Head Tale - Yet Another Librarian's Blog

Google Launches Knol

Jason — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 20:14:54 -0600

Last December, I wrote about the announcement of Google Knol, a similar service to Wikipedia but with moderation of articles and the ubiquitous Google Ads.

The site has officially launched and with a few hundred articles to Wikipedia's 2.5 million, Jimmy Wales has nothing to fear...yet.

In other Google news, they're in serious talks to buy Digg as well.

No word yet on a buyout offer for every living soul on Earth but I'm sure that's coming soon too.

Who's Yer Daddy?

Jason — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 21:58:45 -0600

This is a shot of Pace up to no good at the Weyburn Public Library after watching Weldon the Wacky Wizard, our summer reading tour performer.

I have no idea how Shea (dark brown hair) and myself (medium brown hair) managed to have a kid with such blond hair. (Of course he was conceived somewhere around the time we went to the Fred Eaglesmith Picnic south of London - coincidence?)

Several Lessons To Be Learned From the Finnish School System

Jason — Sun, 20 Jul 2008 15:59:04 -0600

I first became aware of the best-in-the-world ranking of Finnish schools in the excellent book, "Under Pressure: Rescuing Childhood from the Culture of Hyper Parenting" by Carl Honore. (This is probably one of the best books I've read so far this year and would highly recommend it, whether you are a parent or not. A lot of it applies to expectations of today's children in public settings like libraries for instance.)

This article explains some of the reasons why Finland is so far ahead of the curve including extended, high quality pre-school, delineated high school and free higher education.

From the section related to their first example:

In all three Scandinavian countries students begin formal schooling only at age seven, two years after most American children begin school. However, prior to entering school, all children have participated in a high-quality government funded preschool program. As opposed to a focus on getting a jump academically, these early-childhood programs focus on self-reflection and social behavior. It is interesting to note that one of the most notable attributes of Finnish children is their level of personal responsibility. The early focus on self-reflection is seen as a key component for developing that level of responsibility towards learning.

What's Your News IQ?

Jason — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:46:37 -0600

I got 19/20 on this short quiz with a couple lucky guesses but missing one tricky question about the stock market (you'll know it when you see it.)

Of course, I'm a US news junkie too so would've been disappointed if I'd done much worse than that.

(via MetaFilter)

Friday Fun Link - Make Your Own Fonts (July 18, 2008)

Jason — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 23:13:15 -0600

There are a number of resources online for lovers of fonts and typography.

FontStruct is a site that allows you to design a font directly on their web site for free.

There are also detailed step-by-step guides to the tools and steps needed to create a font locally on your own computer.

Finally, if do-it-yourself sounds too hard or too time consuming, you can pay $9 US and have a font based on your handwriting created automatically with Fontifier.

Jason's Birthday Movies

Jason — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 00:03:08 -0600

Somewhere along the line, Shea and I began a tradition of me going to a movie on my birthday. With one notable exception on the following list, I've enjoyed having a birthday right in the heart of summer blockbuster season ever since!

2001 - Cats & Dogs (I picked "Jurassic Park III" as my inaugural birthday movie during our first summer in Calgary but Shea thought it would be stupid and/or scary so I ended up going to a movie with talking dogs. And talking cats. And frankly, I'm surprised the tradition made it to year two, let alone is still going nearly a decade later!)
2002 - Austin Powers III
2003 - (can't remember)
2004 - Spiderman II
2005 - Batman Begins
2006 - An Inconvenient Truth (I wasn't going to a lot of movies while I was doing my Masters but this is one I was pretty excited to see and I know we went in summer 2006 so let's call it my birthday movie for that year.)
2007 - The Simpsons Movie
2008 - The Dark Knight

Not only am I as pumped for The Dark Knight as I've been since such mega-films as Spiderman The First and Star Wars the Third (or Sixth depending on your counting), Batman the Second/Sixth will be only the second movie Shea and I have seen in a theatre since...The Simpsons Movie at this time last year! Grandpa and Grandma Hammond are coming in to Regina to babysit so we might even do <gasp> supper AND a movie! Romance, baby!

