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Thursday, July 3
You Know You Work in a Rural Library When...
by
Jason
on Thu 03 Jul 2008 02:22 PM CST
One of the smaller jobs I do in my position of Branch Supervisor is review the local library board minutes that are sent in by each of our 47 branches after every one of their meetings (which can be anywhere from 4-12 times per year depending on the size of the branch.) I have to check that information is being conveyed accurately, policies are being followed, keep an eye for anything branches are doing locally that may require assistance (or intervention!) from HQ, etc. There's always a few humourous nuggets to keep me entertained and as I review a stack of them today, I thought I'd pass along one idea you might want to use as a fundraiser in your own library: "John (Mary's son-in-law) has agreed to donated a quarter of Angus beef for the library to sell as a fundraiser...the draw will be held at the Lion's supper in November." (Have I mentioned how much I love being a librarian in rural Saskatchewan? And for those of you with hyper-sensitive sarcasm detectors, I'm not kidding!  )
Sunday, June 29
Link Dump - Middle of the Night Version
by
Jason
on Sun 29 Jun 2008 03:52 AM CST
I'm
not sure if I put Pace to sleep tonight or he put me to sleep but at
8pm, we were both in bed, crashed out. So that means I wake up now and
am going to be completely messed up tomorrow. Oh well - the same thing
we always say when he naps at an unusual time - "he's tired - he needs
it" applies to my little nap tonight as well!
Here's some
randomness...apologies if you were the person who sent me one or more
of these links. I've lost track of where I got them.
"The Mother's Milk of Literacy: How Breastfeeding May Improve Literacy"
- to which I say, "no duh!"
The Science of Early Brain Development
- you'll have to click on the first search result to see the PowerPoint presentation
Neat New Stuff on the Internet
- by librarian, Marylaine Block. "The sites I include are usually free sites of
substantial reference value, authoritative, browsable, searchable, and
packed with information, whether educational or aimed at answering
everday questions."
"It Takes A Village of Librarians To Raise A Teen"
"Schools should continue to require library research so kids can learn how old folks used to Google stuff."
"The Times (UK) Makes 200 Years of Newspapers Available Online for Free"
"Reading The Future: Planning To Meet Canada's Future Literacy Challenges"
- a new study has lots of stats and info from the Canadian Council on Learning
"Dealing With Book Clutter"
- includes a list of questions that could be used with slight modification during weeding at your library
PaperbackSwap.com
- a site that
the previous linked article led to which allows you to swap books (and
CD's and DVD's) with others. It appears to only be for US-based people
right now (or people with access to a US mailing address) but still
worth taking note of in case they expand to Canada in the future." Who Says Librarians and Teachers Don't Like Tags?"
And for a big, non-library-related finish, "What skills would be most useful if you could time travel back to 1000 A.D."
(Man, it always feels good to get this accumulated kludge off the books!  )
Wednesday, June 25
Saskaboom
by
Jason
on Wed 25 Jun 2008 10:54 PM CST
No, not the catchy Feist song...
Instead, "Saskaboom" was the name given to a feature that CBC's "The National" aired last night on Saskatchewan and our booming economy. The piece included a feature on Weyburn and the impact of the oil sector on the local economy. So if you want a taste of the city where I've spent most of the past year and a more positive spin on the Peak Oil idea that I wrote about the other day, watch the video clip. It was interesting to hear the Mayor of Weyburn talking about losing city employees to the oil patch. We're seeing something similar in our library region. I would say that traditionally, the bulk of our branch librarians were stay-at-home moms and housewives who were married to farmers or other people earning an average (or below-average in the case of most farmers  ) income. Now, with the booming natural resource-based economy, it's harder for us to find women wanting to supplement their family incomes because their husbands are making around six figures in "the patch". Or, if the wives do want to work, they can find higher paying employment with longer hours fairly easily since many gas stations and restaurants are offering $10-15/hr with all the hours you want just to get workers. (And lest anyone think I'm being sexist by talking only about female employees, I will mention that of the approximately 100 employees that SRL has out in its rural branch network, fully every single one of them - ie. 100% if you like easy math - are of the female persuasion. Sadly, the only males in the entire organization are the four professional librarians, our van driver and our shipping/receiving clerk.) In related news (to the "boom", not to the issue of "who has boobs"  ), Shea and I drove out to Stoughton, a town half an hour east of Weyburn for the local library's presentation on "Surface and Mineral Rights" as this is something that is of personal interest to both of us.
