Ok, so the guy's funny AND interesting...

OLA 2012: 1900 "Gala Luncheon: Host, CBC's George Stoumboulopoulos" February 4, 2012, 12:15 PM - 2:30 PM (in the MTCC Bldg, Room 105/106)

Just some brief notes from this keynote:

• Arrived early by ten minutes and sat with some teacher-librarians from KW.  We were served clam chowder, roast beef, choc cake...  /drool
• Some kid named "Michael" was presented with an award having something to do with "media and communications"?  I wasn't really paying attention.
• George talked briefly and then opened up the mics for a q and a session.
• He was born shy.
• Since his mother was poor and had 2+ jobs, we was alternatively babysat by the library (Albion Library) and a retirement home.
• He's gotten rid of most of his books.
• How to raise awareness?  Make a PR video.  Don't charge late fees.
• Asking tough interviewees about their mothers always softens them up, even the big tough guys.  (Brian Burke)
• Anecdote about Chretien:  He was mistaken for someone other than the interviewer when meeting Chretien in a pre-interview chat.  The PM said, when he was corrected, "Ok, yer de guy."
• Miscellaneous:  Bruins jersey.  Habs fan.  Gays in hockey.  June Colwood's last interview.  He's not afraid to "go dark".  Malton.  Catholicism.
• Will talk about ebooks on his show.
• Tempted to leave Canada (not want to but may have to...  will get fired eventually).  Time at CBC has been an emotional railroad.  Nicknamed "bombouloupolus".  But CBC is about the people.  Canadians don't support each other enough.  No such phrase as "anti-Canadian".  Canada is young.
• He doesn't plan out everything in his interviews.  Key:  find out about your interviewee's life when they were ten and remember the "human".
• Goals are a mistake.
• Documentaries on propaganda and cold war, war on terror
• Went through several phases in his education.  But eventually he took a motorcycle course and saw radio broadcasting course in the list.  Considered the army.  Finally realized that grades are currency to buy diploma.  Fell in love with radio.  Slept at station when he worked there "as a kid".
• Don't talk down to audience.  Fuck 'em if they dont get it.
• He manage his own twitter feed.

It's simply misconceivable!

I had a bit of a chuckle reading through the List of common misconceptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_common_misconceptions) on Wikipedia the other day.

I recently read something about someone trying to correct something in a Wikipedia entry based on his current research who then had his correction removed and a good finger-wagging explanation of the Wikipedia rules given to him.  Their point is that Wikipedia is not the place for cutting edge fact and that only commonly held and therefore well documented information.  The direct quote was something like "Wikipedia is not about what's true.  Wikipedia is about what's verifiable."  Now I can understand their point (although I'm not sure this is the best strategy especially if they do not let users know this in even a subtle way) but it seems to conflict a little with their having a page listing common misconceptions, doesn't it?  If these are truly common, then they represent the popular opinion and until they become the UNpopular opinion, wouldn't the truth be considered a bit too cutting edge?  I'm afraid that Wikipedia rules cannot reasonably contain both the cake and the eating of this particular cake.

The other odd thing is that many of these "common misconceptions", to my mind, aren't really misconceptions but rather misunderstandings of the words being used.  Take for example, the page's second point under Astronomy:

Black holes, contrary to their common image, do not necessarily suck up all the matter in the vicinity.

It's explained that black holes do have a specific mass and therefore can have less that other stars making them less "sucky" in terms of gravitational pull.  Perhaps they think that most people have this image of black holes just continually sucking in all matter from everywhere regardless of how far away it is.  Perhaps that IS what most people think but the crucial "truthiness" in this hinges around the word "vicinity".  I think the point about black holes (and I am no physicist) is that there IS a vicinity (i.e. the space inside the event horizon) in which black holes suck up all matter.

