Sock puppets read too!

Okay, just after writing that last post I discovered this hilarious video on Montreal Libraries.



It appears that the city libraries have their own YouTube account where they've posted patron-created videos dealing with libraries and Montreal as a way to celebrate their new website/portal.

À l'occasion du lancement de son nouveau portail, les bibliothèques de la Ville de Montréal ont lancé un concours intitulé BIBLIOCLIP qui récompense les créateurs de courtes vidéos sur le thème des bibliothèques et de Montréal

[edited to add] Here's the library's statement about teh contest and the announcement of the winners on their site. Which is good since with having 94 submissions, I didn't look at any of the winners!

ooh, I like this one too: Cit(é)



and this one: L'escargot



Okay, go check them all out for yourself!

Multicultural Outreach

Many libraries have to serve a diverse community and so need to work to promote and market their services and materials to those communities.

Wandering through YouTube today I found London Public Library's videos on services for children. The video is available in four languages: Chinese, Korean, Spanish and Arabic.

8 random facts

Whaddya know? I was tagged again! This time by Angela. So if you've been following along for awhile, or know me in real life, you probably already know these, but here goes.

1. I have a pet rat, Gaius. I've had three others: Julius Rattus, Augustus, and Lucius.
2. I hate asparagus because of a dream I had when I was seven in which it was growing from my arms.
3. Swing and blues dancing for me are more than just a hobby - almost an addiction.
4. This past Saturday I performed for the first time - it was a solo blues routine with a bunch of women. It was fun even though I really could've used more practice.
5. I'm also passionate about my Sorority and I'm glad to be volunteering with them again.
6. Three of my grandparents are francophone but they didn't teach the language to their kids and so I'm stuck being an anglo (though try to speak French anyway).
7. I never even thought of getting an MLIS until I randomly came across it while looking for info on Grad Schools in Classics. Librarianship is my first career.
8. One of my favourite memories is of me napping on the living room carpet under the window in the sun, while my mom vacuums in another room. carpet+sun+vacuum=peace

Here are the rules:

1. Each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. People who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. At the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names.
4. Don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’ve been tagged, and to read your blog.

Damn, I hate this part of the meme. Hmm 8 people. Let's see...Oh heck, who am I kidding? We all know I don't play nice with others ;-) Free for all - you need an excuse to share go ahead!

Review: The Greenies by Myra Paperny

The next book that I finished for the Canadian Book Challenge was The Greenies by Myra Paperny. I picked this up at the Grande Bibliothèque last week when I went to register for a library card. It really was a blind pick along with another book since I essentially did a search for "jeunesse" and "canada" in the OPAC. I like historical fiction and since this one is post-WWII I thought it might be interesting.

The Greenies tells the story of Jewish orphans after the war and their attempts at coming to Canada to live. The Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre has a virtual museum dealing with the War Orphans Project. Some moving biographies and photos there.

So the war is over and these kids have no family - what next? There are thousands of them, but only the completely healthy are allowed to immigrate to Canada. The story is from the perspective of three characters - two of the orphans, Danny and Lilli, and a Canadian girl. Danny and Lilli make it to Vancouver and have been placed with Jewish families. Danny lucks out with a great family, though the woman goes too far in asking him to call her "mom" (she quickly sees her error and they settle on Auntie Bess). Danny makes quick progress and soon leaves school to work full time, hoping to return to school when he's more independent and feeling like he fits in with the Canadians.

Lilli isn't so lucky. She gets stuck with a sort of snobbish family that have never had children and really don't know the first thing about teenage girls! Lilli appears rebellious to the woman in that household, so she sends her away. Lilli is put in with another family, but they use her as a personal babysitter and control her every moment.

Marilyn's family was supposed to get a boy orphan, but there just weren't enough with this shipment, so they don't get any. Marilyn is the typical teenager - she's got her clique at school - they all wear the latest fashions, go to parties, etc. She just doesn't understand why the new kids, the 'greenies', aren't even trying to fit in! Yet she shows a little more compassion than some of her classmates.

It takes Marilyn being suspended from school (for wearing trousers when it snowed!) for the girls to rally together. The Canadian girls and the girl orphans join together to all wear trousers to school! Of course they all get suspended, but hey, they made their point.