(I'll preface this by saying "as I understand it", since I always tend to get these things slightly wrong. But, basically, surface rights are where an oil company pays the landowner an annual fee for the right to be on your land as they explore for oil or for continued access after a well has been drilled. Mineral rights are when you earn a percentage from any producing wells that are found on your land. Mineral rights are, by far, the more lucrative although someone with a few producing wells on their land could make a decent annual wage, just from the surface rights.) Now, a quick quiz - what's the most successful library program you've ever attended? How about 150 people in a community hall where said community has 653 people according to the last census? Of course, they'd advertised quite widely and a lot of attendees, including Shea and I, were from out of town. But still, that'd be like getting 45 000 people out to a library program in Regina! (Hmm, maybe the RPL should become the RidersPL?)There's definitely a lesson in there about running programs that meet your community needs no matter the size of your community. Plus, the opportunity to promote the library and its services is huge, especially for a non-standard program like this. (Although it was embarrasing to hear one Government employee who was presenting ask, "Do you have Internet in the library here? I know we do in Regina but I'm not sure about here." Ouch!)
Anyhow, I'm off to sing myself to sleep...
Old dirt road,
(Saskaboom, Saskaboom)
knee deep snow
(Saskaboom, Saskaboom)
Watching the fire as we grow
(Saskaboom, Saskaboom)
o-o-o-o-old
Tuesday, June 24
Slow Reading: The Book
by
Jason
on Tue 24 Jun 2008 08:50 PM CST
I was very happy to hear that my FIMS classmate, John Miedema, will be having a book coming out later this year. I'm also proud to say I may have played some small role in making this happen. John has said (I think in a comment on this blog or perhaps in an e-mail to me?) that it was the point made in a list by former CLA President Wendy Newman that I reprinted on this blog ("3. In your first three years, become a ranking practitioner-expert in one great thing that becomes your "brand". ) which inspired him to pursue his interest in the area of "Slow Reading".
Through his writing on the topic, he's gained attention from librarians all over the world, has presented at a conference, gave birth to a Wikipedia page on the topic and now, this book.
Congratulations John - I can't wait to get my copy!
Saturday, June 14
Is Google Making Us Stupid? - The Atlantic
by
Jason
on Sat 14 Jun 2008 11:53 PM CST
This is how I sometimes feel...My mind isn’t going—so far as I can tell—but it’s changing. I’m not
thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m
reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be
easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the
argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of
prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often
starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the
thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always
dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used
to come naturally has become a struggle.Check out this great article from The Atlantic Online which talks about how people read, how they do research and how that's changing in the age of the Internet among many other related topics that are covered.The process of adapting to new intellectual technologies is reflected
in the changing metaphors we use to explain ourselves to ourselves.
When the mechanical clock arrived, people began thinking of their
brains as operating “like clockwork.” Today, in the age of software, we
have come to think of them as operating “like computers.” But the
changes, neuroscience tells us, go much deeper than metaphor. Thanks to
our brain’s plasticity, the adaptation occurs also at a biological
level. Where does Google fit in all of this?The idea that our minds should operate as high-speed data-processing
machines is not only built into the workings of the Internet, it is the
network’s reigning business model as well. The faster we surf across
the Web—the more links we click and pages we view—the more
opportunities Google and other companies gain to collect information
about us and to feed us advertisements. Most of the proprietors of the
commercial Internet have a financial stake in collecting the crumbs of
data we leave behind as we flit from link to link—the more crumbs, the
better. The last thing these companies want is to encourage leisurely
reading or slow, concentrated thought. It’s in their economic interest
to drive us to distraction.
Lots to think about!