In Praise of The Four Day Work Week

Jason — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 23:39:34 -0600

Tomorrow is my YouDay. Since the government hasn't officially declared it a statutory holiday as per my recommendation, I am taking it off using one of my earned holidays as per my personal YouDay policy.

Having Friday off, along with the recent news that the State of Utah is moving 20% of government employees to a four-day, ten-hour-per-day workweek, has me thinking about the concept of a shorter workweek a bit more.

I also speak of this from experience. My very first post-undergrad job was with the Saskatchewan Publishers Group, an organization that utilizes a four-day workweek for all employees - from the Executive Director on down to the temporary summer student.

(I admit that having this perk in my first job spoiled me quite a bit and was probably the best perk in a job that had many. I always thought that the various perks we got at the SPG were related to the fact that, as a cultural non-profit, they couldn't afford to pay their employees what they would make in similar positions in government or larger non-profits or corporations or whatever. But I soon realised that the SPG was very generous - even by cultural non-profit standards. Some day, I'll do a full-on post about employee perks and benefits and delve into this subject a bit more.

And to be fair, I should list the best perks/benefits of my two other "real" jobs. At the Writers Guild of Alberta, the best perk/benefit was having almost total autonomy as the sole employee of the Calgary office which was followed closely by having an office on the edge of downtown with a fantastic view of the Calgary skyline. At Southeast Regional Library, one of the best perks is getting the library's discount on any book we order for ourselves.)

So, anyhow, back to the topic at hand, one thought I have about the innovative scheduling is that libraries are sort of missing the boat when compared to the other two female-dominated professions that we often get linked to. Nurses have almost complete flexibility in their scheduling - Shea has a choice of working a 2/5, 3/5, 4/5 or full-time position. She can choose to only work days, only work nights, job share a position, to work casual on 1-2 floors and only come in when she chooses, etc. Teachers, partly due to the legacy of the agricultural roots of the school year, get the whole summer off plus generous holidays at other times of year. I know they don't get the flexibility in their time off but I'd say that 10-12 weeks of holidays per year is a fair trade! Librarians (at least public librarians - some academic librarians get some of the same extended holidays as teachers) don't really get these advantages in most workplaces. Instead, most public librarians have a fairly typical 9-5, seven or seven and a half hour workday with four weeks of holidays and not much else in terms of choice or variety in when and how they work.

There are dozens (okay, sixteen on this link) reasons why the four-day work week is a great idea. From the reduction in pollution from less commuting (maybe high gas prices have a positive after all?) to the increased amount of family time to the fact that it may even increase productivity (!), the four day work week is an idea whose time has come.

I mean, if it's good enough for the best show on television, isn't it good enough for you too?

The Ultimate Guide to Copyright Terms and The Public Domain

Jason — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 20:50:28 -0600

(Er, except this list is for the United States) Still interesting though.

(via MetaFilter)

Songs For A Sleepless Baby

Jason — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 19:13:33 -0600

Here's a list of the songs Pace is most likely to hear when fighting against going to sleep (which is pretty much every night these days). I know it's not a very diverse list but hey, why fight the classics?

In order:

1. "Beautiful Boy" - John Lennon
2. "Golden Slumbers" - The Beatles
3. "Tell Me Your Dream" - Blue Rodeo
4. "St. Judy's Comet" - Paul Simon
5. "Goodnight" - The Beatles
6. "Innocent When You Dream" - Tom Waits
7. "Be My Baby" - Ronettes
8. "Don't Worry Baby" - Beach Boys
9. "Dark Angel" - Blue Rodeo
10. "Train in the Distance" - Paul Simon

...and then whatever pops into my head beyond that. If you'd like some more diverse ideas, here are some threads on AskMetaFilter that cover this theme.

I don't do a lot of "audience participation" threads but would love to hear what your kids/nieces/nephews/babysitting charges liked and/or what songs you think might be good as lullabyes?

Some Good Job Hunt Resources

Jason — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:07:41 -0600

My job hunt has begun again in earnest - I've applied for a couple positions and heard of a couple more that I intend to apply for soon and/or that may becoming up this fall.

