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So I was in the Carleton University Library, wrestling with some kind of big machine, most likely for microforms (microfilm reels or fiche or both - some of them used to have interchangeable attachments). I needed to print off some important official documents, in preparation for a job interview. Not sure what specific documents I needed, but I'm guessing some or all of the following:

A copy of my degree(s)
A transcript of my marks
A thesis or award-winning essay or project of some sort
Certificates, letters of recommendation

Of course, the machine wasn't working properly. Worse, there was someone there waiting to use the machine after I was done. I asked her if she knew anything about these machines & how to operate and/or fix them. "Not really," she replied. I asked her if there were other microform reader/printers in another part of the library or even somewhere else on campus. "No," she said, "They used to have them but they got rid of them."

I tried all the things they used to tell you to do: turning the machine off and then back on again, checking that there was paper in there, etc. Maybe we could find a library staff member somewhere who could assist us? But of course, there was no such person around.

So then I looked through my folder to see what I DID have already. I suddenly realized that the interview I had assumed would be on campus was in fact being held somewhere off site and I had no idea how I was going to figure out where exactly it was and how I'd get there.

At that point Dianora, who was elsewhere in the library working on her own stuff, stopped by to see where I was at with everything.

"D'ya s'pose you could drive me to my job interview?" I asked plaintively.

"Of course," she said. "Where do you need to be, and at what time?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out!" I wailed, and resumed pawing through papers in the collapsible folder, which was itself close to collapse, as was I!

I noted that I did have copies of my resumé in there, except... they weren't good, final copies. They had all sorts of handwritten notes all over them, where I'd planned to make revisions or add stuff. I looked through them carefully and saw that on some of them, the handwriting was actually fairly neat. Maybe I could provide one of those copies to my interviewers and indicate that a final copy would follow?

I was still rummaging through the whole mess when I emerged from my dream, still feeling rather stressed.

P.S. I don't think I got the job.

October is Canadian Library Month:

https://librarianship.ca/features/canadian-library-month/

In September, Catherine Ross died. She was a professor and long-time dean of the School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) at Western University, the same institution where I earned my degree:

https://www.fims.uwo.ca/news/2021/in_memoriam_catherine_ross.html

In the early 1990s with library schools falling on hard times and even struggling for their survival, Dr. Ross played a key role in the union of SLIS with Western's schoolof journalism to form a symbiotic whole, the Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS).

So my donation for this month goes to a fund in her name, which will provide bursaries enabling students to pursue their studies at FIMS.

Today, December 10, is Dewey Decimal System Day:

https://nationaltoday.com/dewey-decimal-system-day/amp/?fbclid=IwAR3eXDw5SXo0H2ve6nsLOSSnyHgItwVsXb07VNxRZZBOv1KnUpKnWhis_pw

The Dewey Decimal System has had a profound impact on most of our lives, whether we realize it or not. Most public libraries in Canada, as well as in many countries throughout the world, use Dewey Classification to organize at least their non-fiction sections. For kids who cut their teeth on public library resources to help them prepare school projects of progressively greater complexity, I can't help but think that the Dewey classification must have coloured the lens through which they perceived the entirety of the world they lived in.

Many of our school library collections are also organized by Dewey numbers. To help kids orient themselves and make use of the library in a constructive but enjoyable way, there are various books available. Like this one by Brian Cleary:

https://www.chapters.indigo.ca/en-ca/books/do-you-know-dewey-exploring/9780761366768-item.html?ikwid=dewey&ikwsec=Home&ikwidx=13#algoliaQueryId=236abd696eb4c92218e5e04c6424a0c1

So who was Melvil Dewey? His contributions to library science are indisputable but what about the man himself? I learned quite a few new details about him myself in this interview with Alexis O'Neill, author of a recent biopic of him geared to kids in the 7 to 10 age group:

https://www.goodreadswithronna.com/2020/12/10/an-interview-with-alexis-oneill-about-melvil-dewey/

It's interesting to speculate what he would have made of the age of social media.

