Larocque and Roll

Why coffee at 9:30pm is a bad thing June 11, 2008

All afternoon, I had a craving for chocolate chip cookies. Not just any chocolate chip cookies - the ones I get at the coffee shop where I get my Wednesday lattes [1]. By the time I’d closed up the department and everything was shut down, I decided that, what the hell, I was going for it. However, not only did I come out with two lovely chocolate chip cookies, I also came out with a coffee - and not a decaf.

Now, here it is almost 11pm, and I’m just slightly wired. Which is the story of my week - stress and running on caffeine. I had an awesome [2] work-related stress dream the other night where I finished doing up the work schedule for the next few weeks and then someone asked if I’d remembered to add the new employee in my department to it. “Of course,” I replied, knowing that I’d spent so much time making sure that everything was in order. “No, not her - the other [woman with same name].” At which point I realized that not only was I not in my library, I didn’t know half the people waiting to look at the schedule, meaning that the schedule I’d been slaving over was completely wrong.

Sunday night I dreamed that I was smoking two cigarettes at once. Just so you know, I don’t smoke, nor have I ever been a smoker [3]. I think it’s a sign I need to chill out.

[1] On Wednesday, I go into work in the afternoon and stay late, so I usually pick up a latte on my way in. It’s become a ritual, and something to which I look forward.
[2] And by “awesome” I mean “nightmare.”
[3] I have smoked cigars on a couple of occasions. That can be chalked up to two things: grad school and the awesome cigar bar in Halifax.

I’m not internationally known, but I’m known throughout the microphone February 10, 2008

Last week, it was my distinct pleasure to spend it in Toronto surrounded by friends, colleagues, and other fellow librarians. There were lots of interesting sessions, and tons of things to do when you weren’t in session. My week went something like this:

Tuesday:
Up at 4:30am to catch the bus to TO. Normally, I’d take the train, but the train doesn’t get there until 7pm, IF it runs on time. Getting up at an ungodly hour to take the bus means I get into the city by early afternoon, leaving me enough time to do some sightseeing and shopping. Which I did - I walked up Spadina to Queen West, and hit Americo Yarns. Then I wandered into Kensington Market, went to Lettuce Knit for yarn and help [1]. I also found a cool artist’s market, and bought a print for in my living room [3]. Caught the subway back to the hotel, ditched my purchases, and set off to Jorge’s. I finally got to meet Mrs. Jorge and Olivia, both of whom are adorable. Quite possibly the funniest line of the evening was when Jorge described Olivia’s reaction to the vacuum cleaner: “She went all Leonidas on it.”

Wednesday:
An all-day pre-conference session. More people than had signed up were there, so we were pretty packed in. There were a few people I knew from other meetings, Facebook (Hi Joanna!), or through other friends (Hey Debra!) Met some new friends for drinks and dessert, and then hit the opening reception to find Karen and Steve [4]. Also ran into a couple of librarians from up this way (Hi Leslie, Shelly and Rebecca!) and Jennifer, who was making the big move to Montreal and wouldn’t be convening my session [5].

Thursday:
First official day of the conference! We [6] started it by heading out to our traditional conference breakfast spot for our traditional conference breakfast, which consists of waffles/crepes with fruit and chocolate and/or whipped cream. Delightful! Then onto the first session of the day, which was about getting and using user feedback. Then onto the session I was convening on open source software in the developing world, and a stint in the AskOn booth after that [7]. Finally, I met up with a bunch of other librarians to go see a taping of The Hour. I could spend a great deal of time talking about how cool it was; instead, I’ll give you these pics:

Friday:
Seriously, it’s kind of a blur, it was that busy. However, I do remember the most important part of the day - going out for dinner! The same group of usual suspects went to the Mexican restaurant Karen, Steve and I found last year. We were worried that it wouldn’t be as good as we remembered, but that fear was completely unfounded - not only was the food as spectacular as we remembered, this year they had a mariachi band! Afterwards we hit the Indigo flagship store, then headed home.

Saturday:
Checkout! Fortunately, I do it early enough to avoid the crush. Then off to a session, and then to my presentation. There’s not much to tell about it, at least not much that wouldn’t bore most people to tears at this point [8]. Except to say that it went well, and I didn’t make any egregious mistakes. Walked down to meet my mom and sister for lunch, and then headed back home with them - hell, I’d come that far, I might as well take a day or two to visit the folks. Had a great supper, and polished off many bottles of wine with my sister and cousin while playing Settlers of Catan, at least until I started falling asleep at the table and my b-i-l took over for me.

Sunday:
A big family outing to celebrate my dad’s birthday and retirement. The neph was adorable, and flirted with all the waitresses. Then home for more Settlers of Catan, and sitting around watching some football game. Are they still playing at this time of year?

Monday:
Home again, this time by train. Again, slept most of the way.