I've had a few resources bookmarked for reference awaiting this moment so I thought I'd share them:

How To Answer 23 of the Most Common Interview Questions

6 Mistakes That Blew Up Your Job Interview

5 Key Steps to Acing Your First Job Interview

In other news, I was out in one of our branches today for the launch of our Summer Reading Performer's tour. You'd be watching a video clip of it right now if YouTube was willing to talk to my computer. Unfortunately, it isn't right now. Maybe tomorrow.

A New Dewey? LibraryThing Proposes The Open Shelves Classification System

Jason — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 00:38:45 -0600

An open source, collaborative Dewey replacement? That sounds pretty cool...

The Dewey Decimal System® was great for its time, but it's outlived that. Libraries today should not be constrained by the mental models of the 1870s, doomed to tinker with an increasingly irrelevant system. Nor should they be forced into a proprietary system—copyrighted, trademarked and licensed by a single entity—expensive to adopt and encumbered by restrictions on publishing detailed schedules or coordinating necessary changes.

Thingology (LibraryThing's ideas blog): Build the Open Shelves Classification

The related discussion forum has lots of good conversation about all things classification.

Friday Fun Link - 15 Unfortunate Ad Placements (July 11, 2008)

Jason — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 23:41:21 -0600

Some humour for a rainy Friday...

Sometimes When You Get Asked To Volunteer For Something...

Jason — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 16:59:07 -0600

You wonder, "Is it because the person asking thinks I'm the best person for the job or they just got the smell of fresh meat?"

Jason's 360 Review

Jason — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 20:38:19 -0600

One of the tools that HR departments use these days is the 360 Review where, instead of the traditional performance review by your superior, feedback about your performance is solicited from everyone you work with - colleagues, co-workers, people you supervise, etc.

We don't do 360 reviews at Southeast Regional Library but after talking to my colleague in Estevan who had done something similar with his staff and after discussing it with our Personnel Manager, I decided to do one on my own as I thought this process might be useful, especially as I am coming to the end of my first position as a professional librarian and the feedback would help me as I moved forward in my career.

In my previous jobs, I had anywhere from 2-6 co-workers in the entire organization and my supervision was limited to the occasional summer student and various contractors so there wasn't much point in doing one in that setting.

But now, with the quantum leap of having a dozen co-workers at our regional headquarters alone, colleagues at our two city libraries and supervisory responsibility for nearly 50 branch librarians (over 100 people if you count my indirect supervision of library assistants), I had a large enough sample group to make it worthwhile.

I set up a slightly modified version of the SurveyMonkey template for 360 reviews and sent the link out to approximately 60 people within our organization. More than 50% of people who received the survey filled it out.

I have to be honest - I mostly got the sort of feedback I expected, both positive and negative and there were no stunning revelations. Still, I think it was a useful process in a number of ways and I'm glad I did it.

Here is a summary of my results (which may only be an active link as long as the SurveyMonkey subscription I'm using lasts - I think until fall 2008).

I've made it so only the results of the non-open-ended questions are displayed. I tend to be a fairly open person but I'm not brave enough to share all the negatives that were raised (and even some of the positives were either backhanded compliments or digressed to complaints about other aspects of our organization not related to my performance.)

1. How often do you have contact with Jason?
A third of respondents said they were in contact with me, either by phone, e-mail or in person, "more than once per week" with "a couple times per month" and "once per week" coming in as close seconds.

2. Rate Jason in the Following Areas (/5)
Communication Skills - 3.77
Follow-up Skills - 3.42
Quality of Work - 3.68
Manages Requests in a Timely Fashion - 3.32
Ability to Respond to Change - 3.67
Availability to You - 3.61
Responsive to Requests For Support & Guidance - 3.68
Job Knowledge - 3.61

3. Employee's Key Strengths (I just picked a representative sample)
His ability to listen and understand even if he doesn't agree with you. His willingness to help when needed.
Empathy for the librarians' workload Great sense of humor Excellent leadership qualities
Is great with dealing with people and finding solutions to a problem. He is organized and has a great knowledge of his job.
Listening skills are very good. This is critical and often undervalued.
A very good listener he treated me as an individual, not just as one of the librarians-recognizes that all librarians have their own strengths and weaknesses and builds on the strengths. believes that some rules have a grey area to them in certain situations.
Really listens to concerns--I saw results of a consultation with Jason in a change of an administrative procedure. Knowledgeable about changes in available technology - CAP training was really useful. Changes in procedures were well-thought-out and instructions were clear before implementation was required.
Jason's door is always open. He is quick to handle any questions or problems I bring to him. I really like his creative approach to handling the branches.
1) Ability to adapt to the situation at the working level without compromising the main rules. 2) Strong interpersonal skills -relating to those under his supervision well. 3) Follows through when things are not resolved immediately-you can count on him getting to it when he can.

