Dancing for suicide awareness.

Last night I attended a dance show at Centre de créativité Gesù that was a fundraiser for Fondation André Dédé Fortin. Perhaps like me you don't know who Dédé was. I've seen posters around town for a new movie, Dédé, and assumed it was the same man. It was only at intermission that I finally made the connection that Dédé was a singer with Les Colocs. He committed suicide in 2000, and I remember hearing about it since I spent a couple months in Rivère-de-Loup that summer.

The foundation aims to help prevent suicide and make aware that suicide is still a problem. They write that in Québec on average 3 to 4 people commit suicide every day. That's a lot.

Last October I witnessed a suicide, as in I heard it occur. I happened to be laying on my couch so I didn't actually see it, but a man jumped off the roof of my building and I heard him hit the ground and the ensuing screams from other witnesses (the superintendant's wife was on the ground where the man landed). I'm not going to rehash the whole thing here, but suffice it to say it's not easy to see a freshly dead person.

I didn't go to the dance performance knowing what the fundraiser was for. A good friend of mine was performing and she said it was something about suicide awareness, but that's all she knew. It really was great watching the dancers on stage, though being contemporary dance I can't say I "got" it all. Some pieces were uplifting, and some were tear jerkers. Some were just weird. Nonetheless, it was an enjoyable way to spend an evening raising money for a good cause.

So this post is just a reminder that you're not alone; if you're feeling depressed and hopeless talk to someone, anyone for starters. And if you have a hard time expressing yourself, I find dancing always helps.

Review: Burning Chrome by William Gibson

I decided to try giving science fiction a shot since I used to enjoy it a lot when I was young but lately I've been reading more fantasy and horror. So I checked out Burning Chrome by William Gibson from work.

Burning Chrome is a collection of short stories. I've mentioned before how I like short stories since they make me feel like I'm actually getting some reading done. I suppose most people have heard of "Johnny Mnemonic" which is included in this collection and I have to say I like Keanu Reeves.

I most enjoyed "The Belonging Kind", "Hinterlands" and "Red Star, Winter Orbit". Those were the stories that got me thinking. Life, death, future, past, relationships, existence.

Some of the others just had too much jargon for me to read before bed, so I'd get confused or have to read extra slow. I know it's not tough reading, but still, my tired mind can only handle so much. I didn't enjoy much the ones that felt more "hardware" - like the technology was at the forefront.

Gibson is a successful science fiction writer, so I don't think there really is much I can say about his writing, other than I like it and want to read more. Oh, I hear Gibson is American-Canadian so I get to count this as #2 in the Canadian Book Challenge. (Actually I read this back in October, but waited so long to blog...)

Review: Broken by Kelley Armstrong

Way back in October or November I wandered into a Chapters in search of Canadian books to read for the Canadian Book Challenge. Somehow even though I knew about this challenge months earlier this time compared to last year, I hadn't even begun it at that time.

After browsing some shelves, I remembered that I wanted to read more by Kelley Armstrong. I saw her read once at Word on the Street. (I notice that Stolen is not on my bookshelf; I must have lent it to a friend before I moved last year.)

I had to ask for help because I couldn't find any of her books; it never occurred to me to look under horror. I hate horror films so I don't think of myself as liking that genre. Anyway the sales person and I had a nice chat about Armstrong and werewolf fiction and horror in general. I ended up purchasing Broken.

I was a little concerned because the Jack the Ripper storyline sounded a little lame, but Armstrong's werewolves are so diverse and have such different personalities that I knew the book would be enjoyable. There are some characters I dislike or find annoying, but not because they are poorly written, but because they are so well written; if they were real I'd find them annoying. (Like Clay, ick.)

I felt there was a good mix of suspense and action and magic, though most action was reserved til the end. There were a lot of 'cameos' by characters from previous books. It's been a long time since I read any of them, but I didn't feel like I was missing much and Armstrong gave brief yet informative background details when she reintroduced them.

Overall a fun read, though nothing too dazzling.

(Book 1 of 13 for Canadian Book Challenge)

Making special collections available and visible

Interior Peter Redpath Library, McGill University, Montreal, QC, 1893 (?)
Originally uploaded by Musée McCord Museum

Many libraries and archives have been embarking on projects for digitizing archives and special collections. In addition to hosting digital collections on their own sites more and more libraries are also using other tools such as Flickr. The Library of Congress is one of the more notable libraries using Flickr.