There's a move afoot in Canada to have a dedicated 911 line for suicide prevention, similar to the 988 service offered in many parts of the U.S. Clearly suicide is not a new problem, but as mental health worsens amid pandemic restrictions, concern is growing proportionately. Here's what Crisis Services Canada have to say on the matter:

https://suicideprevention.ca/COVID-19

And here is a list of crisis lines, not just for Canada but for other countries as well:

https://thelifelinecanada.ca/help/call/

In the U.K., my brother used to volunteer with The Samaritans - I'm guessing the closest local equivalent would be the Distress Centre, although we also have a Kids' Help Phone and various special-purpose services such as those geared to the LGBT+ community.

Suicide, whether contemplated, averted or achieved, also features widely in literature and film. Many will be familiar with the 1946 holiday film classic "It's A Wonderful Life" in which George Bailey decides that he does want to keep living after all, once his guardian angel has shown him what his world, as he's lived it, would have been like if he'd never been born.

The book I'm reading now, The Midnight Library, offers another spin on the idea. Thirty-five year-old Nora Seed has decided to end it all. Then we get brief flashbacks to what happened nineteen years before she reached that decision, then 27 hours before, 9 hours, five hours, and so on, until she comes to write her suicide note.

At the zero hour, she find herself in a library, with a librarian who reminds her of her school librarian from 19 years ago. But this is no ordinary library - it's a library between life and death. All the books in it are the story of her life. But that doesn't mean they are all copies of the same book.

Then there's The Book of Regrets. It's a very heavy book. Well, wouldn't you expect that someone who had decided to end it all would have plenty of regrets about how she's lived her life?

So she picks a regret. Her cat died and she regrets that she didn't look after him better. She asks the librarian for the version of her life in which she kept the cat inside so he couldn't get run over. She lives that life for the next dozen pages or so until she finds herself getting dissatisfied with that alternate version of her life too ... at which point she finds herself back in the library, where she can ask the librarian for a different version of her biography. And so it goes.

Well, I guess when you get to a certain age, you're bound to have a number of "should'ves" in life. Matt Haig's book The Midnight Library adds a few layers of complexity to the storyline of those feel-good Christmas movies. I mean sure, if George Bailey had never been born, his brother would have drowned instead of becoming a war hero. The druggist would have poisoned a bunch of patients. Then again, maybe his wife would have become the Librarian of Congress and Annie the maid would have been a Black Lives Matter heroine with her picture on the ten-dollar bill. You never know.

Still, the book is feel-good in some ways. It might make you feel better about not having done some of the things that you think you should have done. I'm not sure that it will prevent any suicides, but that's a pretty tall order for any book. And this one is definitely worth a read.

Today's donation goes to the Canadian Writers' Emergency Fund:

https://www.writerstrust.com/?_ga=2.106787210.887544691.1602857920-1501988426.1602511844

There is a perception out there that since writing is essentially a solitary activity and one that occurs to a great extent online, writers' livelihoods are little affected by pandemic lockdowns and self-isolation. But that perception is not valid, for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, most writers are unable to earn a living from writing full-time at the best of times. During a pandemic, they are unable to connect with their readers at in-person events such as readings, book signings and literary conferences. If they write about geographically or historically distant locales, there are limits to the amount of research that can be conducted virtually. To achieve authenticity, there's no substitute for being there or in the case of historical research, experiencing the artefacts and primary sources first-hand.

Moreover, I think it's fair to say that many of us have a lot more time for reading these days, and are eager to use our reading time as a form of imaginative distancing. Meanwhile, libraries have been closed, in-person second-hand book sales have been non-existent and those bookshops that are open are having to limit the number of customers who can visit at any one time. At the height (depth?) of the lockdown, new reading matter for me was limited to those books I could buy online and have shipped to me. Those on more limited budgets were not so lucky.

If we want to continue to enjoy new work by some of the excellent emerging writers, we need to put our money where our reading glasses are!

October is Library Month in Canada. And today also marks the beginning of First Nations Public Library Week:

https://fnplw.olsn.ca

My mini research project for today is to find out a bit about Juliana Armstrong of Nipissing First Nation, the artist behind the beautiful poster which you can view at the above URL. So far, I don't know much beyond what I've read on the sites of a few public libraries in Ontario, for example this one in Oshawa:

https://www.oshawalibrary.on.ca/fnplw

I did find an obituary for her brother, who died in January 2007 at the age of 26:

http://yourlifemoments.ca/sitepages/obituary.asp?oId=139058

If you're like me, reading has assumed an even greater part of your life since COVID-19 reared its ugly head earlier this year. And now, with virus numbers surging again, the weather getting colder and people cocooning indoors, books and reading are more important than ever as a tool for imaginative distancing.

