There’s a hierarchy in rural Saskatchewan… First, you lose the hospital. The grain elevators close and are replaced by an inland terminal in a bigger town down the line. You used to have a handful of churches and soon you’re down to two or one or maybe even none. The local school closes and the kids […]
As a slight break from non-stop “Save the Library” posts lately, let’s just take a moment to appreciate the incredible crassness of this grocery store Easter display (which I saw on Reddit and I think is from somewhere in the US.) I’m not religious but even I went, “Wow? Really??” (Not the first time Easter […]
Sometimes I wonder why I keep this blog up, basically every day, for over ten years. Looking through some old blog posts recently, I realised that librarians are natural archivists and that’s part of the reason. For example, looking for something else, I realised that I’d posted the responses I got prior to the 2007 Saskatchewan […]
(As a general rule, I don’t do disclaimers on my blog. But given the fine line that exists between my place of employment and my interest in this issue as a taxpaying citizen – not to mention the fact that I’m someone who grew up in rural Saskatchewan and previously worked for a regional library […]
“If You Tolerate This (Your Children Will Be Next)” – Manic Street Preachers
I made a quick video of some of the highlights from the DEARSask protests that happened on Friday. These read-ins saw nearly 6000 people at 85 sites across the province protesting the drastic cuts to the province’s public libraries. My biggest problem making this video? Way too many pictures to choose from! So this video includes a […]
I honestly felt like I was going to break the “Angry” emoticon on Facebook the past two weeks – so much bad news about cuts to libraries but also to education, STC and other vital services coming across my news feed. Thankfully, today I got to have a much more enjoyable day, continually clicking the […]
So on Monday, I heard that some library colleagues from the Palliser Regional Library system who’d been laid off were going to be at the Sask Legislature. Since it was my day off, I decided to tag along. I was able to join them in the NDP’s Caucus Office for a while before the afternoon […]
The 2016 Saskatchewan Provincial election took place one year ago today. Like me, I’m sure you’re shocked to realise that “Cut rural library budgets by over 50%” wasn’t listed in the Platform the Sask Party ran on during that election. They also didn’t release a budget prior to the election so voters could make a fully informed […]