(i’m pretty sure i watched greg and free karaoke this tune at IL one year, but my memory, she abandons me regularly)

WEDNESDAY: (aka: hump day. all down hill from here.)

6:45am: wake up, read email and  blogs, eat the rest of the blackberries in the fridge, showeriffic, etc etc etc

9ish: dive into some emails that have been kicking around for too long. try and find the provenance of a photo in a book the library published in the mid-90s. no photo caption, no acknowledgments, and the editor has since retired. consider purchasing padding for my desk since i keep banging my head against it.

10am: meeting at the grad and postdoctoral studies office to talk about a bunch of issues around electronic theses & dissertations. productive meetings ftw!

noon: rush back to my office for my question point/meebo shift. slooooow shift. but this gives me time to deal with more emails, setup more meetings, and inhale a sammich at my desk.

afternoon: talk to colleagues at other libraries about ETDs. water the plants in my new office (trying to revive them). contemplate unpacking all the boxes. get quotes on servers. realize i haven’t backed up my computer in months…

4pm: meeting with colleagues about an upcoming digitization project. more deets to come.

5pm: get email notifying me that the reimbursement for my travel expenses will be in my bank account by the weekend. best news of the day.

5:30pm: 5 à 7 with library school friends. wing night!

8:30pm: check in with my friends in the computer. consider killing pixellated bad guys but decide to read wired magazine (ipad edition) instead.

nightish: re-watch rip: a remix manifesto. get all ragey about the state of libraryland and wonder how we can better support remix culture. draft some notes for a post/article/rant at a conference.

midnightish: write this thinger.

[july 28, 10am: realize i didn't publish this last night before going sleep, so... i do that.]

* nope, not a post about how newpapers are filed in libraries, how newspapers are part of  library collections, nor about libraries in newspaper organizations…

cc licensed flickr photo shared by aplumb

i used to work at the Montreal Gazette. i worked in the newsroom for about 8 years. i started off making photocopies and delivering faxes in my CCCP tshirt (the newsroom manager didn’t worry too much about dresscodes, so long as i was dressed) and ended up compiling the scoreboard pages til the wee hours (while dealing with crank calls from editors phoning me for the cricket score for “team birdy num-num”).
it was a tremendous experience. i worked with many awesome folk, and every day was different because, ya know, that’s what it’s like in the news biz.

• the 1995 referendum (with a livestream of the newsroom).
• Princess Di’s death (dump everything planned for the front section and update coverage between editions. at 5pm she had been in an accident, by sports final, she was… dead?).
• 9/11 (well, that was just crazy. did everything that day including drive a reporter’s car to his house in the plateau because he was en route to NYC with a photog and he would have gotten a ticket outside the old gazoo bldg).

thanks to working in a newsroom, i am also most productive between 10pm and 2am, comfortable with crazy deadlines, and a stickler for the usability-side of the media (note: if the index has an inaccurate page for Ann Landers, your boss will be pissed. and if you mess up the Expos boxscore in the scoreboard page, don’t bother showing up the next day.)
i have a deep affection for the media, and especially newsrooms.
before leaving the Gazette i said that the only job i wanted there was publisher, but it’s hard to get that gig straight from copy clerk. i used to joke that i was going to start a competing newspaper in Montreal and hire away all of the best people from the Gazette. i didn’t want to do this to force the Gazette under, but because competition is healthy, and the Gazette was infinitely better when the Montreal Daily was competing against it for subscriptions. if you’re the only anglo daily in a city, there’s no reason to bring your A game, is there?
BEFORE YOU YELL AT ME… the folks at the Gazette up til now have been trying to bring their A game. but the entire concept of media is all over the place right now and old industries have a hard time adjusting. now i’m not for propping up these industries so that they don’t have to change. screw that. if libraries can move from huge tomes chained to desks to producing open access resources for the world, everyone else can learn a new trick too. but i do think we can’t dismiss the concept of the newspaper simply because “everything is online now”.
good newspapers aggregate and curate information for their local readers. they simplify or enhance, when required. they think about the local population when going through the sked. the go out in the local area and solicit feedback from people. they are the record of a place, a time, a citizenry.
good newspapers and good libraries have a helluva lot in common. i have always thought we should be working together more closely. how can we do this?

cc licensed flickr photo shared by Gilderic

la bella ali tagged me for this awhile back… (sorry babe!) i skipped a few Qs as i am currently sans kids.

so here we go.

