Last Day at my Library

So today I finished up the last little bits of my work (pictured left) at my current library in preparation for my new job which starts Monday. I’ve cleared my desk, my desktop and my email and am ready to move onto my fascinating new job working in Open Data. Having left three jobs since 2010, here is my advice for people in my position.

Start packing early, and get your home stuff home as soon as you have a concrete date of departure.
Although there are lots of reasons to push back tasks, remember that your last few days may be filled with things you didn’t plan for (meetings, last minute tasks, etc.), and if you want to make sure you bring home your fan, you photos, your rubik’s cube (everyone has one of those right?) and whatever else, they should all head home sooner than later.

Create a list of what must get done before you leave
Then print it out, tack it up on the wall, and cross each thing off as you do it – this will be a clear reminder of what needs to get done and a good way to ensure you cross all your T’s and dot all your I’s before you leave.

Figure out the best way to leave your office for the next person
If someone is coming in to do your old job, maybe leave a note – or as I often do, a list of things that were not very apparent to me when I started. Remember that even after your gone, you can still do a little good.

Get your coworkers contact info if they’re willing
Keeping track of friends tends to be easy, but coworkers sometimes fall into that bizarre space where you don’t exactly know if you want them connected to you on Facebook/LinkedIn/Google+ but believe me, it’s easier to ask in the weeks leading up to the end, rather than two weeks later (especially if some of them are retiring)

Take a moment
Regardless of whether your job change is a good or bad one, it is a transition period and it’s sometimes easy to lose track and forget that often the best way to figure out what is most important is to step back, take a breath, and then look around. Maybe you want to get a picture of the office you sat in for four years before your gone or maybe you just want to make sure you have that last latte from your favourite local coffee spot. Make sure to take a little time for you.

Things I've Noticed: Horror Creeps into my music, too

I’ve written an awful lot over the last few years about favourite horror films, stories and games, but there are definitely a lot of favourite creepy songs out there as well.  Last night my lovely wife picked up the new Regina Spektor album,What We Saw from the Cheap Seats, and the seventh song is called All The Rowboats which takes a trip to a museum or gallery to an extremely creepy level; the song starts out by describing paintings in a museum:

 

All the rowboats, in the paintings
They keep trying to row away
And the captain's worried faces
Stay contorted and staring at the waves
They'll keep hanging, in their gold frames
For forever, forever and a day
All the rowboats, in the oil paintings
They keep trying to row away, row away

 

The whole album is really great, but this song both intrigued and freaked me out a little (musuems and galleries being cultural cousins of libraries – where I hope to work again one day).

 

I’ll admit, It may not have the same staying power as The Monster Mash or Ночь на лысой горе, but I’ve got to say the creepy factor was both unexpected and a lot of fun.

Things I've noticed: I'm not too cool for school

Two weeks ago I got in a pretty nasty bicycle accident on my way home from work, putting me out of commission for a couple weeks and leaving me in a cast until halfway through September.

On the positive side however, I just found out that I got into Grad School, so as of next month I will be working towards getting my Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree.

This means (hopefully) that by the end of 2016 (as I'm working part-time) that I will be a librarian working in a future library (like the one based above - although hopefully not that one as it has no comfortable seating, obvious possibilities for suicidal patrons and nowhere for the staff to go).

Vending Machine Review: The EPL Lending Machine

I'm always happy to see my city come up with new ideas, or perhaps a new twist on an old idea, like the Edmonton Public Library's new Lending Machine. The premise is pretty simple; take the technology used for candy vending machines and fill it up with materials from the library (books, music, DVDs, video games, etc.), attach a return chute to the machine and then put it in one of our LRT (basically a subway) stations.

Suddenly you've given library access to people using our mass transit system, so then can sign out and return items during their daily commute. The machine looks pretty nice and my daughter Lorisia (who used the machine last Friday - pictured above) said it was pretty easy to use and kind of fun.

I hope the project works out well and we get more of these machines in our city, because the idea is really kind of cool.