Of course there are some more dramatic moments in the novel, but I wouldn't want to spoil it for you. So this is my ninth entry for the Canadian Book Challenge. See I may very well complete it on time! Oh and based on my helping questions for rating books: yes, I'd read another book by Paperny and of course I'd watch the movie should it exist. (Sometimes I worry about writing that and confusing people)

Passion in my life

Ok, I know I've already broken the 'meme' by not titling my post "Meme: passion quilt", but c'mon, that is a lame title :-p I don't often consider myself creative, so forgive my attempt if it's too lame for your liking.



It seems to me a lot of people have a hard time at work: they have too much to do, not enough time, constant struggles with coworkers, managers, administration, etc. I think people forget to just sit back and relax, taking time to look around them and see the good stuff that is going on. It's tiring to always be on the go, so whatever you do in life take some time to really chill. Oh and I know the meme says "for kids to learn" but I think this is a case where young kids get it, and have been trained out of it as they get older. We need to make sure that 'downtime' remains a part of a healthy work and life style.

I'm very passionate about relaxing. I am a librarian and doing librarian-esque things outside of work, but work is just one aspect of my life. Life is supposed to be a joy so don't let yourself get too stressed!

Since this meme has pretty much done the rounds in libraryland, I'm not going to tag anyone - besides, anyone I would've tagged has done it already. If you haven't, take this as permission to do your own. Thanks to Jan for tagging me.


Meme rules:

1. Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about...and give your picture a short title.

2. Title your blog post "Meme: Passion Quilt" and link back to this blog entry.

3. Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce.

One Big Library Unconference - June 27th @YorkU

Word is spreading around about the One Big Library Unconference that is being hosted by the Emerging Technologies Interest Group at York University Libraries. Info and details are up on the unconference wiki, but here's an excerpt of what it is and its goals:

In an interconnected world, all physical and virtual libraries can really
be thought of as branches of One Big Library. We would like to get together
and explore that concept. Our areas of interest are:

• The future of libraries


• Collaboration on building One Big Library collections and services


• Uses of social software in libraries


• Tools to support and extend the One Big Library

Our goals are:

• Bringing people interested in the future of
  libraries together with the hope of sparking collaboration and cooperation


• Starting conversations between people in different kinds of libraries, and
  people inside and outside libraries


• Intellectual stimulation and fun!

It sounds like a fabulous idea and I'd love to go, but I'm pretty sure work won't let me (ah, the joys of being a limited term appointment), and I've already scheduled all my vacation time (because I actually would consider doing that for something this cool). I expect a full account from all the bloggers/twitterers who make it!

They just don't get it...

So, I was just hanging out on the Canadian Parliamentary site after reading Quebec should control own airwaves, in The Gazette today, trying to find more info - but today's stuff isn't up yet (that I can find).

Anyway, while I was there I started poking around looking at all the other bills. Bill C-505 caught my eye. It's an act to amend Canadian Multiculturalism Act so that "The Government of Canada’s multiculturalism policy does not apply in Quebec". It was debated in the House April 10th . The Bloc MP who introduced the bill says,

"The requirement that all Quebeckers respect our common values and learn the common language of French, at least to some extent, in order to take part in the public debate is offset by our recognition of cultural pluralism. Cultural pluralism refers to the contributions made by everyone all over Quebec to help enrich our common culture....
The idea of Canadian multiculturalism is the exact opposite. It rejects all notions of common values and culture. In fact, the idea of multiculturalism promotes a society of multiple solitudes.
[and later on...]
Multiculturalism is an obstacle to the integration of new immigrants under the Quebec model, and an obstacle to the francization of new immigrants."

There's a lot more I could probably pick out from the debates. Ugh. Seriously, I know nothing of politics and I know little about culture, but I'm pretty sure culture is a people driven thing - IMO it doesn't go over too well when a government tries to intervene with culture (unless that's $$ for initatives), and I'm sure there are examples of that all over the place right now. I just read this and thought 'wow, he really doesn't get it'. I've always lived in diverse communities, except for that year I lived in a small town in Québec. Diversity is great and multiculturalism adds a richness to our communities. Montréal is also a multicultural place, whether or not the BQ want to admit that.

Also it's a matter of semantics. I know friends/colleagues in the US who said that multiculturalism was a bad word down there for a long time. It seems the Bloc Québecois would prefer the term interculturalism.

It's crazy how some of the things I like about this province are the same things that irritate me.

Libraries integrated with your life

Librarians often talk about being where our users are - I totally agree.

