It has occurred to me that "microform murders" might be a good title for a post about how all of us, even those who consider themselves vegan, unwittingly murder (or at least kill) gazillions of microscopic life forms every second of every day, just by going about our day-to-day life. But that's not what this post is about. Instead, I'm going to report on how an actual microfilm machine inflicted grievous bodily harm on my partner's right arm, and the adventure that ensued.

If you'll bear with me, I'll backtrack a bit. Somewhere around the early 1990s, the Carleton University library was divesting itself of a whole slew of surplus microform readers, selling them dirt-cheap to anyone who wanted one. The librarian in me jumped at the chance. At that time, the Canadian Library Association (CLA) had reels of microfilm of historic newspapers for sale. Wouldn't it be cool, I thought to myself, if I could have a microfilm machine of my very own, so I could peruse all those old papers in the comfort of my own home?

So anyway, I bought one, for around $5 if I recall rightly. And it sat in our basement for a few decades. Because by the time I got around to the kind of newspaper browsing I had in mind, library and internet technology had advanced, we had home internet that you didn't even have to dial up to get, and it was much easier to doomscroll at home and look at all those old news stories and ads for corsets from days gone by.

Fast forward to 2025, our troubled oil tank and furnace are gone and the heat-pump installers are here doing their thing at this very moment. They started yesterday and expect to finish today. But our work started over the weekend and earlier this week, when we shifted some stuff out of the basement to make way for them. And one of those pieces of stuff was the microfilm machine.

On Monday, I was in one of the bedrooms listening to the late afternoon radio show, as I often do on Mondays. We don't get a newspaper on Mondays any more and after the weekend I tend to feel starved of news, especially local news. Suddenly I heard a moan coming from the hallway.

My partner was injured. After bringing that blasted microfilm machine up the basement steps, they had tripped slightly on the top step and fallen on top of it, sustaining a large gash to their right arm, close to the hand. Stitches would be needed. My partner was down on the floor, having felt quite dizzy and broken out in a cold sweat.

"What do you need?" I asked. The response was essentially: I'm in your hands, do what you think best.

OK. I hastily rounded up some gauze pads and an old hand towel from the bathroom to further deter the blood flow, which had already at least slowed, though not completely stopped. I was hoping to avoid an emergency room visit, so I grabbed an appointment card for the family doctor from the bulletin board by the front door, and phoned her number.

Naturally I got an answering machine. "If this is an emergency, please hang up and call 911." There followed a dizzying telephone-tree of touch-tone options, including talking to a nurse, leaving a message, contacting some sort of after-hours service and so on. I actually did all of those things, but the upshot was that there was no one available at that time to provide the necessary ministrations. An aside: I don't drive, but was perfectly willing to call a taxi. But which hospital would be best able to accommodate us? It seemed futile to call a taxi to drive randomly around in rush-hour traffic from one emergency room to the next, hoping to get in somewhere.

Anyway, after talking to a couple of people on the phone, it emerged that a 911 call was probably our best bet. "The paramedics are really good," said one of the people I spoke to, and there's quite a bit they can do on site or in the ambulance to get things stabilized, even if you're in for quite a wait in Emergency after that.

So wow. My first 911 call. Ever. There have been a few harrowing emergency room visits, but they were before 911 service came to our neck of the woods. And indeed, the paramedics were excellent. They knew the right questions to ask, they instructed us, they determined which hospital we should go to (the Queensway Carleton), and once we got there they ensured my partner was registered and wrist-banded and wheelchaired and settled in the Emergency Department waiting area before leaving for what was probably a hard night's night.

The Emergency Room people were all excellent too, even though our health care system is totally broken. There were triage nurses monitoring patients' vital signs throughout the night. Crises were dealt with with remarkable calm and efficiency, with super-urgent cases apparently swiftly dealt with (though with people directed off in different directions according to their specific situations, it's hard to know). But for many of us, it was a very long night.

My call to 911 happened at 5:05 PM Monday. We emerged from Emerge some time between 8:30 and 9AM on Tuesday morning. Took a taxi home and fell into bed for about 3 hours. My partner's family doctor's office had already arranged an appointment for them to get the stitches out, right after the long weekend.

We're both still a bit sleep-deprived, but we're now fed and watered and the universe now seems to be unfolding as it should ...

