Exciting news!  I've been asked to attend the Canadian Library Human Resources Summit in Ottawa on October 6-7.  It's sort of short notice but an all-expenses trip paid to Ottawa so who am I to complain? 

Here's the blurb I was sent which explains a bit more about what the summit is and how it came about:

"The Canadian library community has an invaluable data resource through the research of the 8Rs Research Team on the state and future of human resources in the Canadian library community. To assist practitioners and management to use the research, in 2005 then CLA-President Stephen Abram struck the President’s Council, composed of individuals from a variety of practice settings. The President's Council in the past year has focused primarily on information gathering, with the major project being the Info*Nation website (http://www.cla.ca/infonation/). These projects have helped to bring in other contextual information to the published 8Rs report, and have continued to raise the profile of the work that has been done thus far.

The key question for the next incarnation of the President's Council is how to map out the next stage of work: an action-oriented national strategy. This strategy should include actions designed to ensure that the sum of work already accomplished by the President’s Council is maintained. CLA has offered to lead a community-wide effort in partnership with other associations and organizations that can commit resources to achieving the project goals.

VISION: To develop a national strategy and action plans that will ensure an adequate supply of well-educated, well-trained librarians and information professionals who will meet Canada’s knowledge and information management needs in the first three decades of the 21^st century.

GOALS:

· To build upon the President’s Council work and to recommend specific actions that will lead towards the achievement of this vision.

· To propose and promote specific actions and outcomes to be undertaken by organizations and associations on key human resource issues.

The Summit’s agenda will involve research presentations on several different human resource concerns we are currently facing in the library community, including the accessibility of MLIS education, leadership development models, and continuing professional development for staff. These presentations will include models that could be adopted by the Canadian library community to address the concerns. After the presentations, small breakout groups will discuss whether these models (or others) might be feasible from their perspective, and report their discussions back to the larger group.

The Summit delegates represent a range of library sectors (academic, public, and special; representing individual libraries as well as associations). The delegates tend to be senior administrators, human resource managers, and/or executive association members who have much experience in the field and have the ability to speak to their area’s need for and interest in a particular strategy."

I booked my flight tonight and will get to Ottawa late on Saturday afternoon.  I'll have that evening and all day Sunday to be a tourist before going to the conference on Monday and Tuesday (anybody in Ottawa want to get together for supper and/or drinks?). 

I don't know what they're calling us but the seven "youth delegates" as I think of the group of new librarians who've been invited have also been asked to blog about their experiences so I'll be sure to post that URL when it's up. 

That whole idea about "find an specialty and become a ranking practitioner within your first three years as a librarian" that was raised in a list of tips for new librarians by Wendy Newman that I reprinted has me wondering if Library HR/Organization Development might turn out to be my specialty?  That would be...unexpected. 

But it makes sense in some ways.  In fact, I had a conversation today with someone and we both wondered if I may be the only professional librarian working in the HR department of a public library in Canada?  Who knows?  Maybe I'll find out at the Summit...

Something like 15% of American citizens believe Barack Obama is Muslim.  Including the woman in this video.  But I'm not posting this clip to make fun of her.  I mean, the woman does say she's a Hillary supporter!  (Okay, maybe I'm making a bit of fun. )

At any rate, even when it has nothing to do with her, it sort of feels like Sarah Palin week continues here on the Head Tale.  In fact, in a different multiverse, I think Sarah Palin could've been the woman in this clip.  And by the way, did you ever notice that Sarah Palin is an anagram for Sarah Plain?  Didya?  (Er, also "PS Anal Hair" )

Yet another groundbreaking Google project was announced a month ago. I didn't blog about it at the time but I recently rediscovered it via the Vancouver Law Librarian blog which made me realise the full scope of this project already. So I thought I better pass it along.

So Google's announcement that it will be digitizing archives of newspapers from around the globe is pretty cool. And not just just the articles, but also ads, headlines, and photos--in short, all that peripheral content from outside the day's story.

There doesn’t appear to be a comprehensive list of newspapers participating, and coverage does seem a bit patchy still. But a few random searches pulled hits from the Vancouver Times from as far back as 1864, and the Vancouver Daily Post from 1865. And on the proud Canadian front, the Quebec Chronicle-Telegraph (according to Google, the oldest newspaper in North America) is also there, along with a 1822 copy of the Montreal Herald.

"A girl I once caught reading Fahrenheit 451 over my shoulder on the subway confessed: "You know, I'm an English lit major, but I've never loved any books like the ones I loved when I was 12 years old." I fell slightly in love with her when she said that. It was so frank and uncool, and undeniably true."

(via MetaFilter)

You may have seen the original viral video...





But have you seen the Sarah Palin mash-up "highlighting" her recent interview with Katie Couric?





And since we're on the topic (again - what is the strange fascination I have with this woman?)