Recently I signed up on ravelry.com. I used to crochet a bit and would like to get back into it. Anyway, looking through patterns I noticed a "search your local libraries" link. It's a link to Worldcat.org. Awesome.

Though it seems to have some issues for periodicals; I seem to get an error every time the pattern comes from a magazine. Oh and my public libraries aren't in WorldCat, though la Bibliothèque nationale du Québec is.

Review: Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel

I received a copy of Skybreaker by Kenneth Oppel at OLA last year I believe it was. He signed it for me. I had no clue who he was and when I mentioned that to other conference goers, a former classmate gushed about how she loved his books and would gladly take my copy if I didn't want it. Of course, I kept it.

This book is a sequel to Airborn, but despite my not having read that, I got along fine in this one. This is young adult fantasy adventure story set in an alternate victorian period. In the lead role is 16 yr old, Matt Cruse - a student of the Airship Academy who has spent most his life aboard airships. After spending a few years as a cabin boy, he's finally managed to get into the Academy with hopes of one day flying his own ship and earning enough to send back to his mother and siblings.
While on internship on an airship, the crew finds a legendary ship, the Hyperion that's been missing and presumed wrecked for over 30 years. The ship was designed and built by a great inventor and was rumoured to hold great wealth. Naturally everyone wants to salvage the ship, but it's drifting at 20,000 feet and airships really aren't made to fly that high. Well there's a bit of drama and they don't reach the ship, but Cruse rescues them and gets them back to safety. You think I'm giving the story away? Well that's just the beginning! Since Matt was the only one not suffering from hypoxia, he's the only one that really knows the coordinates of the Hyperion. And everyone is after him to get it.

The only way to keep the pirates and other nasty folks from beating the coordinates out of Matt, is to go and salvage the ship himself. So with his rich friend Kate (whom he knew back when he was a cabin boy and they had adventures together and there's definitely a thing going on between them), a random gypsy girl, Nadira, and a self-made man, Hal Slater, Matt goes off in search of treasure. Only, there's more than treasure in the skies, and danger is all about.

Skybreaker was a lot of fun to read. Sure it's hard to believe that there's giant squid in the sky but that's what makes this fantasy. I thought it was cute to see him trying to deal with the two girls - he really likes Kate, but Nadira is so attractive too! The author style was just right for me, and I even thought there wasn't going to be a happy ending when - bam- there it was. (Not that I require happy endings, but they're nice sometimes).

This is book 8 for me in the Canadian Book Challenge. I'm so glad I've made such progress since the last update! Focusing on children's and YA certainly has helped me get closer to the goal of 13 books. (and besides, that is what I like to read most of the time).

Digital tools for enhancing service, not just promotion

I've been skimming blogs and the web for ideas on digital tools that may enhance service. What I'm seeing are a lot of ways libraries are using technology for promotion or marketing, but not so much service. To me service is more about doing something for someone; the provision of a need, so perhaps I'm just not thinking of it in a broad enough sense (according to Canadian Oxford Dictionary there are about 17 definitions of the word). Is just providing a tool considered a service? I'm not sure about that either.


Chat and IM reference are definitely services that are provided through the use of technology. That is quite clear to me and I think it is a very valuable service. I can see other types of virtual reference, for example via Second Life, as a service but not one that's going to take off any time soon at my particular university.


I also consider RSS feeds for new acquisitions to be a service; how else would students or faculty know about new items? My library does keep a table where a few new items are left for a couple weeks, and one of our window displays is devoted to jackets from new books, but I suspect they don't really get looked at and having a feed is a better method of letting patrons know what is coming in, especially if they aren't (coming in, that is). So even though it's promoting materials, it still feels more service-oriented to me.

From what I can see, most digital tools or products do not enhance service to patrons; they are used as promotional tools by the libraries (which is very important too). Many library blogs are more of a notification alert of changing hours or special events listings than service oriented. Same with a lot of other popular sites among librarians: Flickr, Youtube, Facebook. All can be great ways to reach audiences and promote the library, but I don't necessarily see them used as a service. Sure we can post video tutorials on Youtube, but I'm not convinced that's a service and not just an additional resource.



I know there are tools that librarians can use to improve service; I'm just trying to make that differentiation between service and promotion. Is providing a LibX plugin a service? What about texting from the catalogue? Creating a photographic special collection online? Since many of these tools increase access to the library, I'd argue that they probably would work to enhance service as well. Does anyone have some great examples of digtial tools or products that better library service?