4. Employee Weaknesses (again, a representative sample )
none. I am very happy with Jason's supervisory role

5. Other Comments? (yet again, a representative sample)
Patient, attentive listening and interpersonal skills will pay off big time in the years ahead. This is a leadership habit.
Jason is great to work with. Fun to have around and always looking for ways to improve, both himself and his workplace.
Mr Hammond is one of the nicest and considerate co-workers that I have ever had. I wish to work with him in the future if it is possible.

6. Your Name
I specifically asked for (constructive) criticism when I sent out the link and also said that people could reply anonymously as well. Still, approximately one third of respondents signed their names which was nice as it helped give a clearer understanding of why certain people might see certain strengths and weaknesses.

Evolution Proven in Lab

Jason — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 22:09:58 -0600

This story's a month old now but I'm not sure how many people saw it - a scientist who studied bacteria for 44 000 generations (since 1988) has observed the bacteria mutating and after 33 000 generations, one of these mutations led to them evolving a new way to eat.

Out of the blue, their bacteria had abandoned Lenski's their glucose-only diet and had evolved a new way to eat.

I didn't bookmark it but if I can find it again, there's a pretty hilarious rebuke by Professor Lenski to a Creationist asking him to send some of the bacteria along so he can replicate the experiment.

(In other news, I sometimes feel bad about how far from librarianship this blog has drifted lately. But then I justify it by thinking, "Librarians are the types of people who are interested in everything and anything. And that is definitely what you're getting here! )

I Scream, You Scream...

Jason — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 21:27:02 -0600

...We All Scream For Ice Cream!

It was a very eventful weekend for Pace - hitting the beach, encounters with local celebrities, visiting Wolseley - a nearby town that has a lake in the middle of it, watching mud derbies, taking his first ride on a tube behind a boat and more.

Shea has her Flickr account updated with photos of some of the weekend's activity (not counting the tube ride which we haven't downloaded yet.)

The Sintalulta Mud Derby

Jason — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 23:02:05 -0600

Fifteen years ago, I would've been one of the teenagers driving through the mud or wrestling in it. Now I'm (mostly) happy to be a spectator to the insanity that is a small town mud derby. Here's a small sample...

Friday Fun Link - The WTF World of Wikipedia

Jason — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:00:00 -0600

A pretty revealing list comparing word counts for various topics on Wikipedia:

Call of Duty WWII Video Game (13 069 words) vs. World War II (11 884 words)
Pokemon (5 721) vs. Poker (1 857 words)
Superman (10 641) vs. Human (10 385)
...and wait until you see the final result - God vs. Knuckles (of Sonic the Hedgehog fame). Yikes!

You Know You Work in a Rural Library When...

Jason — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:22:51 -0600

One of the smaller jobs I do in my position of Branch Supervisor is review the local library board minutes that are sent in by each of our 47 branches after every one of their meetings (which can be anywhere from 4-12 times per year depending on the size of the branch.) I have to check that information is being conveyed accurately, policies are being followed, keep an eye for anything branches are doing locally that may require assistance (or intervention!) from HQ, etc.

There's always a few humourous nuggets to keep me entertained and as I review a stack of them today, I thought I'd pass along one idea you might want to use as a fundraiser in your own library:

"John (Mary's son-in-law) has agreed to donated a quarter of Angus beef for the library to sell as a fundraiser...the draw will be held at the Lion's supper in November."

