Other bands and artists have hinted at this model but nobody on the level of Radiohead has gone this far. Their new album, "In Rainbows" will be released on October 10 using a "Pay What You Want" model for those who download it digitally.
Says one commentator on Reddit:
"I can't stand Radiohead's music, but I'm going to drop $15 on this
album just to provide incentive for the rest of the industry to adopt
this model. Even though I don't like their music itself, it's hard to
dispute that taking on a risk like this is a HUGE contribution to music
in general."
In semi-related news, Amazon has started a new service called AmazonMP3 which is similar to iTunes except that they're selling DRM-free music. Their selection is pretty decent so far and although I haven't tried it yet, it's almost enough to make a guy start paying for music again!
Today marks the six month anniversary of me starting at Southeast Regional Library. It's hard to believe how time is flying - I think any job tends to go faster, the longer you're there and the more comfortable you get but this one, mixed with the new baby which also helps to make time pretty much meaningless, is really flying.
I had my six month performance review on Thursday and I didn't get fired so that's good! In all seriousness, they're pretty happy with me which is always nice to hear. Like anyone, I have my weaknesses and if you knew me at FIMS, I'm sure you can guess what a couple of those areas for improvement are!
It's amazing to think of how much I've learned in the last six months. Someday (maybe when I'm done this contract), I'm ruminate on this further.
One thing that's been in my head the last few weeks - my letter of offer mentioned that I would be spending 2-3 days on the road but the first few months saw me thinking "really?" But the last few weeks have more than made up for that - I've probably traveled 1500 km in the last two weeks alone.
What else? I was trying to think of a list to commemorate this special occasion and I was able to come up with two:
The Five Most Helpful Things I Learned In Library School That Actually Help in the "Real" World 1. How to Juggle Multiple Assignments and Tasks Successfully
2. Advocacy Class
3. Collection Development Class
4. I'm really glad I got at least a little exposure to library layout and design in the "Management of Special Libraries" class, especially since I ended up in a rural system with 48 branches that are in all shapes and sizes of buildings including everything from stand-alone buildings to one that's connected to the town laundromat! Since I started, three branches have undergone or are undergoing a move to new space so this training has come in very handy!
5. Who to ask to get the answers I need (and not to be afraid to ask people for those answers.)
Five Things I Wish I Had Learned 1. It's always hard to admit when you're wrong but I wish I'd taken more management classes and not poo-pooed the idea of "management theory" as strongly as I did (although if you were in 506 with me, you know why I was so resistant!)
2. On a related note, it would've been good to get more training about the different aspects of working in a unionized library environment - both pro and con.
3. How To Make Tough Decisions. This is probably something that comes with experience more than being taught but I wish, even in a theoretical framework, we did more scenarios about some of the tough decisions you'll face as a working librarian. For me, in six short months, this has covered everything from the possibility of branch closures to handling patron suspensions to staff discipline to navigating municipal politics and even bigger issues than any of the examples I listed.
4. This doesn't directly apply to me (right now) since I did end up finding work eventually. But recent conversations with a variety of classmates have illustrated just how tight the job market is for new grads. I don't think that would've changed my decision to take an 18-month contract over a full-time permanent position I was offered but I admit that I did buy into the "old boomer librarians will be retiring in droves" line and the knowledge that this isn't necessarily so does have me thinking about where I might end up next earlier than I thought I would.
5. Librarians don't sit in an office somewhere reading the latest bestsellers for eight hours a day and mulling over their potential significance to society. I really wish somebody had told me that!
I'd seen the one with the British cell phone salesman singing opera before and it's definitely worth checking out (although admittedly, the editing goes a long way to increasing the impact - the intro clip of the sad sack-looking guy, crowd reaction shots, judge reaction shots.)
In other news from people I used to know, Brandon Manitoba will be home to a new book and writer festival later this year and Corey Redekop's "Shelf Monkey" has been selected as the book that everybody in Brandon is being asked to read. How cool is that?
I mentioned in an earlier post that Bloglines isn't reading the RSS feed for this blog for some reason (and hasn't for some time apparently.)
I sent them a complaint and they basically said "we're working on it". A couple readers also sent in complaints to Bloglines with no results. No other news but I wanted to update as a different reader recently mentioned she's having this problem too.
So it's a crappy solution but my best idea is that you should either start using a different RSS reader (I use NetVibes and Google Reader is quite popular too) or <gasp> remember to check this site manually. (How very 2002 of me! )
This is a wicked version of an awesome song (even the drunk guys singing in the audience don't ruin it - actually, they sort of add to the anthemic feel.)