(via MetaFilter)
Wednesday, June 4
Time To Read Gala Windup (& Five Non-Library Related Reasons I Love My Job)
by
Jason
on Wed 04 Jun 2008 11:51 PM CST
Today, I went to the wind-up of Time To Read, a joint project of Southeast Regional Library and the Prairie Valley School Division. I was part of the initial steering committee for this project which started last summer but had to reduce my role when I went on the road for most of January, February and March. The wind-up was a blast - hundreds of kids in a school gym, prizes, a great slideshow (I'm hoping the steering mounts it online eventually) and an appearance by everyone's favourite rodent, Gainer the Gopher (the beloved Saskatchewan Roughriders mascot for those who may not know.) That couldn't have worked out better - we were discussing possible celebrity partners early in the project and the idea of approaching Gainer was raised by our coordinator who had a connection with the Riders. Gainer turned out to be perfect - he has appeal to kids of all ages plus parents and other adults we were trying to reach, he's a province-wide icon who could be used again if this project becomes a template for similar partnerships between other school divisions and regional libraries in the province and little did we know when we got him confirmed but the Riders went on to win the Grey Cup last fall for what, only the third time in their entire history? Perfect timing!So what was my point? Oh yeah, a list that has been percolating as I've spent many miles on the road the past few weeks doing branch visits for weeding, some final computer training, mini-workshops for librarians who couldn't make our semi-annual training session due to bad weather and so on.FIVE REASONS I LOVE MY JOB
(THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH LIBRARIES)
1. I get to travel lots Some people don't like driving or spending time on the road but I've always enjoyed it, ever since my days selling cable TV subscriptions door-to-door around Saskatchewan during undergrad. (That's a whole different entry I'll do someday!) Semi-related but not worth a point of its own is the fact that our region has company vehicles so we don't have to use our own vehicles as was always the case everywhere else I've ever worked.2. We are a small organizationI report directly to the Library Director. We only have four professional librarians in the entire organization, maybe a dozen staff working out of headquarters and somewhere around 100 staff regionwide so there's not a lot of extra layers or bureaucracy. There are monthly Supervisors' meetings where issues are hashed out and decisions are made. If needed, we can change course very quickly. 3. We have a beautiful HQ building
I haven't seen any other regional headquarters but have heard that ours is one of the nicest in the province. It only makes sense since my boss grew up in his family construction business in Ontario and oversaw the design and construction of this building. Great, high ceilings, a massive board room, a design that creates quasi-cubicles for clerical staff but in a way that doesn't make them feel like cubicles, an exercise area with free weights and a treadmill plus cable TV to watch while you work out (or so I've heard - if you've seen recent photos of me on this blog, you know I haven't visited it that often), a parking garage for company vehicles and the coolest photocopier I've ever had the pleasure to operate in my life (it still jams on me on a regular basis though!)
4. We have a great team.
Many managers think that things would be perfect if only they could get staff who thought exactly like they do. But the reality is that the ideal staff has a wide mix of personality types, perspectives and attitudes. It's more of a challenge for the senior manager(s) but creates the most effective workforce.
5. I have an office It's a small detail but I have colleagues in different libraries who are working in cubicles, sharing workstations with co-workers or who don't really have *any* space to call their own. So having an office is a pretty big deal for a new librarian apparently. (I've always had an office in my previous workplaces and though I'd heard of "cubicles", it was a term I mostly knew from Dilbert so didn't realise how rare this might be.)
Sunday, June 1
This Is Not Your Parent's Library: Literacy Playground Opens at TPL
by
Jason
on Sun 01 Jun 2008 09:53 AM CST
Tuesday, May 13
Which Makes Me Think...
by
Jason
on Tue 13 May 2008 11:01 PM CST
I drove nearly four hours round-trip today to do a five minute presentation at a tea in honour of a branch assistant who's been with our region for fifteen years......which makes me think that rural librarianship has some unique requirements you won't find in any other type of library......which makes me think that rural librarianship also has some unique rewards including the joy of homebaked cookies and dainties, a fly on the wall perspective for two hours conversation covering all manner of small town comings and goings plus the inevitable "Saskatchewan One Degree of Separation" moment of finding out that one person attending the tea has a daughter who signed a document for you in her role as a Justice of the Peace in your hometown and the former librarian who is also attending has a son who is married to a friend of yours from University...
...which makes me think that the afternoon tea is the small town female equivalent of the more male dominated "coffee row" which I've also sat in on in a couple different communities while traveling as part of this job...
...which makes me think of how, when we were traveling to a series of meeting in branches near my hometown and after hearing me talk about my experiences growing up in the area, my boss commented "I don't know why you want to work in Regina. You belong in a rural library."......which also makes me think about how many people have said (some variation of) "we'll miss you - you understand rural libraries" as my contract begins coming to a close......which makes me think that sentiment is properly better captured as "you understand the rural mindset" (trust me - I've barely begun to get a handle on rural libraries!)......which makes me think of the fact that we have a special line in our acquisitions budget to buy copies of one book for every branch in our region (rather than the more usual practice of buying one copy that rotates through the region one branch at a time) and how this year, I bought a book called "Our Towns" which features historical information and background about hundreds of towns across Saskatchewan...
...which makes
me think about how this book was being discussed on talk radio today
and I got the tidbit that "coffee row" is a phrase that originated in Saskatchewan and another tidbit that, at its peak in the late
1800's, my hometown of Indian Head had the most elevators of
any community in Saskatchewan (12), a fact I never knew...
...which makes me think that this book was a pretty good pick for a "branch perm" as we call them whereas the books I picked last year on "The History of Patents", "The History of Inventions", "A Child's Guide to the Night Sky" and "A Health Guide for Those Over 50" weren't maybe as good of picks (long story!)......which (also) makes me think how those picks led to one of many screw-ups I've had over the past year when I asked that the books be catalogued as "reference" materials when in fact, the proper designation was "branch permanents" which means people could actually, you know, take them out......which makes me think that as excited as I am about whatever may come next, I will truly and honestly miss working in a rural library system, with all of its quirks and challenges and small magical moments such as the care taken to design a perfectly arranged tray of goodies...