So, there you have it - my week down in the T-dot. It was fun, and I’m already looking forward to next year.

[1] I started knitting a sock on the bus when I wasn’t sleeping [2]. At some point, a whole lot of stitches fell off the needle and started unraveling. The kind and friendly woman there picked them back up and put them on the needle for me.
[2] Which was most of the time.
[3] Once I get a frame for it.
[4] Or as I started calling them, The Nickel City Posse.
[5] Yeah - I was also presenting at the conference. More on that later.
[6] By “we”, I mean Karen, Steve, Joanne (from TBay) and her sister Cathy who’s also a librarian.
[7] I’m one of the friendly AskOn operators, by the way.
[8] Maybe some other day.

Smarty pants December 12, 2007

Thanks to everyone who sent me encouraging messages yesterday after I posted my Facebook status as “stupid stupid stupid!” I did send a few people a brief explanation, but here’s the long story:

Whenever anyone on our public computers sent something to the printer, it printed immediately. Then there were discussions/arguments about what the person had to pay for, and sometimes the exchanges were heated. Or, someone would print something and never pick it up, so at the end of the day we were stuck with a stack of paper no one wanted.

The company who made the reservation software we have on the public computers also makes a piece of software which will hold print jobs until the person comes to pick them up, thus cutting down on arguments and wasted paper.

So, yesterday, the rep was coming to install it on our computers. We’ve been corresponding for weeks about network setups, system requirements, blah blah blah. Monday night she sent me a confirmation email, making sure that the computer I wanted the control software installed on was able to print to the printer the public computers use.

Which is when it hit me: the circ computers don’t use that printer. In fact, they can’t see it at all because the public computers are on a completely different network, so they wouldn’t be able to control the print jobs. In the three months we’ve been corresponding about setting this up, I somehow managed to forget this minor, but key, detail.

In the end, our IT folk came up with a workable solution, and basically saved my ass. I’m still reeling from how foolish it was to overlook that last bit, and how much stress it put on me and the IT folk. There’s no excuse for this, and the only defense I can offer is that I’m currently overseeing three other major projects, all of which are coming to a head this month, not to mention all the day to day details, like scheduling and vacations and overtime.

Fortunately, today I was back to my usual self. Not quite brilliant, but far from the idiot I felt I was Monday night.

You need to see this April 25, 2007

Rather than write a lengthy treatise about what I’ve been up to (short story: busy at work, busy at home) I have pictures to share with you that hopefully capture some of what I’ve been doing lately.

The weather has been spectacular lately, which has given me a chance to play in my garden. Last week, I got to play the game every new homeowner gets to play in the spring - Weed or Plant?

Weed, I think. I can’t remember what was there in the fall.

Easy! Plant - irises! And they’ve doubled in size since I took the picture.

The tulips in the back are finally starting to bloom.

These are going to be sunflowers, once they start growing.

On Saturday night, I looked out my back door and saw this.

I thought, How the hell did Bing get past me when I went outside? Turning to go get a can of cat food to lure him back in, I tripped over the real Bing. Since then, I’ve learned this guy’s name is Chicklet, and he belongs to the house around the corner.

The hat is a hatband away from being finished.

The yarn is splity and twisty, and I wouldn’t use it again. For anyone thinking of making this hat, I’d suggest you go with something comparable instead of the recommended yarn. Also, I’m thinking of adapting it to make a baby hat. (To my sister: calm down, not for you!)

And, I got new glasses!

I love them! (Please don’t ask me what that expression on my face is. It’s not quite a smile, not quite a wince of pain. It may actually be both.)

The only thing missing is a picture of the heap o’ papers on my desk at work. It’s almost the end of the month, with all its associated administrivia (statistics, board reports, timesheets, etc.) I’m also working on a presentation I’m doing at a conference next month on all the fantastic technology projects we’re doing at the library. In all honesty, some of them are pretty cool and I should share them with you someday.

Not only do I play one on television, I am one in real life March 4, 2007

As y’all are aware, I am a librarian. I am also a very lazy person, which is why I don’t really spend all that much time writing about what’s going on in Libraryland - if you were truly interested in it, there are a hundred other people out there doing it better than I am. However, I’m also very opinionated, although I choose not to spew forth my many and varied opinions here (or at least, all that often). Something happened recently that made me want to climb onto my soapbox and voice my opinion.

A group of librarians have publicly stated that they will not add a book, titled The Higher Power of Lucky, to their collections because it contains the word “scrotum.” (here’s the response from the author, who also happens to be a librarian.)