There's also the fact that "The United States Supreme Court did not actually rule that tomatoes are a vegetable, instead of fruit, in the botanical sense" despite some thinking that it did.  Or that "The word theory in the theory of evolution does not imply mainstream scientific doubt regarding its validity" while certainly many people like to pull that one in anti-evolution arguments.  These are, at base, problems with the public misunderstanding the meanings of words, not the concepts.

This would all be fine if this was it.  I could mentally translate "list of common misconceptions" to "list of common faulty word usage" but for a line that stands out in this list:

"Irregardless" is a word.

And for proof, someone has basically given the fact that it's in the dictionary.  It's used commonly enough to qualify as a word.  I'm not sure I like that idea, that there's a number of times said or people saying it beyond which any given configuration of sounds becomes a word.  In that case "um" has been a word for a long time.  Ok, even granting that, I guess what most people SHOULD say instead of "it's not a word" is that "it shouldn't be a word".  That's what I'm thinking when I hear it used.  "Why are you saying that?  If you stopped for just a second and listened to what you're saying, you'd realize that there's no point in saying 'irregardless'!  So just stop!"  Ok, fine it's a word.  That doesn't mean that it means what you think it means. Please stop saying things like that before some reasonably intelligent lifeform passes over Earth because words like that disqualified us from being labelled 'advanced'.  That and 'orientate'.  /shudder

My passion

I came across a simple question in my reading just now:  What is my passion/purpose?  Hmmm...  Good question.  My undergrad degree was in philosophy so I've thought about the purpose of life or existence but I have to say, honestly, I have never thought about what my passion would be.

So I started thinking.  The work I was reading suggested that I start writing down possibilities for what my passion/purpose could be and then stop when I find something that brings a tear to my eye.  Well, I am man enough to admit it had that happened but I found it pretty quickly and, although it didn't well up any tears, I was quite sure when I got to it.  The first thing I wrote down was "make a contribution".  I stared at that for a minute thinking, "Well, it should be a little more specific than that, right?"  I thought of my kids and how I'd like to help them grow up to be good and reasonable people.  I thought about philosophy and how I would like to promote rational thought.  And I thought about my work as a librarian, and then crazy words flew into my head:  SAVE THE LIBRARY.  I would like to save librarianship.  I would like to make more people understand the importance of libraries and librarians.  I would like to convince funders to do more funding, whoever they may be.  I would like the regular Joe/Joan on the street to have a better understanding and appreciation for what we do.  AND I would like for us to do better what we should and can do to maintain and streamline access to information.

Woah, right?  Big wish.  Big plan.  All you non-librarians out there may even think that it's a little silly.  (I'm hoping those in the profession don't think that.  lol)  But that's what would make me happy:  to ensure that librarians and what we do are still around in 10, 20, 50, or 100 years.

But how?  Well, some of the details of the wish suggest some of the macro-methods:  setting down the importance of librarianship and communicating it, contacting and lobbying those with the money that do and/or can support libraries, and to actively market libraries and librarians to the public.  And of course, to promote ways to improve ourselves.  We are not perfect.  No profession is.  But we, perhaps unlike many professionals, have the resources, the intelligence, and the flexibility to make those improvements.  All we really need is the plan and the desire.

Yeah...  that's what I'm talkin' about...

Music for May 27, 2011

Playlist for this morning's walk:

1. "Lovely Allen" by Holy Fuck
2. "Bed of Nails" by Alice Cooper
3. "How does the brain wave?" by Baby Elephant
4. "Teldrassil" from the World of Warcraft soundtrack
5. "I'm Eighteen" by Alice Cooper
6. "Jóga" by Björk

Music for May 26, 2011

Playlist for this morning's walk (it was an all-AIC walk):

1. "Head Creeps"
2. "Grind"
3. "Heaven Beside You"
4. "Brush Away"

Just before I put my headphones on, a car pulled up on the side of the road and pointed up.  I thought he was asking for directions but he was actually pointing to a hawk sitting on a streetlamp.  Cool.

