera, I'll post pictures of our adventures.
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.