On a good day, Ottawa-Gatineau functions like a single cohesive city and we residents can move around freely as we go about our day-to-day life. But. A river runs through it, serving as a division that is at once topographical, political, linguistic and socio-cultural.

You don't argue with a river at the best of times, let alone when all of the above-mentioned factors are also in play. And when a major international event comes to our National Capital Region, that spreads a whole new layer of navigational complexity over top of the mix. So it was this weekend with the Ironman Triathlon.

We live on the Ottawa side, in the province of Ontario. Our daughter's family lives on the Gatineau side, au Québec. We were asked to cat-sit and chicken-sit while they were out of town. Nearly all of the bridges between Ottawa and Gatineau were closed to vehicle traffic at least on the Sunday. And there wasn't even public transit in the downtown core for much of the day.

So we planned ahead, made the best of the inevitable glitches and lived to tell the tale.

Saturday was the easier day. We were able to take the car, picking up 2 days' worth of lunch supplies en route. After hanging out with the cat and the chickens for most of the morning, we ate our lunch and headed over to the Museum of History to look at the Retro exhibition on popular music of the 1960s, 70s and 80s. Spent a couple of hours there, still didn't watch all the videos or listen to all the songs or do everything we could have done just with that one exhibition. It was fascinating and exhausting and nostalgia-inducing.

Then we went back to the house to do the suppertime routines with the animals and pack up some of our things to go home.

We knew that on Sunday, only one of the bridges - the Macdonald-Cartier - was going to be open. But I learned from Gatineau's transit site (STO) that they would be running a shuttle from Ottawa's Pimisi LRT station across the Chaudiere Bridge which was to end at Station Montcalm in Gatineau, a short walk from where we needed to go. OC Transpo, by the way, was singularly uninformative about all of that. Nowhere did I see that shuttle mentioned on their pages, where they just urged people to keep checking their Alerts Page, which of course wouldn't load despite repeated attempts, presumably because there was too much e-traffic on it! Still, age has its privileges and seniors ride for free all day Wednesdays and Sundays.

So Sunday morning we took our regular bus/LRT ride as far as Pimisi Station, where lo and behold there was a free shuttle ready to take a group of us across the bridge. At a couple of points we had to stop where police were directing traffic and it was actually kind of cool seeing some of the Ironman cyclists doing their thing.

Unfortunately the STO Navette did not go as far as Montcalm station, however, despite what was advertised on their site. But the drivers were all pretty friendly and helpful, making sure we got on the right connecting bus to get us the short distance to our destination. We faced something similar later in the day on our way back, walking to Montcalm Station and getting on a regular STO bus which took us to Place du Centre where shuttles were departing for Pimisi Station.

So on Sunday we mostly hung out at our daughter's place. I sat sometimes outside watching the chickens, sometimes inside playing with the cat, reading my book or the Saturday newspaper, doing puzzles, this and that.

Today is a holiday Monday in Ontario but not in Quebec. I've been at home pretending it's a Sunday, doing all the things I'd normally do on a Sunday. Really feeling I need my day of rest!

I wonder if they'll ever change the Ironman name? I mean, there were plenty of women (Iron Maidens?) competing too; also plenty of male cheerleaders on the sidelines!

Ottawa has long had a reputation for being the town that fun forgot. A boring civil service town where they rolled up the streets, sidewalks and patios at 5PM after all the office workers had fled the downtown core.

Then COVID struck. Suddenly downtown was a barren wasteland, no matter the time of day. People worked from home. All the services that had previously supported office workers - the coffee shops, restaurants, dry cleaners, shoe repair places, bookstores, office supply places, intriguing little boutiques - no longer had customers. Staff were laid off, owners and renters were no longer able to afford overhead costs, businesspeople went out of business.

When restrictions were lifted, workers didn't flock back to the office in droves. Those that did go back, whether by choice or against their will, often had to fight tooth and nail to get any kind of office space, let alone the equipment they needed to carry out their duties. At best, office buildings were converted to something useful and functional, at worst they died of neglect or could only be reached by tromping through virtually impassable construction zones.

