Just Back From Toronto, Arms in Kind of Pain

Posted on 02/02/2004

Ok, if you never watched Andrea Martin play Nana Mouskouri on SCTV, then this headline won't make much sense. The point is that I returned yesterday from attending the Ontario Library Association Super Conference, an always great conference that gets better each year. I did some speaking on XML and technical trends, but the highlight of the conference for me was receiving the OCULA Librarian of the Year Award. I was, and am, blown away by this, but while my brain cells recuperate from a very busy couple of days, I am posting my acceptance speech. There is lots of technical stuff to cover arising from the conference as well, though I am sorry to say that I missed the blogging session with John Dupuis, Windsor's own Mita Sen-Roy, Steven Cohen, and Rivkin Radler. Anyway, in the meantime, this is the closest I may ever get to saying "I would like to thank the Academy..."

Ontario College and University Library Association Award 2004

This is a great honour, and it completely blind-sided me. When Martie [Grof-Iannelli] phoned and said I was the librarian of the year, I didn't understand at first that I had won something and kept thinking "wow Martie, I think the world of you too". In trying to piece together what I should say about the OCULA Award I thought back to another award from many years ago. When I was in grade 4, I won the second prize in the Metropolitan Stores of Canada's National Sweepstakes. Now the first prize was a colour television, which would have been really nice, but the second was a radio, and at the time, this was a much desired addition to my possessions. Unfortunately, I was informed that when I went to pick up the radio at the Metropolitan store on Archimedes' street in downtown New Glasgow, Nova Scotia, I would have to answer a skill-testing question. I know now that under Canadian lottery law sponsors inject an element of skill into promotions in order to avoid having a promotion classified as an illegal lottery. However, at the time, I was convinced it was nothing but a cruel way to keep coal-miners' children away from the prizes they so richly deserved.

So given that I had one week before the radio would arrive in New Glasgow, I turned to the public library to try to acquire the sum of human knowledge before the fateful morning would arrive. I read encyclopedias and newspapers, made notes, and tried to memorize as many world events as possible. I was far from confident on the Saturday morning I was put in plain view of the shining white radio and the manager of the store, who, ironically I would work for in several different businesses years later, asked me who the leader of Canada was.

Now, think about that question, it was not "who was the prime minister of Canada", nor did it refer to the spiritual or constitutional leader of the country. No it was arguably a very unfair question on many levels. However, I was not sure I could answer the question even if it was more specific, so I decided to hit as many bases as possible in my answer, which was "his right honourable majesty, president Pierre Elliot Trudeau". The manager laughed, wrote something down on a sheet, and gave me the radio, and later a job, and later still, several others.

In academia, skill-testing questions play a large part in what we do. The communities we serve may not face specific questions, and part of our role is to enable them to hit as many bases as possible. I have been honoured to have been on both sides of the exchange in that process, and have worked with a lot of great peers and mentors along the way. I tend to deal a lot with technology in libraries but I try to never lose sight of the phenomenal enterprize in which we are engaged.

No matter if the network is down, or if the bits aren't lining up properly in our applications, I always know that the library is the at the center of the best what humanity has to offer, and from designing radios to writing novels, through to tackling social problems and pushing the limits of what carbon based life forms can accomplish, we offer a map to the future for our communities. Maybe not always with clear directions, and maybe not always with clear answers, but information is not a widget, learning is not always linear, and maps are often starting points to many different kinds of journeys. I thank OCULA for commending how far I have traveled in my own journey and I am very aware that I have rarely traveled alone, for which I am profoundly grateful. I also thank the Ontario Library Association for giving us the chance for the kind of dialogue and interaction helps so many of us find our way.

Thank you very much for this award.