(Have I mentioned how much I love being a librarian in rural Saskatchewan? And for those of you with hyper-sensitive sarcasm detectors, I'm not kidding! )

Cycle Sandwich

Jason — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 21:40:53 -0600

Friends of our have moved to Halifax for school and are keeping a blog to keep the folks back home updated on happenings in their life down east. This recent entry was particularly hilarious as was the following clip:

10 Reasons Saskatchewan In The Most Canadian of Provinces

Jason — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 22:21:42 -0600

A few years back, Canada ranked #1 in a UN survey of the best countries in the world to live in. That same year, a similar study ranked Saskatchewan as the best province in Canada to live in. So in honour of Canada Day (and with that sentiment in mind), I present the following list.

Of course, if you're going to make a list like this, the first thing you have to do is figure out what defines "Canadian" - not an easy task and something that writers, politicians, philosophers, artists and the folks on coffee row have argued about since 1867. But there are some common themes that come up in this discussion every time: hockey, the natural world, our friendliness, our politeness, our export culture, our relationship with the United States, our socialized medicine.

So why is Saskatchewan the most Canadian of provinces when you consider it in light of these characteristics?

10. Geography
Canada is a land that celebrates its geographical diversity from coast to coast and, contrary to the "flat boring" stereotype (or as the Corner Gas theme says: "You can tell me that your dog ran away/Then tell me that it took three days"), Saskatchewan is the most diverse province in Canada in terms of geography with eleven distinct geographical regions within its borders. (And trivia time - did you know that Saskatchewan is home to the northernmost sand dunes in the world?)

9. Export economy/natural resources
The majority of Canada's wealth is based on its history as an exporting nation - from the early fur trade to being the largest supplier of oil to the US in the world today (many people, even in Canada, guess that it's a middle eastern country that is the number one supplier.) Saskatchewan is a huge part of Canada's export culture as a major exporter of oil, natural gas, potash, pulp & paper, diamonds and more. Of course there are those that would also point out that the biggest thing we export is our people and unfortunately that's often true as well. In fact, there's a popular belief among Saskatchewan residents that whenever you find a person in a position of power across Canada, perhaps not at the top of the ladder but the pivot person just below that, you'll often find a person from Saskatchewan filling the role. (One example - Ralph Goodale as Deputy Prime Minister under Paul Martin.) Saskatchewan people are apparently disproportionally represented whenever there are volunteer activities as well.

8. Friendly People
In a country that's internationally renowned for its friendly, polite citizens, Saskatchewan's people are arguably at the top of the list. Why is this? A settler mentality stretching back to the province's earliest days which meant that you had to get along with your neighbours or suffer the consequences still infuses the province today - in how we deal with each other and how we welcome visitors.

7. Highway and roadways
Canada is a land of travelers who are often defined by their need to be on the move. In fact, one classmate at library school did an entire presentation on the "road trip" as the ultimate Canadian experience. Saskatchewan, although admittedly with highways which leave much to be desired (the worst in Canada according to CAA!) also has the most road miles in Canada due to our grid road system which criss-crosses the province. Because of the sparseness of our population, we also think nothing of driving 3 or 4 or 6 hours for a one-day visit with relatives or whatever. (I'll always remember the FIMS classmate who was shocked that Shea and I decided spontaneously to drive to Niagara Falls from London one day - a round trip of six hours.)

6. Weather
Canadians are obssessed with the weather and no where is this more true than "Next Year Country" where, with our agriculture-based economy, the local weather forecaster is the most important person on the nightly news broadcast. Saskatchewan holds a number of Canadian weather records including most annual hours of sunshine (Estevan), heaviest hailstone (Cedoux) and hottest day (Midale).

5. Relationship with the United States
Some would say that our entire culture is based on our relationship with the United States - how we're similar, how we're different. In fact, the Canada Day issue of MacLean's this year is titled "How Canada Stole the American Dream". And nothing shows how clearly Saskatchewan leads the way in this differentiation from our southern neighbours than the story about how, in the 1950's, an American publisher produced a social studies textbook with a map showing all of the communist countries on earth in red including Russia, China, Cuba and...Saskatchewan!

4. Inferiority Complex
Sort of related to the last point, a big part of why we're always comparing ourselves to the United States is that Canada has "little brother" syndrome (the more popular analogy is the one about a mouse sleeping next to an elephant.) Saskatchewan suffers from the same affliction except it's Alberta who is our "big brother" - a close relative who's more glamourous, richer, better looking and drives a bigger car - who we seek to emulate in many ways even as we put them down as too focused on money/fame/power/etc.