And I never really caught the power of James Dean Bradfield's voice until hearing him do acoustic versions of some Manic songs. (Thanks intrawebs!)
An annual survey provides a snapshot of the world of library bloggers. I don't think I filled this out when the call for responses went out so here are my responses:
1. Male 2. 31-40 years old 3. Western Canada (survey methodology - she lists "Eastern, Western and Middle of" as choices for Canada. I know there are readers out there who will swear up and down I live in the middle of Canada but I personally consider myself a western Canadian.) 4. Live in small urban area (again, no definitions provided so it's up to the respondent's interpretation) 5. Have my MLIS 6. Don't have any other advanced degree 7. Received MLIS between 31-40 8. Work in a medium public library serving 40 000-99 000 (although this is misleading because this is the sum total of the population I serve. In reality, my largest branch is ~3000 people.) 9. Nothing they listed really fits what I do as my "job" as I do a whole range of things from collection development to building inspections to government advocacy. "Management" would probably be the best umbrella term for everything I do I guess. 10. Have been working less than one year 11. Yes, I am the direct supervisor of others.
My brother-in-law and his girlfriend are expecting their first child later this year. So tonight, they got a new digital camera as a baby gift from his parents. Here's a sample:
A few recent conversations and readings have swirled together to make me want to write about the four day work week.
I should mention off the bat that I was very fortunate when I worked for the Saskatchewan Publishers Group to be on a four-day schedule (all three employees in the organization were) so these comments come from experience of how a four-day work week can operate in reality.
One of the things that prompted my musings was seeing an article on how Google treats its employees. Google does a number of progressive things in terms of their workplace but arguably the most progressive of all is allowing employees to spend 1/5 of their time on personal projects. Although not technically, the same as a four-day work week, in many ways this would be the same for all intents and purposes because the employees, with very little restriction, get to work on anything they want. The downside is that Google owns the product if it becomes profitable. I believe Google News and Orkut (which is their social networking site and is the second most popular in the world although barely known in North America) as well as many other Google services came about because of this 80/20 program. But overall, one of the big draws for people coming to Google is the opportunity to explore their own ideas rather than those of their bosses and supervisors.
Would something similar work in libraries which are public institutions and not dedicated creating new products or increasing profits? Well, that's another thing that led me to this post. Shea recently got an e-mail updating her on a project that her floor at the hospital was the second workplace in Canada to participate in. Called the "Human Becoming" study, it was a project where "nurses spend 80% of their salaried time in direct patient care and 20% of their salaried time on professional development" (which, as with Google, is fairly loosely defined. They want you to do nursing-related PD of course but some of Shea's colleagues were apparently doing things like taking an art class or whatever to make them better, more well-rounded human beings and therefore, better employees.)
The full results of the study from the first test site (which I believe was a Toronto hospital) are here. (PDF)
I should also note that Shea unfortunately wasn't able to participate in the study because we were heading to London just as it was being brought to her floor at the hospital.
Anyhow, the study, both in the original location and on Shea's floor, have provided results that I think are to be expected - morale was higher among staff, patients felt better treated, there was an extremely low turnover among participants (including *zero* turnover in year two of the study which is unheard of in the nursing world) and so on.
So could something like this work in libraries? Of course - it's just a matter of people (the librarians, the trustees and other decision-makers) having the will to make it happen. In my mind, I always link three female-dominated service professions - nursing, teaching and librarianship - as being fairly similar in many ways. But for whatever reason, librarianship seems to be behind the other two in terms of having progressive workplace options. (I should also add a Hammond disclaimer (tm) that this is only a general impression I have and that I haven't had exposure to a lot of library systems' internal operating policies to know if this is something that happens in libraries across Canada, large and small.)
I should also clarify - I'm speaking mainly of public librarianship when I say this. In fact, I recently had a conversation with an academic librarian who admitted that because she was hired in the summer when many academic libraries are on much slower schedules or shut down completely, she got her first paycheque two weeks after being officially "hired" without having worked a single shift. Talk about progressive - getting paid without working!
Anyhow, here's a few examples of some of the options that one of these three professions has that librarianship doesn't. It's from the nursing world as that's the one I'm most familiar with (Shea's a nurse, my mom is a nurse as are two of my aunts.)
Within nursing, there are all sorts of options for lines (ie. positions) that run from full-time every variation from 4/5, 3/5, 2/5 right down to 1/5 time. Beyond that, some nurses choose to work only night shifts. Some work 12 hour shifts. Some work 8 hour shifts. Many job share a single full-time position. And so on. Of course, some of these are a reflection of the type of work that nurses do (not too many librarians are going to only work night shifts since not too many libraries are open all night.) But you get my drift.
