Day 62: Opening a book and seeing its spine through the pages

Something about that pains me, the spine of a book showing bare. And it hurts even more to hear the crackling tear of the spine breaking. Any yet, the things I do for my job... Today I started tattle-taping journals, and ideally, the stuff needs to be right along the spine which means... I'm a sad panda. Sad panda, indeed.

But there's no real lesson there. Anyone who has ever opened a new book knows whether or not breaking the poor thing's spine hurts them... Except piano books... They need that lesson or their pages will try to close as you play.

Still, I digress.

Today was exam numero one!

The dread pirate Cataloguing.

Tedious as ever, and yet I still enjoyed it.

The multiple choice and definitions were reasonably easy, with joke answers strewn in... often as the answer. Going over the class slides and post-it noting my AACR2 was all the studying needed to be sure.

Pro tip: Emily Post's Table Manners for Adults has nothing to do with cataloguing if you couldn't have guessed.

Dewey is tougher when you can't check your answers like a math problem. That is, when you can't use Dewey online to see what the number you've built leads to, it's tough to be sure of the answer you've given.

But all in all, I feel that that particular exam went well, all things considered. Nothing in particularly really stumped me, it was just a long slog to create the Dewey Decimal Classifications and the Machine-Readable Cataloguing records.

Next up: Information and Society, tomorrow morning!

Study, study, study!

Day 55: Cinémathèque Québécoise

Honestly, I have a lot of feelings. And a lot of them can be summed up with nothing but long strings of vowels.

But I'll try to be brief.

And coherent.

Today the McGill Student Chapter of the ACA (Association of Canadian Archivists), which I am on the exec for as a member of the Commsquad, went on a field trip. And no, I wasn't the one who suggested the destination, as perfect for me as it was.

We went to the NFB's Cinémathèque Québécoise. And it was glorious.

Honestly, I knew I wanted to work for the NFB, because of my film background, and I'm so glad I got the opportunity to visit one of the places I could work if I do wind up there!

I learned a few things, more fun facts than lessons, but bear with me!

Lesson 53: The Cinémathèque developed its own thesaurus which it uses for indexing, and uses a modified version of the AACR2. Their organization system is (modified) Library of Congress.

Lesson 54: Not all libraries weed their collections.

For that second lesson, I had always hoped it existed, but I was worried it was just a silly, idealistic dream. But no! The Cinémathèque Québécoise aims to maintain a complete retrospective of film throughout time, so if they get rid of a document it's only ever because it has fallen into unusable disrepair, or is being replaced with a new copy. But preservation is a large part of what they're about.

Also, they're huge into making their collection digitally accessible.

A library after my own heart! *swoon*

Day 30: I can stand on my own two feet! Or at least, one of them...

Today, as a usual Tuesday, I only had work. Homework too, but just work to actually go out to.

Working the loans desk, a book about Living Assessments and Self-Care Assessments passed through my hands. It was a very thin book, and as I know of relatives having these assessments done on them, I figured I'd see what they were all about.

And despite my mother's ridiculous and constant worrying and badgering, I learned valuable lesson...

Lesson 30: I meet all the standards for self-care! 

So you can all stop worrying.

Day 21: I know it sounds sordid / But you'll be rewarded...

My broom bruise is coming in well, and I actually went to a 7am run with a few members of the Quidditch team. I don't think I'm the same person who has been at York for the past 4 years... I mean... Wow! But this is a library school blog! Not a Quidditch blog! Geez!

I really just had work today. Tuesday is a no class day! But that doesn't mean I didn't learn!

Lesson 21: Always carry your multi-tool. Yes, even in a library. I'm going to be bringing mine from now on. We needed to file down a key in order to open the cabinet that holds our loanable laptops, luckily, one of the liaison librarians carries their multi-tool because they bike to work. Problem solved!

The Scouting motto is basically my motto for life: Be Prepared.

Day 19: Da Stacks Are Dat-a Way

For the first few weeks of classes, I couldn't spell McGill. My hands naturally kept spelling it McHill.  I think that tells you something about how I feel about the school. Trust me, people who work at libraries don't need to go to the gym. Shelving bound journals is all the weight training I need, and you walk around that library enough, that's your low intensity cardio right there.

Plus there's the fact that my library, and all my classes, are at the top of a big freakin' hill. Seriously, I walk up it, top speed so I'm not late, every day. With a bag on. I am breathing hella heavy by the time I'm there.

Which brings us to the lesson.


Lesson 19: Own the sweat stains. Everyone has them. We all walk the same hill to get to class, it's inevitable. Don't be embarrassed.