Things I have done between April and November of this year:
- graduated from Dal with a MLIS
- bought a house near the bird sanctuary so as to run into that spry herd of mule deer and the odd porcupine more often
- adopted a sickly but affectionate mutt, Olive, to keep my floors dirty for me and my slippers nicely chewed
- completed my first music class (maybe violin was not the most pleasant choice for my neighbours?)
- run my first 10k race (and a 5k, and a handful of cross-country 4ks)
- started the Spanish Certificate at the University of Calgary
- accepted a part-time permanent position with my current employer
- not posted here once. What!
I think the mistake that derailed me here was promising myself that I wouldn’t write about my job. Obviously, if this is a blog about my profession, I don’t think I can get away with not mentioning the job that takes up most of my time, provides me with most of my professional contacts and is the filter through which I view most library news. So I’m going to nix that limitation, and not hesitate to mention it when it’s relevant. I can brag about our massive (and so far very smooth!) migration to Sirsi’s Symphony, and the three weeks of training sessions we’ll be doing for school library assistants and teacher-librarians across the city, and also all the awesome books I get to see on a daily basis.
Let’s start with that last point. For instance, I was very excited about the Active Citizenship textbook that had the face of an old acquaintance from undergrad on the cover of it. She was pictured in her capacity as the national director for Students for a Free Tibet. “I know that girl!” I hollered to my colleagues, who all managed to look politely interested.
Or the time I realized that for a year I’ve been cataloguing John Crossingham’s (admittedly fairly low-quality) elementary-level books from Crabtee Publishing in St. Catharine’s - and yet I never realized that he’s the very same John Crossingham that plays in Broken Social Scene and put out a new, real children’s book this year: Learn to Speak Music. In his interviews he talks about how it took him a long time to commit to writing a book that he actually cared about. And what results is basically a book by Canadian indie musicians on how to be Canadian indie musicians. I’m looking forward to filing it under Vocational Guidance ; Musicians ; and Canadian indie-rock darlings of my heart. Naw.
Anyway, I really love cataloguing, I love getting to handle books and spend a little bit of time with each one. I keep a list of books to look up later (this list also tracks the endless recommendations for movies and tv shows and books I get just from chatting with my coworkers: everything from L. Ron Hubbard biographies to second wave feminist tracts). I also read the author bios at the back of almost every novel I see, because I like to envision their lives as I hold their work in my hands. And I definitely keep a running Google Doc of unintentionally hilarious/terrible nonfiction titles (Why do I vomit? ; Kids Talkin ‘Bout Death). And yeah, sometimes I think Dewey is entirely outdated. Let alone the descriptive aspects of AACR2. Let alone the school board’s ancient and rickety old ILS (migrate faster, data!).
So my job - even though cataloguing often gets dismissed as dry and nitpicky and antisocial - has a lot going for it. And I’m not going to hesitate to talk about it here anymore.
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