I don't know as much about the teaching world but we're all familiar with the biggie - two months off every summer. That's on top of 2-3 weeks at Christmas and a week at Easter along with a number of in-service days and so on. Now before any teachers out there jump on me for making the "teachers don't work very hard" argument, that's not what I'm doing at all. Teachers work damn hard when they are working. But they do also have a number of benefits, especially in terms of time off that would be the envy of somebody working at a "regular" job (M-F year round with 3-4 weeks off per year total as opposed to the 10 or so weeks that teachers get.)
What else inspired this post? Oh, I saw a blog post on "The Four Day Work Week: 16 Reasons This Is An Idea Whose Time Has Come" I think this guy is making the claim that we should move to four 10-hour days per week which isn't what I'm saying at all. But still, many of those sixteen reasons apply if you're talking about simply lopping one day off your regular work week - a four day work weeks gives you more time with family, less consumption of non-renewable resources, and an INCREASE in productivity. (What? Yep, it's true. I'm sure studies have been done but I know anecdotally that when I worked very similar jobs in Saskatchewan for four days per week and Alberta for five, I felt equally productive. Of course, part of this was the Sask one was 32 hours per week and the Alberta one was 35 so the difference wasn't so great. But still, I would think many of us would find that we were nearly productive if we came into work for four days per week instead of five, knowing that for those four days we would be more rested, energized, alert and so on.
As this blogger quotes in his article:
"In 1930 famed cereal maker W.K. Kellog had this to say about his
decision to decrease his companies work week from 40 to 30 hours.
The efficiency and morale of our employees is so increased, the
accident and insurance rates are so improved, and the unit cost of
production is so lowered that we can afford to pay as much for six
hours as we formerly paid for eight."
Many people seem to just assume that the five day, eight hour day work week is the way the world works. But I think there is a natural progression - our great grandparents probably worked six days a week for 10-12 hours per day. It was only during the last century that the standard forty-hour week came into existence. Now that a new century is here, perhaps the time is ripe to make another leap as a society?
The final part of this post that would've been a nice summary of what I'm talking about was a cartoon I came across on Reddit. But I didn't save it at the time and can't find it again so you'll have to live with me describing it to you.
The first panel shows a harried businessman with a briefcase marching along with the blurb "Time = Money" rising above his head.
The second panel shows a gravestone with a briefcase beside it and the inscription "Time > Money".
The point is this: no matter how much you love your job, there are more important things in life - time with your family or even just with yourself to do the things you love to do or need to do. And a four day work week is a perfect way to give you more time for the important things in life.
Despite the potential of the Internet as a tool to overcome
distance, living in rural and small town Canada continues to be a
factor associated with lower rates of Internet use, according to a new
study released today in the Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin.
The study, which uses data from the Canadian Internet Use Survey,
found that geographic location has an independent influence on Internet
use after controlling for other factors, including age, education and
household income.
The odds of an individual in an urban area using the Internet for
personal, non-business reasons are about one-and-a-half times those of
someone from a rural or small-town area.
In 2005, only 58% of residents living in rural and small-town areas
accessed the Internet, well below the national average. This gap
between rural and urban areas may reflect the interaction of other
socio-economic factors, or it may represent other effects, such as the
availability of broadband.
Education appears to be the most important determinant of Internet
use. The odds of using the Internet for an adult with at least some
post-secondary education are almost three times the odds of someone
with high school or less education.
However, the importance of some factors associated with Internet use
has changed. Controlling for other variables, the presence of children
in a household has no statistically significant effect, while women now
appear to have greater odds of using the Internet than men.
Note: The Canadian Internet Use Survey asked 30,466 Canadian
residents aged 18 and over about their personal, non-business use of
the Internet, including electronic shopping. Conducted in
November 2005 as a supplement to the Labour Force Survey, it excluded
residents of the territories, inmates of institutions, persons living
on Indian reserves, and full-time members of the Canadian Forces.
Definitions, data sources and methods: survey number 4432.
The study, "Factors associated with Internet use: Does rurality matter?", part of the Rural and Small Town Canada Analysis Bulletin, Vol. 7, no. 3 (21-006-XWE, free), is now available from the Publications module of our website.
For more information or to enquire about the concepts, methods or
data quality of this release, contact Larry McKeown (613-951-2582; larry.mckeown@statcan.ca), Science, Innovation and Electronic Information Division.
) 