Just over a year ago, the City of Ottawa decided it would be a fine idea to appoint a Nightlife Commissioner, popularly known as a "night mayor" and pronounced like "nightmare". Then just as this summer was getting underway, the City even started implementing a few ideas to stimulate Ottawa nightlife. Soon there will be a new entertainment venue in the location of the old Chapters store at Rideau and Sussex. And behind it, in the Byward Market, there's this Night Ambassadors program:

https://ottawa.ca/en/city-hall/city-news/newsroom/night-ambassadors-are-coming-byward-market-help-ensure-everyone-has-safe-night-out

It seems to me, however, that maybe we'd have a better, more vibrant city if we could first realize a few of our daydreams! For working-aged people, nightlife often evolves from the after-work drink or dinner date or show somewhere. I can vividly remember the Tap Room that was in the basement of a downtown hotel (possibly the Beacon Arms?) In the early 1970s, my university days, we used to flock there on Friday afternoons when classes were over, and enjoy a glass of cheap beer. Very often there was a lineup stretching all the way down the stairs. They did a roaring trade!

Besides, not everyone is keen on going out and partying at night. But most want or need to be out and about, at least occasionally, during the day. There are errands to run, appointments to get to, people to see, things to do.

When I first retired in 2009, there were far more opportunities out there. I enjoyed going to museums, art galleries, parks, libraries and book clubs. Carleton had this wonderful Learning in Retirement program, similar to the Open University concept, and I took many non-credit courses covering a whole range of things - Buddhism, detective fiction, wine and food regions of Italy, Italian language programs, the neurology of aging, women and Islam. Some were walking tours or alternated walking tours with lectures, like one covering Ottawa monuments and third spaces. The courses were almost always fully enrolled and even had waiting lists. But just a few months ago, it all closed down, although some of the individual facilitators have started contacting past participants and setting up courses independent of the university infrastructure.

Many things pivoted to on-line only during COVID lockdowns and have never re-emerged into their former in-person incarnations. But hey, I'm still here in the real world, a living, breathing human being. I'm not a bot or an AI. So there!!

Warning: Libraries and reading may have beneficial effects on your health. This according to a Japanese study:

https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20250624/p2a/00m/0li/017000c

Interestingly enough, libraries can benefit even non-readers, which I guess makes sense too, given the services and community spaces many libraries have on offer, apart from their collections.

According to this study, the benefits are particularly apparent when it comes to seniors:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352827325000163

In any case, if I ever reach the stage when I need to be in a nursing home, I'll go willingly ... provided the home has a well-stocked and well-staffed on-site library!

Two weeks ago, I attended the conference of the Association of Canadian Archivists, which this year was held at Carleton University. It was intense, stimulating, worthwhile and exhausting. As it was the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Association of Canadian Archivists (hereafter ACA), this was something of a special landmark event. Without going into excruciating detail, I'll comment on what were a few highlights for me.

First, the plenary sessions.

The opening session was a panel of founders and veterans of the ACA, talking about how things were, how they evolved, and what the future of the profession might hold. Something of an eye-opener, really.

Some of the panellists felt that archival studies were not really a respected field of endeavour 50 years ago when the Association was born, that archivists were just regarded as a "weird sort of librarian" as one of them put it. I discussed in a recent post how librarians' work has historically been undervalued. Moreover, in 1978, when I was a newbie government librarian, our LS group (predominantly female) brought a case to the Human Rights Commission contending that our work was of equal value to that of the HR (Historical Research) group (predominantly male), most of whom were archivists employed by the Public Archives (later National Archives) of Canada and were paid considerably more.

We won. Eventually.

Upon reflection, I could understand where they were coming from. When I was at Western earning my librarian credentials, courses like "Archival Theory and Practice" and "Conservation and Preservation" were optional courses that one could take towards an MLS (Masters of Library Science), which nowadays is more likely to be an MLIS, or Masters in Library and Information Studies. It didn't occur to me at the time that there was no parallel educational stream for those who wanted to focus on the archival side of things, with a view to possibly holding a position within a gallery, archives or museum, for example. It probably ought to have occurred to me, as my first permanent job out of library school was in the library of the National Film Archives - so I actually had a foot in both camps! At that time, the National Library and the Public Archives were still two separate entities, each with its own leader, and I was an LS-1 employed in the Public Archives.