I recently became aware of the Musée McCord here in Montréal having a Flickr account as well. This picture is of Interior Peter Redpath Library, McGill University, Montreal, QC, ca. 1893 is from their collection. It is great that these libraries are putting these resources where ordinary people are able to find them and see them. I mean, sure I've been to the McCord Museum (years ago), but I would never have thought to look into their archives.

Alone again

Smile Rattie
Originally uploaded by Canucklibrarian

My only companion has left me. Last night I noticed that Gaius was being particularly quiet considering the night before he had been banging to get out of his cage.
I know he hadn't been drinking enough the last week or so, but I also know he was at least two years old, if not more, and he was diabetic. So I had decided not to fork out hundreds of dollars like last spring and just wanted to see how things went.
He was still himself for the most part, climbing out of his cage, wandering around the place, getting into the kitchen cupboards (he liked the one with the grocery bags; loved to nest).
I guess he had enough though and I found him dead. This picture was from last week. You can tell he was thrilled to be photographed. (Actually he much preferred to walk on my laptop, but I wouldn't let him.)
I think his last few weeks were good though. We've been having a lot of cuddle time lately. I'll miss my furry friend.

Only 6 days away. Tuesday will be exciting.

Two important events are happening next Tuesday, October 14th.

First it's Canada's 40th general election. My first time voting in Québec! Should I vote BQ just because I can? I'm just kidding! My riding is Liberal, has been for 40 years and will be for many more; very little chance that it'll change. Even so, I still haven't decided where my vote is going. I had planned on going to my local candidates' debate last night, but the plan was thrown out by a friend coming over to watch Buffy. You see where my priorities lie (lay? chickens lay, humans lie?).
I visited http://www.theundecided.ca to play around and see what they suggest. I don't think the site completely worked for me whether because I'm on a Mac or using Firefox I don't know. Anyway, it helped a bit. I've actually visited the websites for all five top parties and I subscribe to their YouYube feeds. I follow the National Post's Twitter since they aggregate from all the parties. I watched the debate in French and English. So, I'm trying to inform mysef but really I still feel like my vote doesn't matter. I'm voting anyway though, and you should too. Canadians, if you haven't registered that's ok; just bring your ID to a polling station on election day and you can vote!

The other important event is Open Access Day! It's time to get the word out about Open Access journals and publishing.

Open Access is the principle that publicly funded research should be freely accessible online, immediately after publication, and it’s gaining ever more momentum around the world as research funders and policy makers put their weight behind it.

Is your library taking part? In mine we're setting up a booth, handing out stuff, answering questions and then at 7 pm we'll be broadcasting the Webcast with Sir Richard Roberts and Voices of Open Access videos from one of the reference computers. We also created an OA banner on our website that goes to a page all about OA and provides a search box so patrons can search OA resources like DOAJ.

Two-Tiered System Sucks

I know when Canadians see the word two-tiered they often bring to mind the discussions surrounding privatized healthcare, but that's not what is bothering me today.

My place of work has a two-tiered system in place for its wireless access. Both campuses have wireless internet that students, faculty and staff can access on their own laptops as well as ones that the libraries loan. Laptop lending is quite popular since computing resources are always in demand.

This past year, the IT department has invested time and money to create a second wireless network on campus, with intentions of expanding it to cover the area between the two (6.3 km apart according to Google maps). A noble idea, providing wireless in this corridor, but I'm not sure what their true intentions were. This second wireless network supposedly uses newer, stronger technology and only students are allowed to subscribe for about $120/yr. That's right, it's a subscription service, and it's not even available for faculty or staff yet. They are charging students for wireless. Coincidentally, coworkers here noticed the standard wireless start to go wonky when that system started up.

The IT folks were working on the wireless all weekend, but I guess they didn't get enough done and there's been sporadic service yesterday and today. Actually worse than sporadic. They obviously need to do a lot of work to keep it up and running so why did they waste resources on creating the new network? Especially now since reports have been leaked that not that many students are using the new network; most still rely on the free one. And I use 'free' loosely since after all, isn't tuition and student fees a main source of revenue that these folks use as their budget? It's almost like they're double-dipping into students' pockets.

I am so tired of explaining to students that the wireless isn't working. So much so that I told one of the last ones that came to the reference desk to ask about the wireless that I wished the students would start a campaign against the computer folks. She asked why, so I told her how the paid-for service is a lot more reliable than the regular service.

In my wildest dreams, I would have the university form a partnership with Ile Sans Fil to provide free wireless for all, not just students and faculty, but that will never happen; Security precautions are extremely strict here (hence the Facebook blocking). I guess I'll just keep smiling and telling frustrated students that there's nothing we can do.