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Mentorship Program – Volunteers Needed!

I'm re-posting this notice as I know all of us get a lot of e-mail and sometimes gloss over them or ignore them completely.  So I'm hoping that seeing it here might catch somebody's attention a bit more than it might otherwise by just arriving in their in-box. 

The work that the Peer Mentorship Committee do, both in arranging peer and professional mentors, is incredibly valuable and we need people in the January 2006 (and the new Summer 2006 cohort) to take the initiative to make sure great programs like these go forward.  As they say, there's not a lot of work involved and the more people who volunteer, the easier it will be so if you have a friend or two in the program, sign them up too! 

As much as I hate the term “networking”, a position like this also gives you something important – the opportunity to communicate with working librarians across the country in all types of libraries, something that could really set you apart when it's time to send out the resume. 

Finally, whoever takes it over will have the opportunity to take a couple great programs and put their stamps on them to make them even better.  Maybe because of you the initial discussions about automating these programs online will come to fruition?  Maybe you can make change so that peer matching is based on areas of interest (library or otherwise) rather than the random matches that happen now so that peer mentors/mentees are more likely to have something in common initially.  Maybe you'll come up with a great idea of your own that will rock the socks of everybody involved. 

If you're at all interested, I strongly encourage you to contact the organizers today!

—
Attention MLISers!

 
The CLA student chapter Mentorship Program Committee is recruiting
people interested in learning about the organization and implementation
of the program.

The time commitment involved is
minimal; volunteers' sole responsibility will be attending committee
meetings which are held approximately once per month. The volunteer(s)
will gain first hand knowledge of the operation of both the
Peer-to-Peer and Professional Mentorship Programs.

It is hoped that the volunteer(s) will take on responsibility
of the programs in the fall, and/or pass on the knowledge gained to
other people interested in becoming involved.  It is therefore required
that volunteer(s) be returning students to FIMS next term.

 
We believe the Mentorship programs are important for MLIS
students, and we wish to ensure that they continue to be offered to
the MLIS student body.  If you are interested in taking advantage of
the opportunity to assist fellow students, by connecting them with
mentors who are willing to share their knowledge and experience, please
email the committee at westernmentorship@gmail.com.
 
Thanks in advance for considering this opportunity.
 
Allison, Susanna and Elizabeth  
—
Mentorship Program
CLA Student Chapter
Faculty of Information and Media Studies
University of Western Ontario
Posted 27 May 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (1) °

Friday Fun Link – May 26, 2006 (10 Books To Feed The Imagination)

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! 

Posted 27 May 2006 § FridayFunLink § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

The Spirit of Saskatchewan: A Celebration of Books

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)

Posted 25 May 2006 § Main Page § PopCulture ‡ Comments (0) ° Tagged:

An Addendum to the Sask v. Ontario / What Is 'West" Discussion

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.)

Posted 25 May 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Calgary v. Edmonton (The Stanley Cup Edition)

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!

Posted 25 May 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (4) °

Compression Depression

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.) 

Posted 24 May 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Librarians Gone Wild

A big group of us went out to Call The Office for Retro Night last night and had a blast.  There was no flashing as alluded to the in the title of this post but breasts did play a role in the evening – first, in the discussion that happened at Holly's before the party where all of the females present discussed various aspects of breasts that had Jean-Marc and I saying “Uhm, how 'bout them Oilers?” 

Then, at the bar, right after we got there, I had my man-boob tweaked by a guy passing by.  “What the hell?” I thought, realising what women probably feel like at the bar all the time being groped and treated like an object.  Later, the guy explained that he thought I was his buddy and that's why he did it.  Funny enough, I had seen his friend when we first got there and thought “wow – that guy really looks like me!”  

Posted 23 May 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (6) °

525 – Activity #1 Report (Listservs)

Most weeks, we have a certain activity in our 525 – Managing Internet Information class to learn about or do and then we're supposed to report on it. 

This week's activity was to join the class Yahoo! Ggroup and then send a message with something useful or funny in it.

I did as instructed and sent the Roll Call survey out since it's such a great way for people on a library listserv to get to know each other.  There were eight messages before mine and so I quickly used the online interface to look through them – lots of good links to both useful blog-related info and some humour stuff as well. 

The second part of the assignment is to write a brief comment about how libraries can use this technology.  I think the potential for listservs in libraries is virtually unlimited, especially when there are services like Yahoo! groups and MSN providing free, easy-to-use ones. 

A library could use a listserv for communicating with teen-aged patrons, patrons of a particular branch, members of book clubs, an upcoming events listserv, maybe even a “General Library Information” listserv that includes posts from all the other listservs in one spot. 

I'm a big fan of listservs and for me, the biggest advantage of listservs is that it is a opt-in “push” technology where people self-select as to whether they want to subscribe or not and if so, the messages go into the in-box.  This is in contrast to something like a message board which can also be useful but usually requires the patron to remember to visit on a regular basis to see the latest news and postings.  With that said, if someone feels like they get too many e-mail messages already, they can subscribe to a listserv and then choose to receive Digest messages (ie. all messages compiled into a daily or weekly mailing) or only view messages online. 

We're supposed to print out a copy of our comments on each assignment then hand it in – I wonder if this blog post will suffice? 

Speaking of, next week's Assignment – Create A Blog.  I wonder how I'll do on that one?

Posted 22 May 2006 § Main Page ‡ Comments (0) °

Randomness (Happy May Long!)