3. Hockey
Saskatchewan produces more NHL players per capita than any other province, state or region in the world. 'Nuff said.

2. Generosity of Its People
Canadians have a long history of selfless dedication to and for others - whether its Terry Fox or Dr. Norman Bethune or Stephen Lewis. But as a province, nobody can top Saskatchewan which is so generous during Telemiracle, an annual province-wide telethon, that the province has been awarded a place in the Guinness Book of World Records in recognition of the fact. An average year over the course of the thirty years of the telethon would see $1-3 donated for every man, woman and child in the province. In 2007, that record was destroyed when more than $5 was donated per capita!

1. Medicare
Perhaps more than any other value, our socialized medicine system is a point of pride for the people of this nation, especially in light of the dysfunctional system that exists just south of us. As everyone who watched him win the CBC's "Greatest Canadian" competition, this innovation began in Saskatchewan with a man who was born in Scotland, raised in Manitoba and came to define the province he called home for most of his life - Tommy Douglas.

Link to Another Blog That Allows Its Users To Post Libelous Comments - Get Sued Yourself!

Jason — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:42:39 -0600

When Jessamyn West was here for SLA, this topic came up at the after-event gathering. I meant to post something about it at that time when the story was still somewhat fresh but never got to it, being as busy as I was with much more important matters like cute baby pictures and Flash-based Friday Fun Links.

A recent invite to the annual Sask Blogs summer picnic reminded me of the fact that the Sask Blogs Aggregator, a site which creates a rolling summary of posts from various Saskatchewan-based and Saskatchewan-themed blogs, is still down.

But I'm getting ahead of myself...

In mid-April, a right-wing, Sask-based blog named "Small Dead Animals" posted a link to another conservative site named FreeDominion that had posted a story about Canadian civil rights lawyer, Richard Warman. As with most blogs, FreeDominion accepts comments. Warman saw these and made the claim that the comments were defamatory. He sued but in a unique twist, he didn't just name FreeDominion (which allowed the comments) but also sites that linked to the FreeDominion story such as Small Dead Animals (and therefore, were re-publishing these comments indirectly in his view.)

Although the case was still in the works and linking to a third-party site that may contain libelous or defamatory material hadn't yet been defined as legal or illegal by a court, the Sask Blogs aggregator shut down their service completely out of concern that a similar charge could be leveled against them - either for linking to Small Dead Animals or to any of the other dozens of blogs that who were part of their feed and which may contain similar borderline comments which could be actionable.

Here's a summary from the Regina Leader-Post of the whole situation.

I gotta say, I'm with the right winger on this and think that the civil rights lawyer is stretching too way far. If FreeDominion libeled you or allowed you to be libel, that's one thing. But suing every single site that links to the story (or links to a site that links to the story - hey, I just realised, because of all the links I've thrown out to the various sites involved in this case, I'm implicated now too! In fact, because of the interconnected nature of the Internet, every possible site that includes links to other sites is guility as well! Oh-oh - do you know what that means? That's it - shut down the Internet - it's over. Links are no longer allowed!)

Okay, kidding aside, does anyone see the irony in a civil rights lawyer being responsible for an action that's stifled freedom of speech and sharing of information, not only in the original offending site but for numerous harmless bystanders? To me, this is sort of like the copyright issue where someone is trying to apply old-world views of how things work now to a new world. In the old days, yeah, if someone else repeated a libelous statement, they were responsible. But in the Internet age, where a link is a click away, a statement can go out to a million people as easily as to a dozen, the old paradigms simply don't work anymore. "The genie is out of the bottle" is a phrase I think of all the time in situations like this. Warman is trying to corral the spread of whatever libelous statements were made but somewhere, someone is going to be able to access them. That's the new world and we all have to accept that.

At any rate, the Sask Blogs aggregator was a great, volunteer service that I miss a lot. I tend to read blogs that are in my narrow areas of interest or written by people I know so Sask Blogs was a simple way for me to get an overview of what people were writing about across the province - from all viewpoints, all writing styles, all geographic locations, all manner of topics from personal to political and everything in between.

Hopefully this case will be resolved and Sask Blogs will be back soon.