Not enough time in the day

I spent a lot of today trying to fit in all the chores and responsibilities I have to do into a coherent and workable schedule, one in which I can get what I need to get done done but also not go absolutely bonkers with no time for myself, my kids, or the unknown.

I THOUGHT I had achieved a rock solid schedule but of course, it has cracked in a few key places already: forgot to include my daughter's new homework club time that started today, dinner took longer than expected to prepare particularly because the kids helped out, and important phone calls interfered. All perfectly expected unexpected things to happen and I'm glad they happened today... it will help me work out the kinks of the "time layout".

But it does bring into sharp relief the fact that, no matter what you're doing or what your priorities are, you can't get everything done. There is not enough time to fit everything in. You have to pick and choose and some things will have to fall by the wayside. I'm not sure what I'll have to drop but it will have to be something.

What has helped me is that I've taken the advice of almost every productivity-related website and actually written down my goals. I've even put them in order of importance:

1. My health (Exercise and eating right, as well as my comfort and entertainment. If I'm not happy and well, what's the point?);
2. My family (Both immediate and extended, my being with them and their welfare.);
3. My money (Not only making it but keeping it and saving it. Kind of important in this world.);
4. My learning (This includes self-imposed challenges, much of my non-fiction reading, things I would like to learn as well as things I really should learn for my career.);
   
5. My friends (Just as with my family, this in about connecting to them as well as supporting them. And it also includes other social efforts, making new friends, chatting up strangers meeting new people and the like.);
   
6. My profession (Librarianship of course, but can include related efforts such as anything else academic. This involves both working on my own professionalism and librarianship skills but also supporting the profession itself, with getting published and presenting at conferences.);
   
7. My "goodness" (Lacking a better single word for this, it refers to my efforts at making the work a better place, ethical goals, and helping people, however that manifests itself.); and
8. My administrative matters (Checking email, filing, organizing, communicating, etc. Holding a lot of the previous 7 together.).

Although I've created this list, and tag all my activities in my to do list (RTM) with them as appropriate, I don't feel as though I've fully integrated them (and it) into my routine and efforts. But I guess, what it should come down to is that activities furthering goals near the bottom of the list must be sacrificed for those nearer to the top. Thinking of it this way, I'm not sure I can, although I quite sure I should. I can't really stop checking email or the going through the bills as they come it. Perhaps for things like that, they need to be filtered and focused on how they support what is higher on the list of priorities. That sounds better. Still, some things I'm trying to do, must be canceled. Don't know what of course, and all that rambling above means that it's not going to be a simple matter to determine what or how.

Any ideas? Anyone out there in this situation with any part of the solution?

Not as much but more than I have.

A little over a month ago, I said I was going to learn French. Well, I took longer than I expected to prepare, started later than I expected, postponed it more than I should have, and changed my strategy too often.

But that's ok. I have certainly learned more French than I ever have before. I am still slowly working on it but, what with traveling and preparing for interviews and their presentations, plus other work I have to get done, I have reduced my efforts to learn La Belle Langue quite a bit. And the workload will only get worse. What I need is some touch of formal pressure to keep up with it. Maybe a language partner, or a regular tv show or vodcast to understand, something like that. My other issue is my efforts to retain what I have tried to learn each day... with my other responsibilities and projects, I need some easy way to insert repetition of key lessons into the following 24 hours, whether it's a vocab list to carry around or a phrase to go over in my head. Something to drill something into my head until it sticks.

Learning a new language is hard. Or maybe it's just me? Anyone else have issues with this kind of thing? Any tips on making it easier?

Tweet my own horn...

So as some of you may have noticed, I've been using Twitter for a while now. Everytime I mention it in conversation to a person not twit-lightened (lol), they shake their head violently and laugh about reading about whenever people go to the bathroom (and it's not because I used the word "twit-lightened"... I swear, this is the first time!).