What better time of year to celebrate libraries?

An article by Kenneth Whyte that appeared on Saturday in the Globe and Mail has sparked a firestorm of indignant outrage amongst librarians and others who care about books and reading. The gist of Whyte's argument is that libraries and book dealers are fierce competitors with each other and that moreover, libraries actually have an unfair advantage over bookshops because they are largely financed by public funds. I'll leave it to you, dear reader, to judge for yourself the merits of his claims:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-thanks-to-government-funding-libraries-are-poised-to-win-market-share/

To be sure, libraries and booksellers do have some goals in common and their owners, managers and other employees have overlapping skill sets. Indeed, there is a certain degree of crossover in the staff of both types of institutions. But their mandates and missions, while complementary, generally differ in a number of important ways.

I'm not going to explore all the theoretical or academic arguments here. Instead I want to focus on what it means for the everyday reader.

Maybe you subscribe to a few magazines. For example, Chatelaine or Walrus or Macleans. Although I'm thinking if I did subscribe to Macleans, I'd be sorely tempted to cancel my subscription after reading Whyte's article! But chances are, there are also other magazines which occasionally publish an article you'd like to read. If it comes to your attention when it first hits the newsstands then sure - you can buy a copy of that issue from your favourite bookstore. But where will you find the article once it's several months old? Chances are, you'll get it through your library.

Large bookstore chains are great for finding the latest bestsellers, often at deeply discounted prices. But what about books from smaller presses with limited print runs? Or books that have long been out of print? You can special-order them from a used book dealer if you know they exist and the price is within your budget. You can browse WorldCat. And I've had some serendipitous moments at Friends of the Farm and various school-based used book sales. But for treasure troves of books that are available in your neighbourhood, to browse on an ongoing basis - except maybe during a pandemic - I'd say the library is by far your best bet.

Bookstores are not all alike, of course. I make a special effort to support the smaller independent shops, which generally provide superior customer service. Quite often, they issue newsletters of their own, with helpful reviews and reader recommendations. Like libraries, they hold readings, signings and other book-oriented events which pay off in terms of both reader engagement and book sales. But events of that kind have been on hold for the past few months, and many independents are hurting.

So what can we do? I'll conclude by providing a link to the recent report entitled Independent Bookstores in Canada's Post-Covid Cultural Landscape. It has some useful and thought-provoking suggestions about the policy directions we might take.


https://www.morecanada.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Independent_Bookstores_in_Canadas_post-Covid_cultural_landscape.pdf

Have you ever heard of the Marrakesh Treaty? If not, you're in good company. It's an international treaty adopted in 2013 by member states of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

With libraries around the world closed to walk-in clients due to the pandemic, accessibility of reading matter these days is an issue for everyone, and at a time when many of us suddenly have plenty of time to read! But inaccessibility has been an everyday reality throughout history for anybody who is print-disabled, as only about 7% of published works are available in accessible formats.

The Marrakesh Treaty removes certain legal barriers to making and sharing accessible format works, when done on a not-for-profit basis to provide services to the print-disabled. Of course, librarians have always been good at co-operative and reciprocal arrangements for pooling scarce resources. Under the treaty's provisions, libraries are free to co-ordinate the production of works in accessible formats. That means less duplication, less re-inventing the wheel because without such an agreement, the same book might be converted multiple times in different countries. Or even in different organizations within the same city.

In Canada, a guide for libraries to get started in implementing the treaty was recently issued as part of National AccessAbility Week, May 31 to June 6:

https://www.eifl.net/system/files/resources/201808/getting_started_marrakesh_en.pdf

One thing I hadn't realized (or maybe just hadn't considered) before was how wide an interpretation is given to the term "print-disabled". As well as blind or low-vision people, it can include people with learning or developmental disabilities such as dyslexia or autism or with physical problems like Parkinson's or paralysis that may impair the ability to hold a book or turn the pages.

As I juggle my various pairs of glasses - progressive bifocals, reading glasses, midrange glasses (sometimes nowadays referred to as "computer glasses") and sunglasses, I'll certainly want to keep up to date on this file.

The document cited above is a manageable 19 pages long but has plenty of links to other helpful resources. For readers in Canada, the most useful starting point might be the Centre for Equitable Library Service:

https://celalibrary.ca

Let's all work to alleviate the book famine!