Concerts Are Fun
Went a bit crazy last night and bought tickets to both Bright Eyes (June) and Wilco (July), both at the Centennial Hall in London.  Two of my favourite bands within a month – why not?

Music Is Political
One of (maybe the only) good thing about George Bush being in power in the US is that the music community has responded with some great albums.  I remember reading an article in Salon or Slate, maybe around the time the Iraq War started, lamenting that music wasn't like it was during the Vietnam War era.  Well, musicians were slow to catch up but now we have amazing politically-charged albums and songs coming out from Bright Eyes, Wilco, Neil Young (although he wrote “Let's Roll” after 9/11 so that's a big strike against), Green Day, Hawksley Workman and probably dozens of others I don't know or am forgetting.  Listened to a lot of the new Bruce Springsteen album yesterday via a Net Radio station and it's perhaps the best of all of them – simply amazing. 

Saturday in the Computer Lab Is Fun
After putting in an eight hour shift at the Grad Club last week to help “welcome” the first years to the MLIS program (I do what I can), I feel like I've balanced the scales a bit by spending nine hours at school yesterday working on my Independent Study on the relationship between book publishers and public libraries in Canada.  I've got a long ways to go but I'm pretty excited with what I've got so far.  Anybody with articles or books about public libraries, publishing and especially the relationship between them, feel free to e-mail me.  Canadian Books Count which I only heard about because I happened to be paging through the latest Quill & Quire is exactly the type of stuff I'm looking for. 

Haggis Is Fun
For a change, the “Break the Fast” club went to the Scottish Corner this morning for our weekly Sunday breakfast.  I ordered a scoop of haggis on the side and they brought me a bowl.  Oh well, now I've got supper. 

Colleague of the Day
For anybody new to this blog, when I started it, I did this recurring feature called “Classmate/Colleague of the Day” which was, if I'm being honest with myself, basically just an excuse to get people to want to read it.  (Why I thoughtt a no-prize like being called Classmate of the Day would make people want to read, I'm not so sure.)  But anyhow, I'm going to bring it back because Chris Dixon, PhD student and TA extraodinaire, put up a poster giving away some very expensive-type LIS textbooks for free.  I greedily claimed a couple of them and when I picked them up yesterday and tried to offer him at least some money, he said “Nope, I believe in the barter system.  So either you can get me back sometime or pass them on to somebody else when you're done with them.”  More people should be like this – very cool! 

Posted 21 May 2006 § LibrarySchool § Main Page § Randomness ‡ Comments (2) ° Tagged:

"May 2-4" and Some Other Differences Between Ontario and Saskatchewan

Christina and
Jonathan came over a couple weeks ago for drinks and one of the topics of conversation was some of the differences we've encountered
between Ontario and Saskatchewan.  Since it's the May long weekend and that's one of the things that came up, I thought this would be a good time to list a few of those differences…

– in Ontario, they call May long weekend “May 2-4”.  In Saskatchewan, we just call it “May long” and nobody has to be reminded how much beer you should attempt to consume during this first ritual weekend of spring.

– I've touched on it elsewhere about how a lot of people in Ontario seem to have no problem throwing out perfectly good furniture and electronics without attempting to recycle them or give them away unlike in Saskatchewan.  For instance, I think my first couch had three (and possibly) four previous owners and got passed on to someone else when I was finished with it.

– milk is extremely expensive here ($4 for a 2L jug here – I can't remember what it costs at home but I don't think it's that much.  Jill – do you know?)

– apparently people don't buy extra bread and keep it in the freezer
like we do in Saskatchewan.  In fact, Christina says that lots of
people here don't even have deep freezes. (Shea: “My parents have three
– two of them full of meat!”)

(Then again, pockets of Saskatchewan have their own little unique things – Shea's hometown is still the only place I've seen where people keep their cheques and cash in their fridge freezer until they can get to the bank.  Why?  Before fire safes were common, the fridge freezer was the last thing that would burn in a fire.  I've always said it would be really easy to be a successful criminal in her hometown – wait until a Saturday in summer when there's a wedding.  Since everybody in town will be at the wedding, either as a guest or volunteering in the kitchen and since nobody in a small town locks their door, you could very easily go house-to-house grabbing the “cold cash” <rim shot>)

– every food delivery place here asks for your buzzer number whereas in Saskatchewan, I think giving the apartment number was usually good enough .  If it was a different number at the front door, the delivery person would look at the list and figure it out. 

– very few washrooms have paper towels, instead most have hand dryers.  Perhaps they're more environmentally friendly but I'm not a big fan of hand dryers and usually end up drying my hands on my shirt anyhow.

– this is pretty obvious but distances mean a lot less here (at least where we are.)  Pretty much 1/3 of Canada's entire population is within a six-hour drive of where we live.  In Saskatchewan, you have to drive six hours just to get to a major city with more than 250 000 people. 

– I've seen exactly two gravel roads here and when Shea and I have gone for drives in the country, we can't stop laughing at the “farms” that have paved roads in front of them AND mailboxes!  No shit. 

– Saskatchewan doesn't have an NHL team but I bet the Moose Jaw Warriors could still give the Leafs a run for their money! 

Admittedly, I am working on a very small sample size for most of these observations – well, except for the food delivery one.  I think Shea and I have tried every delivery restaurant in the city and all of them asked for our buzzer number!

Posted 20 May 2006 § Main Page § Travel ‡ Comments (21) °