I really like it actually. I find I'm thinking up a kinds of new types of tweets to put up. I've started listing the children's books I'm reading to my son every night (as well as the books and stories I'm reading), linking to them and (since I'm at finding the link at Amazon anyway) writing a little Amazon review about them (example). I'm always complaining about the dearth of book reviews out there to inform librarians in their collection development efforts so I figured I could do my small part to help out.

I've enjoyed Twittering so much, and see it as so potentially useful as an information dissemination tool, as well as a networking and archiving tool (I actually back-up my tweets myself, not being confident in Twitter's own willingness to store my inane statements throughout the years), that I've put in on my daily to-do list. Crazy, I know. Anyone else been using Twitter lately? Or something similar?

Busting my own hump.

For what feels like years, I've had an item in my to do list that I've managed to continually postpone despite the fact that I was so gung-ho when I wrote it down. Learn something new. I know, as a librarian I'm always doing that but I wanted it to be an active, concrete task that chose. Each month (crazy, huh?). I even made a list that has quite a few items on it, ranging in specificity from the incredibly broad and vague (e.g. Health.) to the painfully narrow (e.g. Learn the basics about "canonical discriminant analysis".).

My idea was that I would systematically add skills and content to my repertoire that would help me in my work, my profession and my life in general. But it's hard to do! With time constraints, chores at home, kids running around, and a billion other potential projects waiting for my attention, I have yet to sit down and choose something for my "month of learning".

But today was different. I chose something. French. Ok, not everything. I don't expect to become fluent. Just the basics. I remember a good deal of my high school French classes. I'm Canadian (that's got to count for something). And it's in my blood - my grandfather is fluent and very French-Canadian. My goal will be some basic (re)understanding of the fundamentals of grammar, a handle on accurate pronunciation, and a small but practical vocabulary. Perhaps enough to visit Quebec or France and not have to hope that someone speaks English! lol

Any self-directed learning plans of your own? Have you had any difficulties getting them accomplished, or even started? How have you solved them, or have you? Any ideas?

P.S. Oh and my deadline is actually August 1st so I actually have less than a month but I wanted my repeating task (of choosing a new something to learn) to be scheduled for the first of each month.

Wash, Rinse, Relax.

About a month ago, I heard on the radio (it's CBC so it's trustworthy) that, for the good of your hair, really, we shouldn't be washing our hair every single day. It has to do with the fact that your scalp/follicles produce oils to prevent your head from drying out (I think that's what they said) and since shampooing removes all that oil and grease, it's actually drying it out, causing more oils to be produced. Shampooing indirectly makes your hair greasier. And the last thing I need is to be doing damage to my already retreating hair. "Come back here, you!"

So I tried it. I only wash my hair about 3 times a week: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, just to make it easy to remember. I've been doing it every since that fateful radio show, so it's been about 5 weeks, and honestly, I really can't tell the difference. It felt somewhat weird the first few days without it, and I thought everyone was going to be able to tell and be all grossed out, but no, I'm not disgusting people daily, I haven't been scaring small children on the street.

So what do you think? Eww or yay? Try it. It saves your hair, oh and it also saves shampoo. Bonus!

A real day off...

I did remarkably little productive today. I had created a long list carefully scheduled for today's day off (due to either Heritage Day - a uniquely Kingston holiday - or Family Day - a recently conjured Ontario holiday) but disregarded it almost completely... I did reorganize all the items and postpone them appropriately. And you know what? I don't feel bad about it either. I got more accomplished Saturday and Sunday than I have in several past weekends so I figure I earned today's laziness. All I did today was:

• goof around in World of Warcraft, working on professions, checking mail, participating in silly guild chat...
• tried several more times in vain to convince my 8 year old daughter to PLEASE listen to what I have to say and that, unlike all the other parents in the world, I'm not saying these things for the good of my health... LOL
• and read an article that I will be peer reviewing for the Journal of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (JCHLA)

Ta-daa!

CHLA 2008 ready for registration...