1. Is there anything you’ve ever eaten that was so delicious that you think of it and go kind of misty-eyed to this very day?

• my mom’s yorkshire pudding tastes like joy. (and at a zillion calories, why wouldn’t it?)

2. Are you a city person or country person? Half and half? Why?

• until my mid-teens i adored living in the suburbs. lachine was filled with parks, kids playing in the streets, and a real sense of community. and when i think of raising kids, i would want to do that in the ‘burbs, at least for the first few years. (note: i didn’t go to high school in lachine. best decision i ever made.) (not because lachine high wasn’t a great school, but because it got me out of the usual.)
• as an adult – city. please.

4. What’s the loveliest place you’ve ever traveled? Could be wildly exotic or comfortingly local.

• loveliest would be a tie between barcelona and guadeloupe. as for my new fave place to live? edinburgh. in a heartbeat.

5. Okay, same as Sigrid: Laundry tips? Please?

• a rag sprayed with white vinegar stops almost all static in the dryer.
• wash bright blue items with white items to increase the “whiteness”.

6. Do you have a life plan, or do you just sort of truck along?

• everyday i want to be happy – adjust life accordingly. when that fails, review life, adjust accordingly. (basically – i roll with the punches.)

7. Would friends of the teenage you recognize the current you? Would you still get along?

• i think they would definitely recognize me. and for the most part, we’d still get along. and like ali, i’m still friends with a bunch of them. (including ali)

8. Any novels to recommend for an almost-seven-year-old girl? What were your favourites? Which are you looking forward to sharing with your own kid(s)?

• ali’s list is pretty good. i could prolly pull together a list from some youth librarians for you. these days, graphic novels are very popular and they have been proven to build literacy skills just like traditional texts. </endofmyliteracyspeech

this week i nuked my zotero library.*

that library was created in 2006 when i was starting my MLIS – and all the zigzagging that involves, and then it went on to follow me through my first year as a liaison librarian (and the ZOMG WHAT AM I DOING I DON’T KNOW ANYTHINGness), and now my current gig (and the OHAI ROADMAP-LESS JOB).

basically, it was out of control.

• i would use it to track items that i needed for both personal (home-buying information, health information for friends n’family, the awesome exploits of friends, etc), and professional reasons (research, professional development, future-thinking things that get my bass thumping).
• the “to read” folder was filled with 100+ items that i, ummm, was never going to read.
• the folders were a disaster and i didn’t use tags to it was 39 kinds of chaotic.

so now i am rebuilding it from scratch. and i am relieved. i’m sure it will again get bloated and out of control, but for now, i feel more efficient with it. and i have vowed to use the notes feature to scribble things to myself, and to make better use of folders and tags.

and to always be a fan of zotero, because it really has made oh-so-much of my life easier.

*errrr, i backed it up first, then nuked it. i ain’t no dummy.

well done BYU!

check out the McGill Library Blog where i’m live-blogging ePublishing in the Scholarly Community. there will be webcasting this afternoon as well.

i’m currently taking a course to familiarize myself with copyright since so much of my day involves depositing work in the IR, digitizing & printing rare texts, and publishing scholarly journals.

given that my new gig at mcgill revolves around scholarly communication, copyright is something i deal with on a daily basis.
for the record, i believe:

• copyright is important and artists should have their works protected so they can make a living
• [speaking as a scholarly communication chica] university presses help authors make the best of their work, through peer-review, copy-editing, and layout (check out MQUP‘s books – attractive scholarly texts? NOT kookytalk!)
• copyright law in canada (and the u.s. since i hear about that regularly as well) is in need of a kick-inna-pants because it is no longer protecting culture but inhibiting it
• a lot of scholarly presses are burrowing their heads in the sand in lieu of evaluating their business models

larry lessig (he of creative commons) gave a talk at educause this year, and not only is it one of his best talks, but it looks at the issue of copyright in an academic milieu – something which (i agree) needs re-evaluation.

i love dares. doing scary things (hello battledecks…) is fun.
University of Toronto library students seem to like dares as well – and have taken it to the next level by publicly documenting their dare in order to raise money to fight AIDS in Africa.
the dare? take photos of strangers holding a honkin’ huge “i <3 librarians” sign. the flickr stream is filled with great pix.
guerilla marketing for a good cause.

(thanks Aaron for posting about this!)

update: these photos would be extra awesome if they were licensed under Creative Commons (hint! hint!)