Here’s what I think about this:

Firstly, the librarian’s and parent’s reaction is immature and childish, and more suited to fourth-graders than adults. In the context in which it is used (the character sees a snake bite a dog’s scrotum), the word is appropriate - it’s the proper word for the part of the anatomy being referenced. Would they have preferred the author used a different term for it? Are they too horrified that children might learn the anatomically correct name for it instead of calling it something cutesy and euphemistic, like “the thingy”? By stating that the appearance of this word will cause some kind of mental harm, are we not sending the message that there are parts of our bodies that are shameful and should never be talked about if we tell children, “You can’t read that because it contains a bad word”?

Secondly, since when is it our job as librarians to censor what people read? We’re supposed to make the books, the movies, the music, the artwork, the information, etc. available to all, and let the individual patron make up their minds. If I don’t like what an author or an artist has to say, then okay - I won’t read/view their work, but it doesn’t mean I’m going to prevent you from reading/viewing it and letting you come to your own conclusions. If a parent doesn’t want their child to read or watch something, then it is up to the parent to explain to the child why. Don’t tell us to remove something from our collection because you can’t be bothered to have a conversation with your child about your beliefs and values, or about how they feel about something they’ve read/watched/heard.

There are a number of reasons a library might not have a controversial work available - underfunding, it’s been stolen/gone missing, it’s difficult to obtain, it’s out of print/out of circulation, and so on. However, to stand up and say, “I’m not going to add this to my collection because it has a dirty word in it!” is shameful and a black mark on our profession.

And then there’s the whole backlash effect - any time someone says “let’s ban this book because it contains passages about witchcraft/the occult/sex/drug use/etc!”, a lot of people sit up, take notice, and say, “hey, I hadn’t planned on reading that, but now I’m intrigued!” Calls to ban books aren’t at all effective, because it only makes them more popular. Which brings me to this…

This past week was Freedom to Read week. A friend and former co-worker of mine has organized a banned book reading challenge to celebrate the freedom to read whatever you want without anyone telling you why you shouldn’t be able to. Sign up, indicate how many banned books you’re going to read between now and the end of June, and then report back when you’ve finished reading them.

Seasonally appropriate February 4, 2007

It’s hard to imagine that just two days ago, I was wandering from the MTCC to another building nearby without a jacket, mittens, or scarf without being cold. Now that I’m home in North Bay, and the weather has finally started being seasonally appropriate, I can’t imagine not wearing a hat, scarf, handwarmers and mittens just to walk to my car. Tonight it’s -22 and dropping - so cold that the snow squeaks when you walk on it.

The other seasonally appropriate occurance was the considerable snowfall we had between my leaving Tuesday and my arriving home last night, which was somewhere in the neighbourhood of two or more feet. I had to dig my poor little car out of a considerable snowbank when I got back to the train/bus station. And this was on top of the snow we already had.

So! The conference! I’m sure you’re waiting with baited breath to hear how it went, since I was not so much writing about it while I was there. I’d have to say that this was one of the better OLA conferences I’ve been to in recent years. I went to many excellent sessions, and only walked out of one which was largely irrelevant to my interestes (in addition to being not at all what I hoped it would be.) If I were to list all the people I met and want to extend greetings to, I’d be here until tomorrow - suffice to say, if we talked, I’d just like to say “HI!” and I look forward to emailing/speaking/meeting with you over the next little while.

The biggest problem with these conferences is that I always come away with a million ideas which I’d like to implement (A wiki for the employee manual? Sure! A blog for my department to publicize our recent aquisitions? Very necessary! Genealogy podcasting? Why aren’t we already doing that!) However, I feel like Cinderella - I can work on a plan for these things, but only when I’ve finished the library stats for this month, and the January vacation/overtime logs for the department, and writing the scripts for the virtual library project, and the other hundered or so things that crop up on a daily basis.

I love my job, and the administrivia is just part of the job. I just need to manage my time better. And be more organized.

* * *

The night before I left, I downloaded some iTunes-y goodness to listen to while on the train. Regina Spektor’s “Begin to Hope” got heavy airplay - most noteably, “Fidelity,” “Samson,” and “20 Years of Snow.” And I’m sort of embarrased to admit how many times in a row I listed to Mika’s “Grace Kelly” - it’s just that perky and infectious and fun.

This is how we do it in the T-dot February 1, 2007

I’m sure a whole lot of you now hate me for putting that song back in your head. Just trying singing “Copacabana” which is what’s been stuck in my head all day. Better now?

So, other than the inital panic on Monday, a very late arrival in Toronto on Tuesday night, and then a ride on the wrong subway train followed by a bus ride to the correct station, everything has been coming up roses. It’s been a busy day, and it’s not yet over. My hotel room is far too classy for me, and I felt like such a hick when I arrived. I’m almost over it, but I still feel like any moment, the concierge and a squad of heavily muscled men (and not in the good way) will arrive to evict me.

I’ve attended three sessions and a luncheon meeting, and it’s all been wonderfully interesting. I’m looking forward to the sessions and meetings tomorrow, and hope that the creeping feeling that I’m going to be utterly swamped at work next week will hold off, at least until I get home.

