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Wednesday, October 31
New CLA Web Site Launches
by
Jason
on Wed 31 Oct 2007 09:53 PM CST
Here's an announcement that went out today about a project I've been volunteering on for the last six months or so. There's always going to be small things you'd change but overall, the new site is a big improvement on what the CLA had before and I'm proud to have been a part of this project!---
I am extremely pleased to announce that the CLA
website (http://www.cla.ca) has launched as of 5 am this morning. However, there can be a delay of
up to 48 hours before the Internet recognizes that the site has been redirected
to a new server on your computer. However, I was able to view the new site on
my home computer at 6 am this morning.
I would like to thank the hard working members of the
CLA Web Re-build Taskforce. Their input, feedback and revisions on the website
and Division sections were essential to the project. The CLA Web Re-build Taskforce
(non-staff) members are:
Cabot YU – CASLIS
Candice Dahl – CACUL
Cheryl Stenstrom – Accessibility
Colleen Bell - CLTA & Interest Groups
Jason Hammond – CAPL
Richard Beaudry – CASL
Wendy Rodgers – Member Communications Advisory
Committee
Please join me in congratulating the CLA staff for
their part on the revisions on the new website and especially to Andy Giffen,
CLA Webmaster who has worked tirelessly over the past 6 months to bring the new
CLA/ACB website into existence.
Well done to all the contributors!
Judy Green
Manager, Marketing & Communications
Canadian Library Association
328 Frank St.
Ottawa,ON K2P 0X8
Tel: 613-232-9625 ext 322
Fax: 613-563-9895
Email: jgreen@cla.ca
Website: www.cla.ca
Tuesday, October 30
WikipediaVision (beta)
by
Jason
on Tue 30 Oct 2007 06:58 PM CST
This mash-up site shows near-real time edits to Wikipedia mapped against a Google map of the earth.
Monday, October 29
Going To The Candidate's Debate (Weyburn-Big Muddy Version)
by
Jason
on Mon 29 Oct 2007 10:13 PM CST
There's a provincial election coming up in Saskatchewan in about ten days (November 7) so Shea and I took the opportunity to go to the candidate's debate at her old high school tonight - even though we're planning to vote in our home riding in Regina. I'm too tired to analyze what we heard too much but I will say one thing about each candidate that was there tonight. The sitting MLA for this constituency is a 26 year old Sask Party member named Dustin Duncan who Shea went to high school with. As for the Liberals, I was assigned a mini-project at work to look into each of the three major party's positions in regards to public libraries and the only mention any of them has happened to be the local Liberal candidate who is her local library's board chair and serves on the Executive for her region. (This is a topic that also deserves more analysis at a future date - I also did some advocacy work on behalf of the Saskatchewan Library Trustees' Association this election and have a few thoughts on that.)Finally, there were a few "oops!" moments from each candidate but (unfortunately for her), the biggest one to me was when the NDP candidate mentioned that we needed more young people to get involved in all levels of politics. I wonder if she even realised that she'd just indirectly given an endorsement to Shea's old high school classmate?  A blogger and former journalist named John Murney is doing a riding-by-riding rundown and the one for this area is worth reading, if only because this was Tommy Douglas' riding when he had his great successes in our province:John Murney's Blog: Constituency Profile: Weyburn-Big Muddy
Sunday, October 28
Are You A Talent, A Lifer or a Mandarin?
by
Jason
on Sun 28 Oct 2007 09:21 PM CST
Here's another online personality test. As with any of these types of things, you can take issue with some of the questions and how they are open to interpretation in different ways but it's still fun to see if it matches with how you see yourself. For instance, I'm kinda surprised at how well-balanced I appear to be. 
(from Julie M.)
I'm a Talent!  You're a risk-taker, and you follow your passions. You're determined to take on the world and succeed on your own terms. Whether in the arts, science, engineering, business, or politics, you fearlessly express your own vision of the world. You're not afraid of a fight, and you're not afraid to bet your future on your own abilities. If you find a job boring or stifling, you're already preparing your resume. You believe in doing what you love, and you're not willing to settle for an ordinary life. Talent: 54%
Lifer: 33%
Mandarin: 44%
Take the Talent, Lifer, or Mandarin quiz.
Saturday, October 27
"Canada's Mexico?" Welcome to the United States...
by
Jason
on Sat 27 Oct 2007 10:15 PM CST
With the Canadian dollar at par with the USD for the first time in thirty years, Shea and I (oh, and Pace too! He gets to claim his $400 worth of goods for being out of the country for 48 hours just like anybody) decided to join the hordes of Canadians making the pilgrimage to Minot, North Dakota, a small town (35 000 people) with a big(gish) shopping mall an hour south of the border. We arrived Friday morning and leave tomorrow to go back to Weyburn. In the in-between time, it's been nearly constant shopping, swimming and eating. Here are some random thoughts...- after a lifetime of having the USD higher than the Canadian dollar (with all the related "Monopoly money" jokes), I'm still not used to buying something for say, $50USD and realising "hey, that only cost me $48.10". It's not much but it's still a big adjustment.