Registration is now open for the Canadian Health Libraries Association 2008 Conference!

Taking place in sunny Halifax, Nova Scotia, the theme is "Navigating the seas of change"... I've never been to the east coast of Canada before, although I've lived and visited the east coast of the US before. It would obviously be much different and it would be interesting to attend this conference, but I went to last year's CHLA conference in Ottawa, many of my colleagues are going, and, besides, there are other conferences I'm considering, MLA and WILU being the two big ones coming up. I've never been to either Chicago, where MLA is this year, or Vancouver, where WILU is being held (Geez... I haven't been anywhere, have I?) so it would be interesting to see both but I don't know if I have enough professional development funds to cover both, and I certainly can't pay for one completely out of my own pocket so I'll probably have to choose. MLA is more closely linked to my current job but WILU is more generally applicable any job I'll have in the future. Chicago is closer and therefore cheaper, but Vancouver is still in Canada and if I took my wife we could make a little vacation out of it. Both locations sound interesting (although Chicago tips the scales slightly in this category). I don't know. I'll have to ask around for suggestions. Of course, YOU could tell me what you would vote for in a comment below... Hmmm...

Cat attack...

Helped a friend move over the weekend. She and her husband have a cat. I'm slightly allergic to cats. Nuff said?

Of course, that won't stop my wife and kids from making me get a cat for them! LOL Soon probably...

EOSET, babies, and a new job...

Presentations are over! I talked about library resources that can be used in the classroom last week at EOSET 2007. It was at RMC which was cool. Never been over there before. Nice old buildings. Probably older than some of the older buildings on the Queen's campus. Very impressive talk by Major Workman on teaching, technology, policy, and the future. Very inspiring and refreshing, and of course, candid. It is the military you know!

Also a great description of a new automated assignment/testing system for some professor of math... can't remember his name right now. (Check on the EOSET program, you'll find it.) Anyway, it was about this system that randomizes rather complex math problems so that students can take "quizzes" with as many questions as they'd like, as many times as they'd like. It actually turned out that students were doing like ten times as much work and loving it! Pretty cool.

And in other news, my coworker is having twins. Don't know whether they are boys or girls or what, or identical or not, but that's pretty cool. Actually, it's really old news but I haven't mentioned on here yet so it's news to you! And my sister-in-law is apparently pregnant. Babies everywhere!

Still looking for another job for when this temporary contract runs out. I spent a lot of time today working on my resume and cover letter for the one I'd like the most (gotta apply soon) (Update: Just noticed the page this links to is gone.  I believe it was related to supporting the continuing teacher education program at Queen's U.) and I've got to work on applying to a bunch of others as well. Wish me luck. Again. Oh boy.

And we're sick again...

What is it that's going around? My whole family is sick again, as well as several people at work and everywhere else. I seem to be doing the best at keeping it at bay, at least for the time being but I am feeling the effects of the contagions all around me. I really should stay home tomorrow but I just have a few important things to take care of. Maybe Wednesday... I'll have to check my schedule.

I did fix my bike over the weekend, so perhaps riding my bike, getting some exercise and some fresh air, will help me fight this thing. I'm gonna start riding my bike to work again, now that the weather is good again. I didn't today, thanks to some stupid weather forecast I saw that said it could possibly have rained. It did not rain.

Systematic reviews, Lord of the Rings, headaches and The Agenda...

Long simple day at work today. I received an email requesting advice/help with a search yesterday that was described as being for a systematic review. Now, in medicine, systematic reviews are the cream of the crop in terms of documentation/publication. They take a lot of research (in the literature), a lot of care, a great deal of analysis, are incredibly practical and focused, and are meant to be regularly and eternally updated. I thought, "Yes! I'm going to really do a good job on this and be part of something really useful!" I worked all day preparing the search, checking definitions, finding subject headings and synonyms to ensure that the search would be comprehensive, and I wrote back to the requester mid-stride to make sure they were aware of what I was doing and what they could expect. Also, for stats purposes I wanted to know whether they were faculty or professional health care staff... Near the end of the day I get a response saying that they are a student actually working on an assignment that they will be handing in (the first part of, anyway) to US!!! All that work for someone I can't do the work for! Gaaahhhh!!! Well, hopefully their supervisor (this person is on a work assignment outside of the school doing this research) is the one doing the systematic review so that I can at least give the work to someone. Maybe. Who knows. At least it was a good experience and the next time a request like that comes in I have learned a few tricks and tips to help me do an even better job!

