This blog is on a hiatus
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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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@collingsruth
This blog is on a hiatus
But I am always on twitter
& I have a ârealâ blog over here

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Some interview questions to ask.
The other day I was doing something mindless and manual-labour-y when I suddenly found myself articulating something Iâve been struggling with for a long time: questions for hiring committees.Â
Iâve definitely been guilty of smiling earnestly and saying âNope!â when asked if I have any questions for my interviewers. It wasnât that I didnât have things I wanted to know; it was that I hadnât figured out how to ask them.Â
Now that Iâve finally worded these, I can imagine what an effect they would have on a hiring committee â they are a mirror of commonly-asked questions to would-be librarians. They put you on the spot, and ask for concrete examples of competence. (Theyâre geared towards academic libraries, as youâll see, but theyâre applicable/transferable to all workplaces.)
Maybe if some of us start asking these things more often, libraries would see their importance â and we as potential hires could escape red-flag situations before getting enmeshed in them.
1: Can you tell me about a recent conflict in the workplace, and how it was handled by all parties, including administration? (Within the limits of confidentiality.)
2: Can you tell me about a recent time where the administration went above and beyond to support a librarian who needed accommodations, whether in professional or personal circumstances?
3: What is your library doing to support entry-level librarians? How many entry-level positions have you created in the past two years (defining entry-level as âno experienceâ)? What training and mentoring do they receive?
4: Can you tell me about a time where an entry-level or paraprofessional hire was promoted over time to a management position?
5: How does professional development work, and what are the restrictions - if any - that I should know about? Have there ever been any problems with librariansâ requests for PD?
6: What continuing education or skills refreshers do you offer your librarians? Are staff regularly trained in new technologies?Â
6b: When was the last major change in technology (e.g. website, catalogue, internal tools)? How did the implementation go? What was learned from that process?
7: What professional organizations will I be a member of, as part of your library? Will I be encouraged to take on committee work? What support and accommodations are there for people who represent the organization on committees?
8: How does the organization protect academic freedom? Are you aware I have a blog/social media presence, where I talk about our industry? Has this sort of thing ever been a conflict or issue?Â
9: How does the library participate in professional activities? Does it host conferences, sponsor events, or contribute to advocacy efforts? What are some of the libraryâs PD achievements in the last few years?
This is a much smarter version of a post I made a while back about trying to figure out the workplace culture of your interviewer without actually asking them âis this a toxic workplace?â.Â
Librarian and Library Jobs | Special Libraries Association Career Center
In case you missed it, SLA have a new job listings board.
A geographically indexed and cross-referenced directory of sources for family history research A dictionary of surname meanings, including information on their geographic distribution News articles and genealogical research advice
This is a lesson plan I put together in Fall 2015 to give to first year Biology students at Mount Allison University. It is spell-checked, but that's about it in terms of editing.
Posting a link from one blog to the other blog...
But yes, this is a lesson plan I put together earlier this year for first year science undergrads. Feel free to borrow from it.

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This sentence made me think about the nasty cleverness that some academics display when they comment on student work in front of their peers. Displaying cleverness during PhD seminars and during talks at conferences is a way academics show off their scholarly prowess to each other, sometimes at the expense of the student. Cleverness is a form of currency in academia; or âcultural capitalâ if you like. If other academics think you are clever they will listen to you more; you will be invited to speak at other institutions, to sit on panels and join important committees and boards. Appearing clever is a route to power and promotion. If performing like an asshole in a public forum creates the perverse impression that you are more clever than others who do not, there is a clear incentive to behave this way.
Academic Assholes and the Circle of Niceness by Inger Mewburn (Shit Academics Say blog)
If you aren't familiar with the term "vertical integration" it is the MBA term for "if you want something done right, do it yourself." The reason outsourcing had been such a disaster was not the skill of the outsourcing companies or the people. It was the fact that if you don't own your process, you can't control the quality. Quality comes from taking responsibility and ownership to make sure it happens. Without quality, you lose customers and go out of business. Imagine trying to drive a car with someone else controlling the steering wheel. Now imagine that their incentives are perversely the opposite of yours. They get paid by how many turns they make. You get paid by how fast you get there. It just doesn't work. They control the wheel. Outsourcing makes sense if you think "software" is a fad that will go away or if your MBA skipped the chapter on "vertical integration". If software was a fad and would be going away soon, you could ignore it and use outsourcing to get through the year or two that you had to "do software" until the fad dissipated. However software isn't a fad. It drives your business more and more. If you are an auto dealer you might think you are in the business of selling cars. You are wrong. You manage the process that brings customers to you, takes their order, gets the car from inventory, and delivers the car to them. All of that is driven by software. If you don't control that software, what the fuck are you doing?
