I got my inspiration to look at and redefine my blog from Liz Hover‘s talk at the latest Winnipeg Girl Geek Dinner. Let’s just say, Liz was great. You should definitely check out her blog.
Go. Go now. I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Alright, I admit it. I’m stumped. This blog took on, for a while, a life of its own in my head. There were things to post about, and it was great. There are still things to post about, but life is getting in the way.
I was adamant that I was going to try to keep this blog mostly about the professional stuff. And that seemed realistic at first. But it wasn’t.
I thought the redesign (well, choice of a new theme, anyway) would help. But it hasn’t.
As I’ve started to let my own life creep in, it’s starting to get bogged down. The blog needs to be redefined.
And so, I’m working on changing it up a little. Making the blog more about me, a librarian, out in the real world. The world where library issues and activities, job searches, families, friends, hobbies, passions and life itself can all exist within one person. And within one blog.
I don’t promise that it’ll be easy. And I certainly won’t promise that it’ll be perfect. But it will be new, and it will (hopefully) be fun – for me, and for you, my readers.
Coming in the next little while (aka when I have internet access on my own computer again, hopefully by the end of the month, but no promises), will be categories (for those of you who are really only interested in one aspect of what the blog will be about), new tags, and some updates on the pages that make up the site.
Stay tuned!
Edit: I was going to go back and re-categorize all the old posts. However, aside from potentially inconveniencing anyone who has this blog on their RSS feeds, I think, for posterity, I’m going to leave them all as they are.
It’s been in the news for well over a year now that library funding is getting cut all over this continent. I know I’ve written about it here in the past.
Today, it started to hit closer to home. MPOW recently found out exactly how much our budget is getting slashed. As we have no option but to keep our hours as they are, the cuts are going to come from elsewhere. Not only are we going to have fewer subscriptions to online resources and buy fewer books, we’re scheduled to lose access to some important tools that the technical services staff uses on a daily basis.
Sure, all the departments have to have cuts, and this is a relatively easy one for others to decide to cut, but it will end up directly affecting how the whole library works. A coworker used a particularly apropos analogy to explain the affect. Unfortunately, it jumped out of my brain as I started writing that last sentence. Essentially, that if we didn’t have this tool, we might as well not bother buying the books, since we wouldn’t be able to offer any subject access or to give them proper call numbers.
I know, all the belt tightening is a result of trying to get our society out of the recession that we’ve been in, but sometimes it would behove us to think through some of the whys and wherefores taht make us tighten things up so much.
There are some services that should not have to deal with extensive cuts. Ever. Things like hospitals and emergency services. While they can cut a little out of their budgets, peoples’ lives could be at risk if there are too many cuts. However, usage doesn’t necessarily change too drastically based on the overall economic situation of the population that it serves.
Then there are other services that get added pressure and use during times of economic hardship. Like employment offices. Or libraries. When people stop being able to afford to buy books, they turn to public libraries. When they need an escape, they borrow books or movies, or come to use the internet. They come for help with research, job hunting, access to software programs. When people are hurting economically, that is when they need libraries the most. And that’s what makes things most frustrating when budget cuts mean that essential tools are no longer available to library staff.
I stumbled across this quote in a couple of places, thanks to a tweet from @neilhimself, among others:
Cuts to libraries during a recession are like cuts to hospitals during a plague.
Well said.
…when you’re busy making other plans.
The above is one of my favourite phrases to live by. I generally take it to mean something along the lines of “Make whatever plans you want, but don’t forget that the unexpected often occurs, and you have to be ready to deal with it.” Essentially, remember that you have to be able to bend like a willlow to be able to get through life without breaking.
This has happened to me on a couple of fronts in the last 2 months, and I still don’t know exactly what to make of parts of it.
On the bad news front, my family is dealing with the rather unexpected loss of my grandmother. She was considered healthy at the beginning of the year, one month later was diagnosed with metastasized cancer, and passed away a mere 5 weeks later. Needless to say, it was a bit of a shock, and we’re all still adjusting. Not sure what it’s going to mean in the long term, other than that I am now responsible for making the [knitted in her case, crocheted in mine] dishcloths that are a staple of our family Christmases.
On the good news front, I got an extension on my contract at work, so, while I am still only employed part-time, I am still employed 🙂 On top of the work that I’m already doing, I’ve also been given the opportunity (based on MPOW’s current staff shortage and the lack of a solution on the horizon) to be a part of the reference staff and work on the reference desk. It’s only been a couple of weeks, and due to my schedule, it means I’m getting trained very very slowly (a half-day a week isn’t much, but I’m already learning)
I also splurged a little on satisfying some of my long-standing gadget-envy. Over a year ago, a friend of mine got a netbook, and I’ve been wanting one ever since. And, between my generous income tax refund, and the increasing number of wireless networks in the city that make it worthwhile to have around, I decided that I was going to buy one.
As a long-standing fan of Toshiba computers, I tried really hard to justify the extra $100+ dollars to get the newest netbook from them, with the 6-cell battery, but when the next-best choice is only $300 (and though it comes with a 3-cell battery, I can get a 6-cell for cheap), I couldn’t justify it.
So I bought an Acer Aspire One (in red, since it comes in red). It also has Windows 7. And, while I haven’t really had much time to play around with it, it seems pretty cool so far.
If only I could figure out how to change the desktop background…
I adore watching the Winter Olympics. Almost every event has held my interest over the last 15 days (and the next couple too!). And I have celebrated every Olympic medal right along the rest of the country.
While I didn’t get the chance to watch the Women’s Hockey Final (silly meetings… don’t they know the Olympics are on??), I was happy to see the Canadians had won.
The controversy surrounding the team’s post medal ceremony celebrations struck me as a little overblown at first. Of course they celebrated- it’s Canada, people, we all know beer is involved, even without pictures. So what if they didn’t keep the celebration to themselves? The whole country was celebrating with them (well, there were probably a few Olympic athletes who were trying to concentrate on their own sports, but I’m sure they would have been celebrating if they weren’t still in competition mode). The hoopla also struck me originally a little like hypocrisy, after Jon Montgomery’s walk through Whistler after his gold medal win. (check On Women’s Gold and Equality for a comparison)
But, when I really got to thinking about it, it seemed that this celebration was… disrespectful, of the venue, the competition that had taken place there, the other teams, and the spirit of the Olympic Games. Would any team other than the host country even consider such an act? No. And neither should we.
Let me be absolutely clear. I have no problem with the team celebrating. Or with them doing it in public. While consuming alcohol and smoking (even if one of them was underage- do any of us really think that’s the biggest sticking point? Especially considering that she is legal in most of the rest of the country?) The glaring issue that makes this celebration so much less appropriate than Montgomery’s is the location. While the hockey team hadn’t even changed out of their uniforms, never mind left the building, he had completed all the requirements of doping control (demanded of all medalists), changed into street clothes, and joined the celebration in the streets of Whistler.
Excited and carried away is one thing. But do it off the playing field, please. Read You won Olympic gold, not the Thursday night rec league for a good article about this.
And thanks to @emmaewood for posting the links!
Life is what happens... 