It's funny though. This really came at an appropriate time. I have been thinking lately about how I (and other librarians) really should do "more work" helping our users. Not that librarians don't already do a lot of work, or that we have loads of extra time on our hands. I just feel as though we could (and should) be doing more impressive work for our users. For example, not many libraries do literature searches for their patrons. Many, if they do, charge for the service. Bracken Library here at Queen's University does this for staff and faculty and health care professionals for free (at least on an individual level). But even though these are time consuming, difficult, and usually much better than the user could have done alone, sometimes I feel as though we're still not doing enough. I discussed this with a colleague of mine and I'm not as confident in this opinion as I was... I'm not quite sure what exactly we could do more, given our time and education restraints, but I feel as though we are not quite as impressive as I know we could be. Or perhaps I'm just feeling as though I could do more and wish I had the opportunity. I don't know.

On a completely unrelated note, I've been playing the free beta version of Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) for the past week or so. It's not bad. World of Warcraft (WoW) is still my favourite but I can definitely see how someone could like LOTRO more. The graphics (of the environment) are much more impressive (flowing grass, more realistic animal behavior, etc), the quests and activities, etc. are much more involved, serious and have many more layers than WoW. But there're still some things that are keeping me in WoW: the interface graphics are much nicer and clearer, the world seems much bigger and full of more possibilities, and there are vastly more people using it making the experience a little more varied in terms of interactions and socialization. They both have jerks and morons who cheat, swear, hate, disturb others, or don't play "fair" although I'm surprised at the numbers of these players who have swarmed into LOTRO already. I'll play it until I have to pay, and then move on to another free demo/trial edition: Final Fantasy, Matrix Online, Star Wars Galaxies, Star Trek Online (whenever that comes out), etc.

My daughter is suffering from a bad headache right now. Well, actually she's probably asleep now but she was feeling pretty bad before she went to bed a while ago. Aren't headaches about the worst kind of pain you can imagine? It hurts sometimes just to think, and try not thinking for a while! Go on, try it. LOL Unfortunately, migraines seem to be common on both my side of the family and my wife's.

And I just finished watching my current favourite show on TV now: TVO's "The Agenda with Steve Paikin". Not for the faint of heart, or rather, mind. A political show, but one that deals with issues calmly, rationally, and intelligently. Today's show discussed France's upcoming presidential election, and the recent provincial vote in Quebec. One of the leading candidates in France (in second place no less) is a woman, who, if elected, would be the first female president in France's history. It always dismays and confuses me why, in this day and age why (US, Canadian, European, etc.) political leaders are still always white and male. Are voters the last to be able to see past our prejudices? And an interesting last note in the French election portion of the show was some comments about the animosity France has for the States, talking about how France sees itself as having once what America has now, and that it represents for France both their worst fears and their best dreams for their future. At the end of the discussion about Quebec politics, one of the "panelists" spoke of how Quebecers tend to vote for and respect intellectual candidates more than Ontarians (gawd, what a mouthful). I think this is a trend throughout Western society (and probably the whole world), that we seem to be getting smarter on average and yet we still despise or at least avoid intelligence. Quebec may be able to fend this bad habit off a bit more, thanks to a language barrier between them and us english-speaking troglodytes but we'll bring them over to the dark side yet! LOL Finally, at the end of the show, Steve spoke with one of the producers of the show, which totally cracked me up. Following on the heals of the anti-intellectualism comment, it was brought up that the producer had (and has) spoken to guests on the show about words they cannot use: "narcissism" and "ontological" being two examples of words that "don't travel well". Writing this down now makes me wonder why I totally cracked up at this at the time! LOL

Easter snow and change...