And one more. I mean, thank GOD that she's been blessed against witchcraft. She's like the gift that just keeps giving. So freaking crazy.

My parents got invited to the Investors Group cross-Canada comedy tour stop in Regina tonight and invited Shea and I to join them. The second comedian, Tim Nutt, began his act this way...

"Alright Regina! How y'all doing? Thursday night in Regina - must be exciting - let's go down to the nice theatre and hang out with our financial planners." (I laughed at that.) "What're we going to do next? Go down to the liberry (yep, he actually mis-pronounced it), find some noisy people and shush them?"

The worst part? This joke brought the house down too. Old stereotypes die hard I guess. So in all fairness, I'll throw a similarly lame joke back his way and even give you a choice of punchlines.

"How many comedians does it take to change a lightbulb?"

1. Two - one to ask the librarian to read the manual to them and one to change the bulb.
2. None, they're all in the dark anyhow.
3. Just one - as long as his name is Dewey!

Hey, lookit me! I'm a cum-median.

(He did point out during one badly received, sexist joke that "You may not be aware that you are at a comedy show. There is an outside chance that I may be joking, you know." And to be fair, he was still the funniest of the three comics who performed including a guy who'd been on "In Living Color" back in the day.)

The other day, I was at our local mall and popped into the bookstore. On the shelf, I saw a new title called "The 100 Greatest Canadian Albums of All-Time". This one caught my eye and was quickly in my hand as I turned to head for the cashier. But then I thought, "Twenty five bucks for a book I'll only read once? And that'll be a pretty quick read at that? Don't I work in a library? They might have it." So the next day, I go in and do the search and not only is the book in the system but it's at Central Branch, checked in. So at noon, I walk up a flight of stairs, find the proper area and by my bus ride home that day, I'm reading away. Sometimes it's the simple pleasures in life, no?

This slideshow won a recent competition for "Best Slideshow" on Slideshare...

THIRST

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: design crisis)

Shea's mom had a couple days off so Shea and Pace headed down to Weyburn on Sunday for a brief visit, returning tomorrow.

It's been good timing as that's allowed me to pluck away on the new Mac for a couple days without interruption - I mean, I love Pace more than anything in the world but there are times when I miss my former life too - being able to watch movies uninterrupted, sleep uninterrupted, put something on the floor without worrying about it being ripped apart, being able to get into a cupboard or go downstairs without navigating the baby-proofing safety devices we have in place.

On the flip side, I had the whole city in front of me after work today so what did I do? Go to a movie? Go to a "no kids allowed" bar for supper? Sit in the dark and do shots of whiskey until I blacked out? (Okay, I'm reaching for things you can't do once you have a baby but you get the idea.) Anyhow, I grabbed a couple movies when I left RPL and having watched "Requiem For A Dream" and am debating re-watching "The Aristrocrats". That's it - that's my "nobody here but me, myself and I" adventure. Although both movies fall in the "disturbing and profane" category, I have to admit - I'm officially boring. An adult. A dad.

I'm not complaining though - because she's practicing extended breastfeeding, Shea hasn't been away from Pace for more than I think six hours EVER. And I'm stretching there because that was in those few short weeks when he might sleep six hours straight without waking up for a slurp. I think it may be four hours if you count how long's she's ever physically been away from him.

On the other hand, I've had a couple chances to be away from Pace for a night or two - the odd time when I was called to go to a community near Indian Head for work, I'd go to my parents' house the night before to shorten my drive the next day. When I was doing training in the far reaches of our region, I stayed in a hotel for a couple nights (that was in the far NE corner. At the far SE corner, I was able to stay with Shea's aunt and uncle so Shea and Pace came with me.) And in the one that I still regret, the night Pace was born, we weren't able to get into a private room and the nurse was adamant that there could be no one else staying in a shared room. I probably didn't put up nearly the fight I should have and ended up going home at 4am after nearly 16 straight hours at the hospital. (Luckily I did go home - all four grandparents had gotten into our liquor cabinet and were celebrating - but that's a whole other story!) I ended up having one drink with them then crashing for, oh, maybe three hours before going back to the hospital.

Anyhow, I was going to put a YouTube clip of Pace up because I haven't done that for awhile. But YouTube's not cooperating so maybe another day...

Pace's name often gets mis-heard as "Chase" or "Ace" or other western-themed terms. So I thought this photo from a recent birthday party we attended was fitting. (I'm also happy to report that the conversion continues - I was able to download nearly a month's worth of photos and video clips from our camera into iPhoto without too much trouble - well, other than the fact that they don't appear to be where they should be. Unless they get stored as hidden files automatically or something? And maybe it's still too new to me but I think that iPhoto pales in comparison to Picasa which isn't yet available for a Mac but a version is rumoured to be under development.)