- add in the fact that many things are already cheaper in the US - groceries, clothes, books, etc. plus the fact that the dollar has had a steady rise to parity over the past three years - and its like we're getting 10-40% discounts on every single thing we buy.
- I would highly recommend the Best Western Kelly Inn. Much cheaper than the Sleep Inn that's attached to the mall but still has a pool, great continental breakfast, free in-room wireless (obviously), rooms with both a microwave and fridge plus not too far from the mall - just across a parking lot basically.
- it's unbelievable how many Canadians are down here. The parking lots are worse than your local mall's in the weeks before Christmas.
- apparently the real savings are on the big ticket items - people are buying cars and boats and RV's and big screen TV's and saving 50% off what they'd pay in Canada.
- books are so much cheaper because they're one of the few consumer products with the USD & CND price printed right on them so it's hard for bookstores in Canada to adjust to the new exchange rate easily. Well, they could but they'd have to re-label every book so it's something like 40% cheaper - so who's going to do that? I've tried to resist buying books because that's the last thing I need more of - but I think I'll pick up Cormac McCarthy's "The Road" tomorrow since it's one of the best books I've read in recent memory - and a million times more affecting having just had a son.
- I don't think this is a huge revelation but religion is so much more overt in the States than in Canada. Coming in, we drove past a group of teens with signs that said "Honk if you're pro-life" and "Honk if you're drug free". I can honestly say I've never seen that in Canada. (I also didn't honk but I'll let you guess which of those two sentiments kept me from laying on the horn.  ) You see it in the bookstores too - huge displays at the front of the store for books by Joel Osteen and similar authors/titles.
(This is a complete tangent but I had a roommate in undergrad who belonged to a fundamentalist church. We were talking one day and it came out that I was an atheist. She literally recoiled when I told her this and I said "Well, can't we just agree to disagree?" and she's like "No! That means you have the devil in you and that's why you believe that." Oh. So anyhow, we carried on living together and she would occasionally try to convert me and I would occasionally speak in tongues just to frighten her (kidding.) She moved out (not the next day which was surprising considering that whole "living with the devil" thing) and I bumped into her - funny enough at a bar - a few months later. We got talking and I asked how her new living arrangements with some friends from her church were. Swear to god (now there's some irony), she says to me: "I know you were full of the devil but you were still one of the best roommates I had in my life." )
So yeah, that's got everything and nothing to do with the United States. So let's conclude with a list (note: these are all from memory and I'm too lazy to look up the proof. So don't repeat these as gospel...)
- the United States is one of three countries in the world that doesn't use the metric system
- the United States is the only developed nation without universal health care
- the United States has the largest trade deficit by far of any nation on earth
- the United States has the largest military/defense budget by far of any nation on earth
- the United States is the only developed nation that still has the death penalty
- the United States is the only democracy in the western world with only two major political parties
They say that one of the main ways that you can define a Canadian is by how they have a need to define themselves against Americans and/or how they're reflexively anti-American. Although it may look that way, that's not what I'm going for with this list. But I do think these facts are important to keep in mind - and I wish more Americans knew them too. (er, and it'd be even better if I actually found proof before anybody looked at the list as I already mentioned.)
There's a quote, I think it was made by Gord Downie of the Tragically Hip - "one on one, Americans are some of the nicest people you'll ever meet. But as a group, the y scare the hell out of me!"
That's a good place to end. Tomorrow, we get to see if the US has finished building that fence to keep the northern neighbours out as well. 
Friday, October 26
Friday Fun Link - Library Chick's Home Library, Book Search & Learning Center (Oct 26, 2007)
by
Jason
on Fri 26 Oct 2007 03:16 PM CST
Librarian Chick provides an exhaustive list of online resources for students and librarians in the academic environment - from audio books to test taking and everything in between.
She also has a Learning Center that lets you search for free educational information, sites, games and software online.
Finally, to complete the trifecta of excellent resources, she also offers a search for free online audio books, e-books and textbooks. The search provides results from literally dozens of the biggest and most complete libraries that host free resources.
(via MetaFilter)
Thursday, October 25
13% of Library of Congress Materials Are Missing
by
Jason
on Thu 25 Oct 2007 04:26 PM CST
Inventory control is a huge issue no matter the size of your library. But if your library is one the world's largest research institutions with 135 million items in its collection, the problems of the typical library get multiplied at an exponential rate. According to the article linked to above, the Library of Congress has a huge amount of materials missing - not necessarily stolen or lost but simply misplaced. Investigators
for the congressional library have told lawmakers on a House oversight
committee that its review of the retrieval system for the general
collection concluded that a 17 percent of materials requested could not
be found. "A subsequent review found 4 percent were either on
nearby shelves, checked out to the public or marked with the wrong call
numbers. But it remains deeply troubling that nearly 13 percent are
unaccounted for by library officials," said Howard Gantman, staff
director of the joint congressional committee on the library. This article provides great insight into library management (in the physical sense, not the personnel sense) and I'd recommend that any library lovers out there give it a read.