So, hello and goodbye to Easter. My family and I spent the weekend at my parents, which is ok (unlike many people I know, I like my parents) but I always prefer staying home. Yes, yes, what a bore I am. But I just like being with all my stuff: I like sleeping in my own bed, I like being able to do the things I need to do (whether I actually do them or not), and besides, my parents only have satellite TV and dial-up internet access! Gawd! LOL

The weather has been horrible lately. It's supposed to be spring now! I mean I like the cold more than anyone else around apparently but even I'm getting a little tired of it. It actually snowed for several days recently. It's all gone now but it's still cold. I've "put away" my winter coat but I might have to get it right back out again... Fortunately it's still hanging on the hook by the door so I won't have to go very far to get it. LOL

I was away (from work) sick back on the 3rd. I don't usually take sick days and I wasn't anywhere as near sick as I usually am when I convince myself to do it but I think it was the best thing I could have done. It usually takes be several days of dragging myself into work sick as a dog before I stay home and then I'm sick for many more days after that. This time I felt 100% better the very next day. I think I may make this "listening to my body" thing more of a habit!

I attended a web/teleconference on the changes in the catalog by K. Calhoun back on the 4th. She wasn't the most engaging speaker but with my growing interest in the perceptions people have about librarianship (see my new blog, Buns & Shushings) (Update 20110628:  New blog now defunct.) and therefore the usability of our resources, I was rather opinionated about it. I was furiously scribbling down notes throughout the presentation and at the end, when she asked for comments/questions, I let her have it! LOL Well, actually, I hung back, not wanting to be the first to talk (nobody else was saying anything, at my location or otherwise), but then I leapt. Of course, when I leapt, several other people leapt too and my "hand up" wasn't recognized until the very end and I had to cut my "tirade" short. I was pretty tame actually, trying to convince the audience of the seemingly obvious point that we need to give people what they want, listen to why they "hate" us so much, and just offer more possibilities. The catalog (and really all information tools) needs to change but it should be in the direction of offering more, rather than replacing what it already does well with different functions. For example, don't replace subject headings with social tagging, use both!

Coming to a head...

"Matthew 2.0" screenshot
Originally uploaded by mjthomas43.

And speaking of heads, isn't mine big??? LOL I read somewhere that in a personal blog/site you should have a picture of yourself to let your audience know who they are dealing with. So what better way to include a pic of me, than to have my big head sticking into the works from stage left?

So, this is my latest design. I'm not completely happy with it but it will pretty much have to do for now. I've got other things to do now. I will implement some minor changes here and there (I've received some valuable advice from JennTSG, and am open to advice from anyone else) but the general layout will remain the same... Unless I get struck with inspiration (which is sometimes as painful as being struck by lightning).

The other things I have to do are: create two other blogs I have ideas for (one on reference service and one on perceptions of librarianship, libraries, librarians, etc.), work on some presentations and posters and reports I have signed on to do, keep beating away at the dead horse I call looking for a permanent position nearby, and probably some other things that escape me for the moment.

I've been watching TVO's "The Agenda" which is totally awesome. Political and geeky and certainly NOT for the drowsy, it is primarily a interview/discussion show that focuses on Canadian (and sometimes world) politics and social issues. Put your thinking cap on, have a cup of coffee (ewwwww!) and give it a try.

Took my 2yo son to the photographers tonight to get a picture taken to include in his "Application for a Citizenship Certificate from Inside Canada (Proof of Citizenship) Under Section 3" (he was born in the States) which I really should have done a year ago but I'm doing it! Get off my back already!

