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Library SoundTrack Fridays! Family of the Year wsg/ Snailhouse and Belle & Sebastian

March 4, 2011 //

Library SoundTrack Fridays is back with a twee-ish mix. Spring is almost here, but in Ottawa it’s not that near.  I’ve got some picks to help soften the first bitter tastes of a cold March.

From LA, we get Family of the Year. These kids take good ol’fashioned indie rock, sprinkle it with a dash of America (whom I very guiltily love), and then throw on a layer of twee icing. Something they do makes me want to go check my camping gear (but it’s way too early).

this week, I rediscovered Snailhouse‘s Lies on the Prize (long listed for the 2009 Polaris prize). It’s one in the win column for songs that make me wish I could sing out-loud at work.

And, since we started with some newer twee indie pop, I’ll end with one of my perenial favourites. Yep, just like most people, I like Belle and Sebastian.

They’re great for dreary days or whenever, really. Sing along. In your chair. In your head. At the bus stop. Wherever. 

Take heart! Have a great weekend!

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Categories Library Soundtrack

News Flash: CLA’s 2011 Illustrator Award Shortlist is Amazing!

March 3, 2011 //
Moonbeam on a Cat's Ear

The 1987 winner: Moonbeam on a Cat's Ear

The future of libraries vs.  eBooks is a crazy, growing debate right now. It’s got me fired up (I’m working on more posts on that subject…).  While I suss that out,  here’s some news about a present-day happening in library land.

I’m on the CLA illustrator award committee and the 2011 shortlist has been officially announced.

Here they are:

Book of Big Brothers/ Illustrated by Luc Melanson (Groundwood Books)
Counting On Snow /Illustrated by Maxwell Newhouse (Tundra Books)
Fishing With Gubby / Illustrated by Kim La Fave (Harbour Publishing)
The Good Garden /Illustrated by Sylvie Daigneault (Kids Can Press)
I Know Here /Illustrated by Matt James (Groundwood Books)
Owls See Clearly At Night: A Michif Alphabet /Illustrated by Julie Flett (Simply Read Books)
Making the Moose Out of Life /Illustrated by Nicholas Oldhand (Kids Can Press)
Roslyn Rutabaga and the Biggest Hole on Earth! / Illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay (Groundwood Books)
Singing Away the Dark /Illustrated by Julie Morstad (Simply Read Books)
Spork/ Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault ( Kids Can Press)

All of these books are amazing in their own way.  We boiled the long list down to this ten via conference call. It was probably one of the more interesting conversations I’ve had in a while. How often does anyone get to stick up and argue for something (with a little congenial  passion)  like this?

It doesn’t hurt that the calibre of the top ten, let alone the top twenty-eight books, is so amazing.

The next step is to decide the winner! To help me out, I’ve recruited some librarians who work with kids to go through the books with me. I’m really looking forward to these chats, since a) I love books and b) I love illustrations, illustrators, and the worlds they share with us. Opportunities like this make me glad I landed in the bibliothécaire profession.

Like anything on the list? Let me know in any way that pleases you.

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Categories About Me, Book News, Library News, Public Libraries

Essex County

February 5, 2011 //

The CBC’s Canada Reads starts broadcasting next week.

For those who don’t know:

Started in 2001, Canada Reads is CBC’s annual battle of the books, where five Canadian personalities select the book they think Canadians should read. Each personality selects a book to defend and the books are eliminated one by one until a winner is declared. The debates air on CBC Radio One. Jian Ghomeshi has hosted Canada Reads since 2008.

In 2011, the contenders are:

I’d love to see Essex County win. Not simply because I’m a fan of graphic novels getting love on the literary stage, but also because books so forthright and well crafted are rare in any format. It’s a frank, haunting, causality of lives. Complicated and unresolved – the characters are rendered in the rough and sketchy style, where detail seems as once scarce and almost overwhelming.

Essex County Sample

I used to live in Windsor, Ontario, which abuts the actual Essex County. Lemire captures the sense of a wide-open farmland that can feel so isolating and confining at times. It’s not the Essex County everyone experienced, but Lemire’s is palpable and recognizable.

Anyways, that’s my vote.

The Canada Reads debates will air on CBC Radio One on February 7, 8 and 9 at 11 a.m. and again at 8 p.m. (2:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. in Newfoundland).

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Categories Book News

Library SoundTrack Fridays! – Entire Cities w/ The Mountains & The Trees

February 4, 2011 //

I was torn, so I’m posting two picks from my weekly data-fixing soundtrack.

Toronto’s Entire Cities!


Some people compare the singer’s voice to the Hold Steady. There’s the same prediliction of blues rock, but filtered through Canadian indie-folk congeniality.

I also strongly suggest their song “Gimme a Ride“.

And… The Mountains & the Trees, hailing from Corner Brook, NFLD (home of the McDonald’s my family would drive to when I was little. Seriously, we had to drive 45 minutes to get a cheese burger. Thanks mom and dad.),

What can I say…  just sort of nice.

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Categories Library Soundtrack

NEW! Library SoundTrack Fridays! Teen Daze

January 28, 2011 //

teen haze albumy thing

I listen to a lot of music at work. Frankly, when you’re scouring database records, you need something… or else you’d go a little go buggy.

Here’s my pic/fun discovery for this week: Teen Daze.

I’d describe them as somewhere between the Beach Boys and the Postal Service.

Listen to more at their CBC3 page!

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Categories Library Soundtrack

Aboard Spaceship CISTI!

January 27, 2011 //

Name of the Rose Library!

In past posts, I’ve alluded to the fact that I have a new job (in a LIBRARY!). It’s at CISTI, and I’m working as a Meta-Data Librarian. It’s proving pretty interesting, so far.

I know I complained about how hard it is to get a library job with the Feds in Canada, and I stand by that. I’m on a temp contract, and that means… well… it means I’m a temp. That’s pejorative. I like to think of myself as a Librarian Mercenary (hence the Ronin thing). A notion made especially dramatic by the fact that I was ushered in to help redeem a floundering database!

On a fun note: back in library school, I did a presentation on library architecture and themes of authority and power. Basically, it was about libraries as literal and metaphorical fortresses (like the library in Name of the Rose, which was modeled, in fact, on University of Toronto’s Robarts Library.).

CISTI’s building holds true with some of these traditional architectural themes, especially when seen during the day.

CISTI during the day

But! See it at night… Yep! Starship CISTI!

CISTI at night!

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Categories About, Employment

Another Word’s Worth

January 21, 2011 //

Really... what DID we doGround breaking computer graphics in your music video are just not enough to make people feel the love anymore.

From CBC.ca:

The 1980s song Money for Nothing by the British rock band Dire Straits has been deemed unacceptable for play on Canadian radio.

In a ruling released Wednesday, the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council says the song contravenes the human rights clauses of the Canadian Association of Broadcasters’ Code of Ethics and Equitable Portrayal Code…

Last year, a listener to radio station CHOZ-FM in St. John’s complained that the ’80s rock song includes the word “faggot” in its lyrics and is discriminatory to gays…

A CBSC panel concluded that the word “faggot,” even if once acceptable, has evolved to become unacceptable in most circumstances.

The panel noted that Money for Nothing would be acceptable for broadcast if suitably edited.[source]

Hot on the heels of the muckitymuck about Huck Finn’s vocabulary, Canada finds itself facing a similar (if less literary) debate.

Read the rest of this entry »

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Categories Censorship, User experience
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