Please, sir - I want some more. Information, that is. About Covid-19.

Maybe that sounds completely ludicrous. Aren't we already bombarded with Covidformation every time we pick up a newspaper, turn on the TV or radio, or tune into a podcast?

Well, no. Getting data-bombed is not the same thing as informing oneself. Here are some of the areas where I would like more information:

1. Symptoms of Covid-19

2. Solutions

3. Testing - What kinds of tests are available, and when are they useful?

I'm going to discuss each in turn, although I know I'll only be scratching the surface of what needs to be considered.

First, the symptoms. Fever, dry cough, trouble breathing, loss of senses of smell and taste, double-lung pneumonia. All of those sound like the symptoms of a pretty serious disease. Yet in the next breath, officials tell us that in many (perhaps most) cases, the symptoms are mild and resemble those of the common cold. In my experience, when you get a cold, you don't usually have a fever, or not a very high one anyway. Dry cough? Maybe, but usually it's a rather wet, phlegmy one, at least in the initial stages. And they say that a runny nose is not usually a symptom of Covid 19. Trouble breathing and loss of senses of smell and taste? Well, yes - up to a point. If your nose is all stuffed up and you have to breathe through your mouth, you're not going to be able to smell things very well. And you probably won't taste much either, because the senses of smell and taste are interconnected. Double-lung pneumonia? That's definitely not the same thing as a cold, although certainly a cold can lead to more serious diseases while your resistance is lowered.

So, on to solutions. A vaccine is touted as the ultimate solution, the holy grail, the elixir of life. And I absolutely agree - we definitely should and must work towards developing a vaccine. But is it necessarily the ONLY solution? Are there other options we could explore? What about anti-viral or other drugs, for example? You might say they're a cure rather than a prevention, but it ain't necessarily so - drugs are used preventatively as well as to alleviate symptoms and provide (along with time and TLC) a cure. What about birth control, for example? Or arthritis drugs? For rheumatoid arthritis, I am taking both NSAIDs (Non Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs) and DMARDs (Disease Modifying Anti Rheumatic Drugs). One of the DMARDs that has been prescribed to me is Hydroxychloroquine, often known as Plaquenil. And interestingly enough, that's one of the drugs that seems to be showing some promise in the treatment of coronavirus too. I'm rather hoping that my own supply line doesn't dry up, although luckily it's not the only weapon in my personal arsenal as I fight the war on arthritis.

Now, about testing. Apparently we need to test far more people than we have been. But when we do test, are we relying on just one type of test?

As I understand it, we are conducting swab tests. Results take time. The usefulness of the results is limited, too. I gather a person tests either positive or negative for the virus, meaning they either a) definitely do have it at time of testing; or b) don't have it, or are only within the first couple of days of contracting it so it may be a false negative that needs to be re-tested.

But are there, for example, other tests that test for having already HAD the virus, or having had a virus similar enough to Covid-19, or having ANTIBODIES to the virus for whatever reason? And if so, would a positive test result for them also mean that they would NOT be a carriers who could put others at risk? Maybe we could issue some sort of certificate to these people (sort of akin to a vaccination certificate) and they could get back out into the community, freed from physical distancing restrictions themselves and also in a position to help those still suffering? If there were enough of them, think what a boon to society that could be, both from a medical and an economic standpoint!

Remember those TB patch tests we used to get? After a family trip to the UK in 1962, my brother always tested positive on those and sometimes got sent off for a chest X-ray. He hadn't had an active case of tuberculosis but evidently he had been exposed to it. I, on the other hand, continued to test negative - I was a fair bit younger and probably not as free to mill about the streets of London.

On the other hand, I DID get pneumonia in the mid-1980s. And then in the summer of 2018, I contracted a nasty lung ailment. My doctor initially decided to treat it as if were pneumonia, even though she had already given me the vaccine, which (unlike the flu vaccine) is supposed to be a one-time thing. I went through the usual diagnoses and treatments - the chest x-ray, the inhaler, the meds, some breathing tests. The symptoms were similar to those of diseases which typically plague smokers, even though I am not a smoker.