Sunday, May 11
Jessamyn West's Endnote Presentation from the SLA-MLA Conference
by
Jason
on Sun 11 May 2008 08:45 PM CST
Jessamyn passed along word that she's got both the speaking notes and the slides from her presentation at the recent Sask Library Association-Manitoba Library Association joint conference online (good thing she has the speaking notes up - she uses that minimalistic "one photo, one caption" style for her presentations so you might not get much out of just the slides.)I have to say it's been interesting to ask people what they thought of her presentation over the last couple weeks. I'm a bit naive but every time I ask, I expect the person to be similarly enamoured and, like me, think "yeah. Yeah! That's it. That's what it's all about. Whoo-hooo!" (or something along those lines anyhew.  )Instead, I've heard from a few people who were underwhelmed or even disappointed by the presentation. I hate to generalize but so far, this division has broken down completely along generational lines - older librarians I ask who weren't very impressed found the presentation meandering, off-point, etc. etc. Younger and/or newer librarians found the presentation engaging, exciting and inspirational.This isn't just about a conference closing presentation though. Instead, it embodies a generational divide that is causing a lot of tension within our profession in general. On one side, you (tend to) have younger, technology-focused, cutting-edge, "just do it" new librarians. On the other, you have more hierarchy-based, old-school, cautious "voice of experience" librarians. (I hasten to add that there are older boomer librarians updating their Facebook profiles from their Blackberries and their are curmudgeonly new, young librarians who think Web 2.0 was the sub-title of the second Spiderman movie. I also admit to having had more than one sleepness night in the past year wondering if I'll acquire some or all of the traits I currently find so frustrating as I move forward in my library career? And whether this is necessarily such a bad thing?)Anyhow, in my mind, Jessamyn's presentation did not suck ("was not sub-optimal" to use her suggested terminology substitution for the word that we X'ers do tend to over-use way too often!) but it apparently did not always reach the people that it should have either.
Sunday, May 4
"[We] discussed who had learned to drive on a tractor [answer: almost everyone, including me]"
by
Jason
on Sun 04 May 2008 08:39 PM CST
Well, the conference is over for another year! We finished off the joint SLA-MLA conference with a great social event at the Cathedral Village Free House where I was finally able to meet Jessamyn West.
Well, that's not quite true - I've "met" her before but this was the first time meeting her in person. Since long before I became a librarian, I've been reading Jessamyn's posts on MetaFilter and librarian.net. I first made official contact with her while in library school (I tried to bring her in as a "Lunch Bucket" speaker but wasn't able to pull it off...one of my great regrets of my time at FIMS) and have occasionally been in contact since then.
Jessamyn wrote a bit about her time in Regina on her personal blog (which is where the title of this post comes from) and highlighted the presentation given by Sabina about the BC Evergreen initiative on librarian.net. Very cool! Saskatchewan public libraries had a massive project underway during the past year to create a similar province-wide library system but didn't receive funding in the most recent provincial budget. The project is still moving forward but in a modified form. I don't know if we'll use an open ILS like BC has but I hope so. Perhaps the lack of government funding may turn out to be a blessing in disguise if it encourages the participants to more seriously consider the open source route. I'd seen a presentation by Sabina's boss on the BC experience during a meeting of the Saskatchewan Single Integrated Library System project late last year so decided to skip her presentation for one on "open" libraries by Patricia Moore from U of S (who happens to be in the background of the photo below.) (And as an aside, my preference is conferences where similarly themed presentations don't overlap so you can hit all the "technology" ones in a row or all the "management" ones or whatever without being forced to choose between two similar ones.)One really good point by Pat was that we have to shift the perception of open source software and technology as somehow inferior to its commercial counterparts. "Open source is essentially peer-reviewed software and if that's the gold standard for the journals we supply in our libraries, it should be the gold standard for the technology that we utilize too."
What else? Jessamyn's presentation on "Towards Open Libraries" was excellent - full of humour and insight into the current trends in librarianship and seemed to be very well received by the crowd. She usually puts slides and notes from her presentations on librarian.net - the Saskatchewan one isn't up as of this writing but I assume it will be eventually.
I think Pace enjoyed meeting Jessamyn too!
 [Edit: I see that Jessamyn added some of her own photos from her Regina visit to Flickr. Shea's quote upon seeing the following photo: "You don't even look that drunk." Me: "It was early..."] 
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