So fast forward to the Thursday morning plenary with noted Canadian author Mark Bourrie, who wrote his doctoral dissertation on press censorship. The title of his presentation was "Tales of access, obfuscation, censorship and secrets in the archives." It was definitely interesting - he's generally an engaging speaker - although I didn't feel it quite lived up to the promise of its title.

A comment he made almost in passing was that he didn't feel we were well-served when the National Librarian and the National Archivist positions were consolidated into one single position, as their mandates are quite distinct from each other.

He's absolutely right, of course. But for a history buff, he seemed remarkably uninformed about how this came to pass. During the Q&A, I challenged him, probably more gently than he deserved, and mentioned the English Report on the Role of the National Archives of Canada and the National Library of Canada. You can read it here:

https://www.capalibrarians.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/englishreport1999.pdf

In 1998, John English was asked by then-Heritage Minister Sheila Copps to consult with the relevant communities in both organizations on what we felt our functions and overall role should be. We were asked some detailed questions, our views were solicited and John English listened and made some thoughtful recommendations. Unfortunately, those at the political level didn't listen quite so intently or if they did, they decided we didn't really know what we were talking about and didn't understand their pressures and priorities. Or something.

Amongst the various views we had, we were practically unanimous in our feeling that there should continue to be a National Librarian of Canada (who should be a qualified librarian) and a separate National Archivist of Canada (who should be a qualified archivist). That's not rocket science. It's library science! And archival science!

I'd been really looking forward to the Wednesday opening plenary, which was advertised as follows:

What if we radically imagined a future where archives were for change? There is a growing energy among archivists who want to promote accountability and social justice. However, archival institutions are resistant to change - as they are designed to uphold institutional power.

We were promised a panel that would bring archivists and scholars together in a discussion to imagine and "critically hope for a future where we can truly support the people."

I arrived bright and early Wednesday morning, only to find the panel had been cancelled. I wonder why?

The closing session late on Thursday afternoon was to be a conversation between the Librarian and Archivist of Canada and the former US National Archivist Colleen Shogan, the one who was unceremoniously fired earlier this year. I understand that went ahead. I was too exhausted to stay for it, but I look forward to listening to it later.

These days, I don't have the patience or fortitude to do extensive genealogical research. On the other hand, I am endlessly fascinated by some of the terminology I see used in family histories. Things like:

Joe Blow was a child of natural birth

Jill Hill was born on the wrong side of the blanket

As modern-day readers, we probably understand what is meant and muse to ourselves: how quaint! We may reflect on how closed-minded earlier generations were. Then we congratulate ourselves on our wokeness at having mastered Equity Diversity & Inclusion 101.

It's true that the euphemisms we use to spare others - whether from hurt feelings, shame, embarrassment or more serious consequences like overt discrimination or ostracization - are very much governed by the era and cultural milieu in which we live. But what we may not always see is that we can get just as outraged and offended today about language usage with no malicious intent - it's just that today we are offended by different words and terms.

Take, for example, the word "queer", which some gays and lesbians embrace while others reject as an insult or slur. Or inadvertent misgendering or deadnaming. Even asking for a person's pronouns is a bit of a sticky wicket, in my opinion. I mean, if a person volunteers or chooses to provide them, that's fine. Personally, I'd prefer not to be asked in the first place. If someone addressed me as "Sir" or Mr. Blogcutter, I'd be a little surprised but I don't think I'd be either offended or flattered. Depending on the particular situation, I might or might not correct them.

But even when folks use the most up-to-date, woke-certified language, there is terminology I find misleading or depersonalizing at best, and mildly-to-moderately insulting at worst.

"Assigned Male at Birth" or"Assigned Female at Birth" implies, to me at least, that the doctor or midwife just flips a coin or uses a random X&Y generator to decide if the just-delivered babe is a boy or a girl, whereas in a majority of cases, there is actually no medical or otherwise specialized expertise needed to determine the baby's biological sex. Yes, mistakes can be made and ambiguities occasionally occur. And certainly there is no way (that I know of) of getting inside the infant's mind to determine their gender identity, any more than we can know if they will ultimately approve of the names that we as parents assign to them.