Wednesday, October 24
Real-Time Google Alphabet
by
Jason
on Wed 24 Oct 2007 06:19 PM CST
The Real-Time Google Alphabet passes the letters of the alphabet to Google Suggest in real time to create a constantly updated list of the things that the Google algorithm thinks users are searching for.
Monday, October 22
A New Name For Library Patrons?
by
Jason
on Mon 22 Oct 2007 09:03 PM CST
One of the big ways that librarians amuse themselves is debating whether to call the people who come into their buildings "patrons", "clients" or "customers". (I wish I was joking about this. I'm not.) I happen to be firmly in the "patron" camp but do recognize that each term does have reasons why librarians choose to use it (or to not use it.) Today, while attending a session called "The San Jose Way" which was put on by the Regina Public Library, this ongoing debate was at the forefront - even if it wasn't even addressed directly!
San Jose Public Library has received great attention across North America for their initiatives, all of which come from an extremely customer-focused model of service for their patrons customers. I liked a lot of what they had to say, disagreed with other parts but I kept coming back to the idea of the "library customer" that underlined their entire presentation. There are a few reasons I don't like this term - I think of a customer as someone involved in a financial relationship. It's true that many library users are involved in a monetary exchange - both in the big picture as taxpayers or occasionally on the micro-level when they pay fines or charges. But overall, a core value most librarians treasure is that our programs and services are free. So bringing a loaded term like "customer" into the equation is misleading at best, corruptive at worst (er, assuming "corruptive" is a word.)I kept coming back to an idea that Annette DeFavri made in passing during her presentation at CLA 2006 about Systemic Barriers to Library Use. She said "we're in people's neighbourhoods. Why don't we call our patrons 'neighbours'?"She didn't elaborate but that point stayed with me as a brilliant counter to the arguments of the "customer" people.
Today, during a conversation with an RPL librarian, I refined the idea a bit more...- neighbours are people you often borrow things from for free with only the expectation that you will return them in a reasonable time- I would argue that there is a higher level of trust involved when dealing with your neighbours than with retailers- information exchange is one of the main roles neighbours play for each other - we often socialize with/at our neighbours (programming)- many people have a lifetime relationship with their neighbours- the relationship isn't always a happy one but we usually resolve our differences fairly knowing we have to share space
- you have to close your curtains if you walk around naked (just checking if you're paying attention)
Those are a few off the top of my head. Any other ideas why library patrons are more like neighbours than customers? Anyone out there prefer "customer" or "client" as a term and care to share their reasons why? Anybody want to start a movement to change the word used in libraries across the country to "neighbour"? 
Sunday, October 21
Some Thoughts On My Future Retirement
by
Jason
on Sun 21 Oct 2007 08:30 PM CST
My mom retired this year after 33 years as a registered nurse - three years in Regina, four years off to have kids then thirty years at the Indian Head Union Hospital. Shea, Pace and I went to the local health district's annual long service & retirement tea (well, actually "dessert bar" so I wasn't complaining!) and watching all the 25 and 30+ year tenure people walk across the stage made me wonder if there will even be these types of ceremonies in thirty years?
My generation (the X'ers) is well-known to have a generational characteristic that we don't stay in jobs very long. I've been in the workforce for ten years since convocating with my BA in 1997 and have had four jobs since then. When you consider that one of those years was spent in Li'l London doing my Masters, that's a pretty short time frame per job. And I don't think I'm terribly out-of-line with many of my contemporaries.
From the above article:
In general, Generation X employees are
those between the age of 19-34.
Unlike their parents and grandparents, Generation X employees do not plan on
staying with one job or company throughout their career, nor will they sacrifice
their family for their job.
I had a funny image of myself attending some public library function at some point in the future: "Jason Hammond is our longest serving employee having spent the last five years in our collection development department. Mr. Hammond, here is your silver wristwatch. Congratulations on your dedication, service and commitment to our library!"
I recently read (and enjoyed - whereas my younger self woud've punched my current self in the mush for even picking up this book) "Motivating the "What's In It For Me" Workforce: How To Manage Across the Generational Divide and Increase Profits" which, once you got past the business/corporate/profit theme, provided a decent overview of the inter-generational conflicts that can occur in today's workplaces which may contain up to four generations - the Matures, Baby Boomers, Generation X and Generation Y (aka Millenials/Net Generation) with the middle two groups making up the bulk of the current workforce.
Also from the above article, some insight into how my generation differs from the one that came before it:
Generation X employees tend to be less
motivated by promises of overtime pay and more motivated by personal
satisfaction with their jobs. They want to grow in their jobs and learn new
skills. They will change jobs often as they seek jobs that offers them both
better benefits and more opportunity for professional growth as well as personal
fulfillment.
Generation X employees want, and
expect, their employers to hear what they have to say. They want to understand
the “big picture” for the company and how this influences their employment
and growth. They are creative thinkers, independent, results oriented and bring
with them a healthy dose of skepticism. So is there a grand unifier? One characteristic that all generations share? I'm not sure but I think it's a love of silver wristwatches.
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