I'm not sure she ever did pinpoint what exactly I had had. The good news is that I recovered, although it took a few months. I'm pretty sure I picked it up during Music and Beyond, in early July (lots of crowded venues at a festival like that). It wasn't until some time in October that I got my final breathing test and a clean bill of health.

Could it have been something akin to Covid-19, even if they hadn't identified it yet? And if so, is there a possibility that it could have conferred on me some immunity from, or at least resistance to this nasty virus? I guess I can always hope.

So those are some of the questions uppermost in my mind at the moment.

You know, I have a sweatshirt with this slogan on it: Google can find you 100,000 answers. A librarian will find you the right one.

During this pandemic, people are relying on Google like never before, but libraries are closed. Will people be able to find the right answers before googols and googolplexes of people get infected? Or do I mean googols and googolplexes of the virus since I know there are only a few billion people in the world?

I guess maybe I'm a failure as a librarian because right now, I certainly haven't found the answer. I'm not at all confident that there IS just one right answer - there rarely is.

But right now, I'd settle for a half-decent answer - even if it's multiple choice.

The past week-and-a-bit have felt busy, though in a good way. On February 21, we went to the annual Elmdale school book sale, which this year (due, I presume, to labour action by the teachers' unions) was held at Fisher Park Community Centre. We came away, as usual, with a good haul, including a couple of kids' books - Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome (which oddly enough no longer seems to be readily available in major bookstores) and Jo's Boys, by Louisa May Alcott.

We saw the most recent movie version of Little Women, as well as an older one that aired on the Turner Classic Movies channel and starred Katharine Hepburn as Jo. Mainly for that reason, I had the urge to re-read the book - I didn't find a copy at the sale, although we may (or may not) have a copy lurking somewhere in one of our overstuffed bookcases and I suspect it's easier to obtain than the Arthur Ransome books. I still have a book containing some of the lesser-known thrillers penned by Alcott, which I picked up at an earlier book sale.

Then on Wednesday, I picked up a book I had requested at the library - The Man in the Red Coat, by Julian Barnes. I had read a review of it in the December issue of Totally British magazine and thought it sounded interesting, so that's what I'm reading now. And I see today, there's also a review of it on the Citizen's books page. Anyway, if you're into the cultural life of Belle Epoque France and Anglo-Franco relations in the late 19th century and dandies and decadents, this is the book for you. It's bringing back lots of memories of the authors I studied in French literature courses I took at Carleton in the early 1970s - Baudelaire, Flaubert, Mallarme and especially J.K. Huysmans' book A Rebours. I dug up my copy of that, still with a number of my pencil-marks in the margins, and will definitely be wanting to re-read it. I may also get around to reading a biography of Huysmans which I bought several years ago but have yet to read!

While at the library, I happened across and borrowed two other books from the recently received non-fiction section: Supporting Trans People in Libraries, by Stephen G. Krueger; and Fat, Pretty, and Soon to be Old: A Makeover for Self and Society, by Kimberley Dark. I may comment on those in a future entry.

Wednesday also marked our 44th anniversary, which we marked with a pizza lunch at the Colonnade and tiramisu for dessert (we'll be finishing some leftover pizza this evening, washed down with Beyond the Pale beer (either Darkness or Dangerous Sauce). Then on Wednesday evening, we went to a Murray McLauchlan concert at Centrepointe - something we actually might have been doing 44 years ago, although back then he probably would have appeared at a coffee house like Le Hibou!

On Thursday afternoon, I attended a session at Library and Archives Canada on the millennial shift in libraries - how they have changed the nature of library work and how well (or not) their values and priorities harmonize with the other generations (boomers, gen-x and even some pre-boomers and post-millennials) working with them. The panellists were from all types of libraries, Canadian and international. One attending in person was from Sweden; another joined us by teleconference from New Zealand, where it was already Friday morning!

Did I mention that this past week has been Freedom to Read week and February 19 was I Read Canadian Day? Actually I have been reading Canadian during the past month - Margaret Atwood's The Testaments and Daniel J. Levitin's latest book about aging well.

So anyway - today is leap day, hence the title of this post. Next Saturday we will be springing forward to Daylight Savings Time; also attending a Bach Choir concert. The following day, International Women's Day, we expect to attend our daughter's house concert & brunch. I also recently bought a Leap Card (for public transit in Dublin, where I'll be in August to attend the IFLA (International Federation of Library Associations) conference. Like I say, my life has been full.