Then there's the whole range of words we use to describe a person's state of mental health or illness, some colloquial, some technical. The term "manic-depressive" has given way to the term "bi-polar" which I find far less descriptive or evocative - or at least, it's evocative of something other than what's intended. I picture some white conjoined bears living up in the Arctic. Or perhaps a new species of penguin or puffin which is native to both the Arctic and Antarctic?

Another pair of terms I hear a lot these days is "neurodiverse" vs. "neurotypical" (my Autocorrect feature recognizes these words so they must be right, right?) I guess to most of the medical experts, I'm probably "neurotypical". But is ANYBODY truly neurotypical? Is there such an animal? And isn't it human nature to want to be recognized for whatever our particular talents or personal qualities and assets may be?

I'm sure you can think of other examples. Wouldn't it be interesting to know what people of the 22nd or 23rd century will make of the language we use today?

We librarians have always had a bit of an image problem. Back in the days when I was starting out - think mid-1970s - it was mainly a case of being taken for granted or not being taken seriously. It was assumed that our work was essentially unskilled in nature - weren't we just a bunch of women marking time until a man swept us off our feet and promised to look after us, kind of like Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart a few decades earlier in It's A Wonderful Life?

Even in the 1970s, many of my contemporaries were quite incredulous on learning that I actually aspired to a career in librarianship, even though they were aware that it entailed earning a Master's-level degree in addition to the honours BA degree I had already attained. Added to a slightly modified attitude of "What's a smart girl like you doing in a place like this?" was the '70s-wave middle-class feminism mindset of "Why can't a woman be more like a man?" How can she expect to earn more than 66 cents for every dollar a man makes unless she's willing to do "manly" things like... well, just about anything except being a nurse or a primary school teacher or a nun or a librarian - and go to battle, move where the boss tells her to and put aside any thoughts of Kinder, Küche or Kirche? Never mind that jobs in the traditionally womanly fields are every bit as essential to our lives, and arguably more so, as the others.

So what has changed since then?

In the U.S., librarians and bookish people in high places are still misunderstood, but this time they're viewed as a threat - promoting their woke values, giving people ideas beyond their station, distributing pornographic and subversive literature, maybe even changing the whole social paradigm and making folks question the status quo!

Over the past few weeks, Trump has fired the National Librarian, the National Archivist and the Director of the Copyright office, all of whom are highly accomplished, experienced, educated women, replacing them with sycophants of his own choosing.

A few links here:

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5295005-trump-fires-head-of-copyright-office-after-firing-librarian-of-congress/

https://apnews.com/article/trump-national-archives-firings-layoffs-historical-recordkeeping-559027fdd2f634263bea7774a78d66fe

https://apnews.com/article/trump-library-congress-todd-blanche-carla-hayden-cc2154fa8644a5c29d196e505e4faa51

Not that we can rest on our laurels here in Canada. Most federal government departmental libraries were gutted some time ago, along with the Canadian Book Exchange Centre. At least we do still have Library and Archives Canada, although career opportunities may be few and far between.

One story that's still very much in the news here is the liquidation of Hudson's Bay Company. A disaster for long-time workers and pensioners, not to mention historical indigenous artefacts that may be forever lost to foreign private collectors. In this regard, the Association of Canadian Archivists recently issued a Letter of Concern, which you can view on their site here:

https://archivists.ca

So back to the image of the librarian ... I do see our profile being raised, both through recent historical fiction about underground libraries in WWII, factual historical works like Book & Dagger by Elyse Graham, and works of both fiction and non-fiction set in the present day, like John Irving's In One Person:

https://john-irving.com/in-one-person-by-john-irving/

The concept of "social prescribing" seems to be having a bit of a moment these days. You know, the idea of treating depression, anxiety and other mental health and mood-related problems by recommending an art gallery visit, a play, a film, a book, a walk in the woods or a contemplation of the heavens. And while I've never visited a licensed art therapist, music therapist or whatever other kinds of therapists are out there, I do tend to select experiences like the above as an integral part of my self-care.

For me, the month of March has been particularly rich in these experiences, what with a film, an art gallery visit, concerts, bookstore and library visits, book club meetings, a lunar eclipse and a play.

That play was Lauren Gunderson's Silent Sky, performed at the Gladstone Theatre by the Three Sisters Theatre Company,and described on the programme as "the almost-true story of the women who changed our view of the cosmos".