And I was working on creating a "cheat sheet" for using the staff wiki at work today. I'm training the staff at Bracken on how to use a/the wiki and they've requested a handout. Of course, I can't just give them some notes and stuff on a piece of paper.... I have to create a work of art! Place the screenshots just so, choose colours, select fonts, perfect the layout... It has to be something I can be proud of, something people LIKE to look at, something they can hang on their wall... well maybe not that good, but still.

Work and not work...

This image from flickr is an excellent graphic to go along with today's post. (Update 20110628: Had to relink to the image since it disappeared. This one is by Paul Stamatiou.  The original was by Rsibaja. Backup is here.) I've spent several days over the past week or so rethinking and redesigning my blog. I'm still not perfectly happy with it (can you ever be) but I think I've got it to a point where I can let it be for a while. I've still got to create a forwarding page from the old url to here but that shouldn't take much time.

In other news... I've been going for family walks a little bit more recently. I was helping my 6yo daughter ride her bike and after a few trips up and down the sidewalk I felt like I was going to die... I think that's a hint from my body telling me that I should get a little more exercise. LOL

Work's good. It's getting closer and closer to the end of my temporary contract at Bracken so I'm getting a little anxious, looking and preparing for any job openings at Queen's U or in Kingston (or near enough anyway). Now that my colleague across the hall has officially announced that she's going on maternity leave in October, I feel a little less panicked, but I certainly don't want to just assume that that will be enough: I will still be looking and preparing in any case.

I've been using the "Remember the Milk" site to record my to do list and I've put several presentations I'd like to give at some upcoming conferences and events. Hopefully I'll be able to submit them, get accepted and complete them all... Speaking of which, I'd better get doing some of them and stop procrastinating. I've got to make dinner for the family first.

(Oh yeah, I've also taken some nice screenshots of some things in World of Warcraft. I'll put them in flickr and then maybe post one of two of them here. Along with a screenshot of my "completed" new design. For historical purposes.)

Waking up to everything...

Max continues to get up several time during the night and managed to, for the past two mornings, end up in bed with us without knowing until it was too late. I swear he's now hardwired to get up and stumble over (with incredibly ninja stealthing abilities) to our room.

Listening to Pink Floyd's "Coming Back to Life". I remember listening to this in university, alone in my dorm room. It starts out as a very "pity me", "how could you" kind of song but then turns into "Damn straight, screw you, I'm gonna make it" kind of song.

Did a HUGE literature search for a faculty member/resident/grad student (not sure really... it's very complicated... LOL) yesterday on zinc. Yes zinc. That's pretty much all I had to go on. Rather broad don't you think. Just RCTs and reviews of course, but still. Now you're jealous of my fantabulous job, aren't you?

The fire alarm went off yesterday... Thank GAWD it was a pretty nice day, weather-wise.

Found out that a co-worker of mine is pregnant. Congratulations and good luck and all that, yeah, yeah... go on maternity leave already so I can stay at Bracken a little longer please!!! LOL

Watched a couple webcast/webinars today. One on the databases Expanded Academic ASAP and Academic OneFile (didn't learn much new, already played around with them a few weeks ago), but the other one was about getting new knowledge to clinicians more and faster (see a summary of the session). We thought, "Hey, that sounds like libraries should and would be involved in that."  Nope. He didn't really put librarianship in too flattering a light. In fact, he put us in a column of other "ways for doctors to stay current that DON'T work". Thanks, Bri.

But in a way I agree with him. We don't do enough. We do a lot of work, and, what we do, I think we do well. But when it comes to pushing the information out to the users, changing people's minds about the value of good research practices, helping answer the questions that people have and may not even know that they have, we're not pushing hard enough. Most of the time we're not pushing at all. We need to be proactive, to be out there in people's faces, showing them that we exist, that we are valuable, and that we want to help. We can't always wait for them to come to us. That may sound odd from a librarian, but we need to be "loud and proud" and prove out worth. But it will take more work and smarter work for us to do it. But we can. I hope we will.