Oh, also? There’s apparently a blizzard going on at home right now. 30cm of snow - lovely!

Tragedy January 17, 2007

We had a death in the library on Tuesday. Thomas, who’s always sat in the same spot to do his job, gave up the ghost at around 3 in the afternoon. He started working, made a funny noise, and then quit. Fine, but then there was the smell, which patrons noticed and commented on.

Frankly, I don’t have time for this. I’m getting ready for the OLA conference in two weeks, and have a ton of stuff to do. I don’t need to deal with a death and all the accompanying crap that goes along with it. On top of this, how the hell am I supposed to get him out of the library? He’s too big to fit in the dinky little elevator, so we may have to hack him up and take him out piece by piece, and deal with the mess afterwards. Whatever we do, it has to be done soon - I’m getting sick of looking at the corpse.

By the way, I’m talking about one of our microfilm readers. I bet you thought I was talking about one of the patrons!

(Yes, all our computers and microfilm readers have names. We’re quirky that way. There were four microfilm readers - Minnie, Fuji, Thomas and Franklin - of which only two work (Minnie and Franklin). Minnie is hooked up to a computer, Sonia/Sonya, and you can print things on her. Franklin is a year older than me, which is like two hundered in microfilm reader years.

The rest of our computers have similarly clever names - downstairs, we have internet stations with names like Colt, Harrison, Wordsworth, and Skye. The three circ computers in the Adult department are named after the three musketeers, Arthos, Porthos, and Aramis. The computers in the training room are named after the seven dwarves.

One of the major reasons for doing this is to help with identification if there’s a problem; rather than telling IT computer 3423 or the second circ computer on the left isn’t working, we can just tell them that Fiona is being grumpy, and they know exactly which computer to look at.)

Ignore the Gal in the Glass Office (or, Why I Shouldn’t Drink a Pot of Coffee in the Morning) October 15, 2004

At work, I’m a member of a team that is creating an auditing document. It’s to be used by the teams who will be auditing the programs we offer our clients. Right now, we’re at the stage where we have almost completed the process, but need to test it out to see how it all works. During our regular meeting on Wednesday, I was assigned the task to create scenarios on which to test this draft document. This morning, while working on another document, I began thinking about possible scenarios - all of them silly, of course, because I had slept very well the night before* and had consumed a pot of coffee this morning.

• Scenario #1: Problem Library Users - the program is designed to teach librarians how to deal with those library users who make your life a living hell. You’ll learn when and how to confront them, when to ignore them and walk away, and how to hide the bodies if the first two suggestions fail.
• Scenario #2: Effective Gossip-mongering - the Library is the hub of any community, where residents go for all of their information needs, from formal and informal sources. As such, the library should be *the* place residents turn to when they want to know the latest news about what everyone else is doing. The tools presented in this workshop will teach you how to collect tidbits of gossip, how to assemble them into a more complete picture, and how to go about passing them along.
• Scenario #3: Computer Repairs 101 - How many times a day are Librarians forced to drop everything and deal with library users complaining about a major computer malfunction, when in reality the problem is no more complicated than the mouse cord has come unplugged? Or even worse, what happens when the library user announces they have “fixed” the problem, which results in one less computer, irrate Internet users and a visit from the computer technician? In this workshop, librarians will learn how to discourage users from undertaking “repairs”, and technical-sounding jargon to placaite the most insistent “computer expert.”
• Scenario #4: Erotica Pool** - Libraries will have a chance to host a collection of tasteful videos, books, CDs and “how-to” manuals. Marital aids not included.
• Scenario #5: Collecting Overdue Materials - are polite reminders and mailed notices being ignored? Do library users feign surprise when you tell them that the book they borrowed in January is past due and needs to be returned immediately? Learn the take-down and repo techniques that are used by the top bounty hunters in Ontario and across Canada.

Naturally, I’m just kidding and would never actually submit any of these as legitimate scenarios. Although, I’d be curious to see what happens if libraries express an interest in #4.

* Of course, I had another one of my stupid post-apocalyptic dreams. Usually, something disasterous has happened on a global scale, and I’m stuck trying to find various family members - this time, my sister Rachelle who hadn’t been heard from, and my sister Denise, who had left me her cat and gone to work, not to be seen again - and figure out how we’re going to survive. Then I wake up and try to figure out if what I’m hearing outside is rioting or just traffic and rain.

** A “pool” is a special collection of materials, usually something that a library doesn’t have or can’t afford to have a whole collection of, and is rotated between participating libraries. Sometimes this might be DVDs or videos, talking books or music CDs.

Does my library have this book? September 3, 2004

Jon Udell: LibraryLookup homepage

(From: Jon Udell: LibraryLookup homepage)

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