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Sunday, May 25
Monday, May 19
Pace's First Birthday!
by
Jason
on Mon 19 May 2008 11:52 PM CST
After waking to ominous grey skies, we made the call to keep the party at Nickle Lake rather than moving into Grandpa and Grandma Thompson's house in Weyburn for Pace's birthday.
We were rewarded with a beautiful, sunny (if a bit windy) day with a great turnout for the party, delicious burgers and hot dogs cooked expertly by Grandpa Ray, a visit from some distant cousins Pace hadn't seen for awhile and way more gifts than we wanted (or Pace needed!). We had goody bags for the kids who came *and* the adults too. (One guest said "I've never got a goody bag at a party!"). Pace was very well behaved for most of the day considering all the attention and excitement swirling around him, the sugar entering his body and the lack of naps in the afternoon. Shea's uploaded a bunch of photos of Pace's big day on Flickr if you're interested. Sunday, May 18
If You're Coming to Pace's Birthday Tomorrow, Don't Look At This Post!
by
Jason
on Sun 18 May 2008 10:12 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 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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