|
|
Sunday, November 26
Full Circle: Yet Another Library Student's Blog
by
Jason
on Mon 27 Nov 2006 12:49 AM EST
I swear to god that I should just change the name of this blog to "Full Circle" and be done with it. I'm seeing echoes everywhere...I went over to school tonight to work on my Special Libraries assignment and bumped into a first-termer who was working with her group on a presentation they have due this week. I asked what it was and it turns out it's the same topic and the same instructor I had at the end of my first term! (Am I allowed to admit that I immediately did the librarian thing and offered to pass along my presentation so they could see what my group had done? Well, I'll admit that but I won't admit whether they accepted it - how's that? Plus their presentation was well-in-hand and I don't think they're going to get anything from what my group did at this point.) So anyhow, about half an hour, maybe even an hour, later, I was ready to leave and saw that they were still practicing in a classroom. (I think my group had one rehearsal about half an hour before we presented.  ) I stuck my head in to see how it was going and they asked if I'd mind sitting through it since I'd done the same topic. Shea's at work tonight and I'll take anything that isn't my own homework every time. So I said "yes" (just kidding - I love seeing other people's work - both presentations and papers.) I sat through it and, no offense to any of my old teammates who may be reading this, but I have to admit that it was way better than what we had done. Actually, I'd go so far as to say it was right up there with some of the best presentations I saw in my cohort and classes all year. It was like a weird deja vu - hearing a group cover the same resources and issues that my group had done but with a completely different spin. I wonder if professors like this or do they eventually get bored of hearing the same thing, year after year, with only the changing people and format for the presentation? If you saw my list of Top Ten memories, I made a joking reference to that one time a group did a presentation without Powerpoint...except I wasn't joking. That is literally the only time somebody has done a presentation without Powerpoint in any of my classes this year. That also happened in this class and it was by a group who did a presentation on another topic that seems like it couldn't be done without Powerpoint. (Why am I being so mysterious by the way? I guess I'm trying not to come right out and say the class or topic in case some of their classmates get tipped off in advance of what they're doing? Or their instructor? Who knows. Opinions shouldn't be allowed on the Internet, dammit!)I'm no expert but I'll probably do a post someday on tips for giving a good presentation (at least what I think works.) It will mostly revolve around the most effective way to use puppets. And how it's probably not a good idea to blurt out "oh, shit!" when the projector's remote control batteries are dead all of a sudden.
2006 Saskatchewan Book Awards Winners Announced
by
Jason
on Sun 26 Nov 2006 06:24 PM EST
This year was the first year since 1997 that I had to miss the Saskatchewan Book Awards which was a bit sad for me. I attended my first Gala when I started working at the Saskatchewan Publishers Group that same year. That led to me serving on the SBA board from 1998-2001. After we moved to Calgary, I still returned for the SBA Gala every fall from 2001-2004 and even though my job in Regina meant I had to work on Gala night in 2005, I still managed to catch most of it (mostly due to Alistair MacLeod giving a two and a half hour speech when he probably should've given a forty-five minute one!)But my hope that some library might fly me back to Saskatchewan for a job interview right around this weekend wasn't to be so that streak is over. (On a positive note, I've been the SBA's webmaster since 1999 and this was the first year that I was able to upload the list of winners immediately following the Gala whereas there was usually a lag of a couple hours to a couple days depending on where I was and what my computer access was like.)The old web site is showing its age a bit these days (not a blog or a wiki to be seen!) but it still gets positive feedback for its simplicity and ease-of-use which always makes me happy. Long before I officially decided to come to library school, I had this message forwarded to me by the SBA Executive Director. I liked it so much I used it in the "References" section of my resume for awhile:
"You have the best - most informative - Web site
for your book awards of any that I have seen. And, I have seen
quite a few as we are compiling a listing of the winners of Canadian literary
awards (1923-2000) which will be published by the Canadian Library
Association."
- Suzanne Sexty,
Information Services, Queen Elizabeth II Library, Memorial University of
Newfoundland As for the Gala itself, Saskatchewan's has been recognized by many, including author & publisher Anna Porter (who was our guest speaker in 2001) who wrote in Quill & Quire that it was "...arguably the best-run writers' event outside of Toronto's Giller Prize..." Unlike the other prairie book awards programs in Alberta and Manitoba, Saskatchewan's is held in the fall (not the spring) so that the winners are announced right before Christmas, the biggest book buying time of year. Although the books submitted don't necessarily fall within the last calendar year (which is why Alberta and Manitoba hold their awards in the spring), having the Gala in November is also a great chance for everybody in the very small, very tightknit communities of Saskatchewan book people (writers, publishers, librarians, editors, etc.) and book lovers (book clubs, politicians, media, teachers, professors) to get together to celebrate the successes of the year. It's always a lavish affair but also has a streak of fun to it - one year to celebrate the 25th anniversaries of Saskatchewan two oldest literary presses, birthday cake was delivered to each table as the Beatles' "Birthday" blared from the speakers (and yes, I'm a Beatles fan but no, I had nothing to do with that decision.) We've had musicians perform, special meals prepared from recipes contained in a creative non-fiction book about the province. We've had hilarious speeches from sponsors and long-winded ones from winners. We've had special moments (Yann Martel's speech where he defended Saskatchewan in a way I've rarely heard people from the province defend it was amazing) and controversial (the year that three authors tied for the City of Regina Award was ...awkward...to say the least. And I felt really bad for the RPL representatives who had to get up to present an award about a month after their board had announced closures of numerous branches.) All in all, it's a great event and if you're looking for some books for Christmas gifts outside of the usual G&M or MacLean's Top Ten, why not look up some of the books that were nominated this year? (Or if you're in a library someday doing collection development, why not make sure that you collect these books that may be a bit more under-the-radar than those by the big Toronto and New York publishers?)
|
|