Link Dump - Middle of the Night Version

Jason — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 03:52:54 -0600

I'm not sure if I put Pace to sleep tonight or he put me to sleep but at 8pm, we were both in bed, crashed out. So that means I wake up now and am going to be completely messed up tomorrow. Oh well - the same thing we always say when he naps at an unusual time - "he's tired - he needs it" applies to my little nap tonight as well!

Here's some randomness...apologies if you were the person who sent me one or more of these links. I've lost track of where I got them.

"The Mother's Milk of Literacy: How Breastfeeding May Improve Literacy"
- to which I say, "no duh!"

The Science of Early Brain Development
- you'll have to click on the first search result to see the PowerPoint presentation

Neat New Stuff on the Internet
- by librarian, Marylaine Block. "The sites I include are usually free sites of substantial reference value, authoritative, browsable, searchable, and packed with information, whether educational or aimed at answering everday questions."

"It Takes A Village of Librarians To Raise A Teen"

"Schools should continue to require library research so kids can learn how old folks used to Google stuff."

"The Times (UK) Makes 200 Years of Newspapers Available Online for Free"

"Reading The Future: Planning To Meet Canada's Future Literacy Challenges"
- a new study has lots of stats and info from the Canadian Council on Learning

"Dealing With Book Clutter"
- includes a list of questions that could be used with slight modification during weeding at your library

PaperbackSwap.com
- a site that the previous linked article led to which allows you to swap books (and CD's and DVD's) with others. It appears to only be for US-based people right now (or people with access to a US mailing address) but still worth taking note of in case they expand to Canada in the future.

"Who Says Librarians and Teachers Don't Like Tags?"

And for a big, non-library-related finish, "What skills would be most useful if you could time travel back to 1000 A.D."

(Man, it always feels good to get this accumulated kludge off the books! )

So You Wanna Write A Memoir? - An Exhaustive Guide

Jason — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 23:58:34 -0600

Entertainment Weekly magazine is one of my guilty pleasures. In fact, I had a subscription to it in the early 1990's right after it began publication. And I was surprised to see that last week's issue marked its 1000th issue!

I still read EW on a fairly regular basis but now it's visits to the local public library for a range of back issues (or when I'm in the area, the one local library branch that permits loans of the most recent issues of their magazines - how cool is that?)

A recent issue had an article about the memoir and included a list of every possible permutation of the genre - memoirs by geography, occupation, addiction, disease and even who had to die in the author's life to provoke the writing of the memoir, etc.

Friday Fun Link - 50 Best Cult Books (June 27, 2008)

Jason — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 22:59:01 -0600

"What is a cult book? We tried and failed to arrive at a definition: books often found in the pockets of murderers; books that you take very seriously when you are 17; books whose readers can be identified to all with the formula "<Author Name> whacko"; books our children just won’t get…"

50 best cult books - Telegraph 50 best cult books - Telegraph

PowerThirst - KENYANS!

Jason — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 22:40:11 -0600

I was recently introduced to energy drinks by a friend who recommended them as a hangover cure. I haven't had a hangover for - how old is Pace now? - 13 months or so. (Er, not counting the post-SLA conference "Books to Beers" event at the Free House - that one hurt a bit. I blame Jessamyn.)

But that's beside the point. You've probably seen the energy drinks - when Shea ran in to 7-11 to buy me one in Calgary, she said "When did they take over the drink case?"

Now, back in the day, energy drinks were named Jolt Cola and that was good enough. Apparently this new version has the added benefit (?) of vitamins. To which I say, "Whoopdee-doo - bring on the caffiene levels certified to give you heart arrithmia please!".

Yes, I do have the occasional energy drink. I can justify it because I don't drink coffee. Or smoke crack.

Which is all a long preamble to say I was drinking Bushwakker beer I imported to Calgary for a friend (who coincidentally is the brother of the guy who first recommended energy drinks to me.) We're both responsible fathers now (he's a newly certified medical doctor for godssake) so we weren't consuming to the levels we may have at one point in our lives.

But when he showed me this video, I thought it was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time...

My Wordle

Jason — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 23:24:03 -0600

This is my Wordle of the most common words I used on this blog in May 2008...