The main character is Henrietta Leavitt, an astronomer in the "girls' department" at Harvard Observatory in the early twentieth century. While originally hired as a human "computer" relegated to mapping and labelling stars and barred by reason of gender from accessing the telescope or doing serious astronomical research, she persists in pushing the limits and ultimately develops a system for measuring the stars and proving that there is more out there beyond the Milky Way. Indeed, she was up for a Nobel Prize but died before it could be awarded to her. That much we know.

But "almost true" is not the same as historical fact, and there was a certain amount of creative and dramatic licence at work too. Most of this was done through the supporting characters - the love interest, Peter Shaw; and Henrietta's sister, Margaret. It doesn't in any way minimize Henrietta's achievements, nor did it interfere with my enjoyment of the play, which I thought was really excellent. But it did pique my interest in learning a bit more about the real story. And here's one of the articles I found:

https://thehill.com/changing-america/enrichment/arts-culture/480762-she-discovered-how-to-measure-the-universe-then-her/

I loved the use of music in the play, and the highlighting of the music of real-life female composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, lost to or neglected by history: Au Crépuscule, by Mel Bonis (1858-1937; from what I read about her, she deserves a play in her own right!); Valse Tender, by Cécile Chaminade (1857-1944); and Thriller Rag, by May Aufderheide (1888-1972). I plan to seek out other music written by these three composers.

In any case, Silent Sky will be playing at the Gladstone Theatre in Ottawa until March 29. If it sounds like your thing and you live in or will be in the area, there's still time to see it!

It's no secret that in an online age and an online society, it's becoming increasingly difficult to access local news, editorial opinion by real people, considered opinions and analysis by local columnists who are also real people, and so on.

I'm also rather old-fashioned in that I like to get a real newspaper, on real paper, that I can peruse at my leisure while I drink my morning coffee.

In theory, the Ottawa Citizen is supposed to deliver such a paper to us 5 days a week, Tuesdays through Saturdays.

Mind you, the newspaper is only a pale shadow of what it used to be. There are no more movie listings, no TV Guide, no want ads to speak of. Only two skinny sections Tuesday through Friday and four sections on Saturdays. No glossy supplements on the weekend either.

Now, however, we're lucky if they even deliver when they're supposed to. Today was one such no-paper day.

Even last year, if we got missed for any reason, we could make a single phone call and even if we didn't get hold of a real person, it was possible to key in a few details and get the message back "Your complaint has been registered and a paper will be delivered you as soon as possible." And it worked! We usually had a delivery person at the door within an hour.

But now, the recorded message is "Your complaint has been registered and your subscription will be extended." Ummm, I don't WANT a credit, I want the @#$%^ newspaper!!

The other message we keep getting is that we can still access the e-paper. But even that doesn't seem to work any more!!

Their slogan, displayed prominently on their editorial page, is "Fair Play and Daylight."

But if the delivery person does actually show up as scheduled on Tuesday morning, it certainly won't be daylight, since this is the weekend we "Spring ahead", making for some depressingly dark mornings for the foreseeable future!

Today is the first day of Freedom to Read Week. I'll begin with a link to the Ex Libris Association site, with links to other Canadian, American and international resources on the topic:

https://exlibris.ca/activities:advocacy

Intellectual freedom is under attack as never before, with book banning, misinformation, disinformation and fake news the order of the day.

As well, tomorrow , February 24, has been declared a Digital Day of Action:

https://www.freedomtoread.ca

Readers in Ontario will also be aware that Thursday of the upcoming week is election day. The late brother of our current premier once declared, erroneously as it happens, that there were more libraries per square kilometre than there were Tim Hortons coffee shops. A former Ontario premier also famously announced that the most recent book he had read was Mr. Silly. To which I say well, at least he believed in reading to the kids in his life (unless of course he was reading it to refine his own reading skills).

A book I'm currently reading, and which I can recommend, is The Compassionate Imagination: How the Arts are Central to a Functioning Democracy, by Max Wyman (Tkaronto: Cormorant Books, c2023). I've just about finished it but when I do, I'll be working my way through the 12-page bibliography at the end!

Anyway folks, whatever your literary poison of choice, I hope you read something this week because as somebody once said (this is a paraphrase), the person who does not read is no better off than the one who cannot read.

Happy Reading!