Outsourcing makes sense if you think software is a fad by Tom Limoncelli
If you replace all mentions of âbusinessâ with âlibrariesâ in this article, it becomes extremely relevant. Thanks to redlibrarian for the link.
Cool search tracker on the Toronto Public Library labs site. They use the Google Analytics API to present a live feed of what people are searching in the catalogue.
A patron was using this wonderful book one day, and it is a good thing to as I might never have come across it! Check out this 1668 copy of German Almanac Alt und neuer Schreib- Haus- und Kunst-Kalender⌠which is full of doodles, notes, and other marginalia.Â
xAY851 F8 1669
-Lindsay M.
Citrus x limon is the name of the cultivated Lemon. Lemons, limes, oranges, and other citrus belong in the family Rutaceae. Lemons are native to Asia where they have been cultivated for thousands of years. Lemons were introduced to Europe in the first century AD but didnât become popular until the 15th century in Italy. The top producer of lemons in the world is China, followed closely by India and Mexico. Follow for more plant facts and photos!

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Youâre looking at a dune on Mars, painted by devils.Â
Actually, by dust devils â whirlwinds that become visible to us after lifting particles from the Martian surface. Dust devils usually form here on earth when sunlight heats the ground, creating a layer of hot, buoyant air.Â
Ralph Lorenz of John Hopkins University explains:
The hot air rises in plumes, making a converging flow near the ground. This convergence intensifies any rotation in the ambient wind to form a vortex, much like the vortex that forms in a draining sink.
Dust devils have some features in common with tornadoes, although these are powered by storm systems aloft rather than direct solar heating; their funnels also descend from the cloud layer rather than rising from the ground.
Above, you can see darker trails of buried Martian rock, left behind as the dust devils scour away loose surface soil. Below, you can watch an actual Martian dust devil, filmed by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit:
âWhile on Earth dust devils are generally just an occasional nuisance and meteorological curiosity,â Lorenz said, in a news release, âon Mars, they are major agents of dust-raising, which is a major factor in the climate, and in the operation of solar-powered vehicles on Mars.â
Going forward, scientists hope to learn more about how dust devils form and be able to predict (at least statistically speaking) what conditions might lend themselves to dust storms on the Martian surface â crucial information for any future expedition to the Red Planet.
(Image Credit:Â NASA/JPL/University of Arizona)
Is there any issues with using western influences in a pre-colonial era Northeast Asian-coded setting? For example, I have a setting heavily based on China, but have taken some aesthetic cues from European architecture, art, and culture (notably Georgian and Roman architecture, and western-style Oil Painting and Roman sculpture) and I'm worried that this has vaguely imperialist undertones.
Western Influences in Chinese Settings
China is a huge country with a really immense history. Its borders and influences have fluctuated a lot over time. Why not pull from that?? You have a vast amount of source material you can use.
Why canât China just be enough by itself???
~mod Stella
I agree with Stella. Look at the Tang Dynasty, for example, considered Chinaâs golden age. Many outside cultural influences, all of them non-Western, mostly through trade through the Silk Road or via sea.
China has a rich cultural history on its own, with its own specialties in architecture, painting and sculpture. Do some research, and you might be surprised at what you find.
âmod Jess
Stella and Jess have already explained that China is a hugely varied country with lots of inspiration to pull from. Twice. I, however, am here to address a much different point: why culture forms the way it does. You seem to be under a few misguided assumptions about culture that is making you extremely prone to cherry picking which parts of culture you want to include where, which leads to all sorts of problematic things. Namely, that itâs possible to swap one thing out for another âeasilyâ.
This is to explain why cherry picking is impossible.
Cultures are born out of the environments that made them. Roman architecture exists because the Romans had access to copious amounts of concrete materials/marble and lived in the Mediterranean, which got very hot summers, heavy rains, and not a whole lot of cold. As a result they created structures that worked for this, which included open airways, pillars, easy to clean floors, shade, and ventilation. Meanwhile, Georgian architecture came from England, where there was a ton of clay, in a very densely populated area that needed to expand because of the Industrial Revolution happening, in a damp, cool environment (England hardly ever breaks 15C or 60F). This means they build their places to retain heat and be as efficient in this as possible.
Roman statues require marble, as well, or at least easily carved stone. They require large blocks and the materials required for incredibly strong glue in order to hold a bunch of smaller blocks together. These blocks need to be of high quality, as well, so they donât ârotâ or crumble once theyâve been carved.
Oil paint requires flax (which, yes, is in China) and oil-soluble pigments that are accessible enough/not sacred for other things so painters can use them. Considering that China does have flax, there are likely other factors that could have contributed to them not developing oil paints on their own. Not all minerals can mix well with oil, and the ones used in the basis of European oil paints might not exist in Chinaâs soil, or the minerals might have a totally different purpose in Chinese culture. (I am not Chinese, so I will not speak on specific meanings for minerals; do this research yourself)
Which brings me to my second point. Cultures put value on different things. Each culture ends up with a base philosophy for what they esteem and how they use resources, which proceeds to influence how it develops. Architecture has meaning to it. So does what colours you use in different applications. Because these things are sacred and/or practical for certain social orders.
There is no such thing as âaestheticâ when you get down to the root of each single item, because that aesthetic has a practical purpose. There is also no such thing as a âsolely religious reasonâ under the same logic. Cows have become sacred in most varieties of Hinduismâ because cows (and oxen) have been the main farming animal in the Indian subcontinent for millennia. They provide milk for sustenance, power for ploughing fields, and dung, which can be used as a floor polish and, when dried, a source of fuel for fire that gives off a more even heat than wood. As a single provider for crucial elements of agrarian life, their sacredness developed from their practicality. Having cows roam freely meant absolutely everyone could have access to an efficient cooking fuel.
Chinese brush painting has meaning. Jade sculpture has meaning. Pagodas and sloped roofs and gates have meaning. The philosophy, environment, history, and present circumstances of a culture is built into every. single. little. thing. about that culture, meaning you cannot just change it out.
Unless you learn the very root of culture, their values and stigmas and honours and shames, you cannot modify it accurately. Cultures survive because that was the best way to respond to the world at the time. A long-standing culture such as Chinaâs has to be functional and incredibly well suited for the environment, otherwise it would not have survived. There is something about Chinese culture that works extraordinarily well for it to perpetuate itself, and you cannot disrespect that.
Learn the âwhyâ of culture. Learn how it came to manifest and the reasons behind its manifestations. Study the geography and resources available to the people at hand. Know a culture so well you can explain how it works in real life and how your worldâs history parallels the circumstances that created a similar culture in fantasy.
Only then will you be able to pull it off with respect.
~ Mod Lesya
The Academic Librarian Career
So how do we determine the altmetrics of our career trajectory? Is there a right and a wrong way, and does this change from early-career to mid-career librarianship? In a DIY age where a lot of us are teaching ourselves skills we know to be highly desired on the fly, how do these factors contribute to our view of the impact we have on the field?
From âSettling for a jobâ and âupward mobilityâ: todayâs career paths for librarians by Nimisha Bhat on the LITA blog.
Since I am uninterested in getting tenure and then staying at the same university for 20+ years, I enjoyed this article. There are certain hallmarks of âsuccessâ that made sense for my parents but donât work for me. For example, the fact that I am 26 and donât have my driverâs license or a car has been a topic of family mocking since... well, since I turned 16.Â
Recently I have come up with a sort-of-plan to do a research project looking at how librarians are considered faculty by looking at what criteria are used to judge them in tenure & promotion committees. I will be looking for volunteers at Canadian universities that have either been through the tenure & promotion process at their institution recently or have been on a committee judging others.Â
Of course, since my topic is promotion & tenure, I have to consider where I will publish the eventual results of this project. For âprestigeâ I should try and publish in the highest profile journal possible. Morally, I would like to publish Open Access. In reality, though, what is the real difference between publishing a pre-print online and then submitting to peer review and publishing a blog post or two and then submitting to the peer-review of the internet?Â
My current goal time-wise is to have something to present on at the local library association conference, but even then itâs only really a matter of convenience. If I cared about prestige, Iâd try to present my findings at something bigger.
This whole post can be summarized as a shrug emoji, but this is what Iâm thinking about right now: the real value of traditional measures of academic quality.
This map, showing Miâkmaw place names and the colonial names for places in the province of Nova Scotia is really interesting. Iâd be very happy if they extended the project to my home province of New Brunswick. A lot of places around where I grew up still have names that sound Miâkmaw but might be Maliseet or mangled by Anglophones, I donât know.
Employers were less likely to respond to applicants who said they had a disability, researchers show.
lolsob. okay. okay.
the first thing is, is that they had one âpersonâ disclose a physical/mobility related disability (spinal injury) and another âpersonâ disclose having aspergers. both were equally impacted.
but. ok. i think the number was these very qualified applicants got 26% fewer replies than the applicant one year out of university.
this means, based on what iâve seen:
if you have a non-white sounding name, your resume will get 30% fewer responses
if your resume shows some relationship to gayness (ie, work experience or volunteering), youâll get about 30% fewer responses
if youâre a woman, youâll get fewer responses
remember: this is just the application stage, before interviews and all those other barriers. so. um. what the fuck happens if you: have a non-white sounding name, have a disability, are a woman, and are gay?
this is why i get so fucking mad about generic job searching advice. doesnât matter how great my resume and cover letter is bc my chances of getting a call? small.

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And yes, you can still read the proposal here.
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