Whether your workplace gets busier during the summer months or slows down, summer is flying by, and the LTAIG Committee hopes you're all enjoying the beautiful weather and not working too hard. Go on, take a little break and read this newsletter!

For many people, summer is the perfect time for catching up on reading – there's nothing like devouring the latest bestseller while catching a few rays on a warm, lazy weekend. A few weeks ago, I was vacationing at my grandparents' lake house in Manitoba, and was thrilled to revisit Lac Du Bonnet's tiny library, where as a kid, I'd check out piles of books which I'd read while soaking in the sun (and swatting away mosquitoes!). Although my taste in books has matured slightly since then, I was pleased to see the library running in full force, as fun and friendly as ever.

As well stocked and convenient as big library systems are, small libraries are welcoming and ambitious, and are an especially vital part of small communities. Over the past few months, I've noticed eye-catching ads on public transit for an InterLINK service called Library Onecard, which allows you to register your local library card for use at dozens of Lower Mainland branches and libraries, "from Boston Bar to Sechelt". According to the Onecard website, ( www.libraryonecard.ca ), "this no fixed address feature is great for students, commuters and travellers who want to borrow and return materials from libraries beyond their home location." This sounds like the perfect way to take advantage of the resources at smaller libraries, wherever you are this summer!

The June issue of our newsletter, our first, was very well received and we hope that you will enjoy this one too. Remember, we'd love to receive your suggestions or contributions for this newsletter. We want to hear from library support staff in the working world, as well as library tech students. You may send submissions and feedback to LTAIGnewsletter@gmail.com .

Here's what you'll find in this issue: LTAIG updates, practicum advice request, conference reports, website update, a review of the Info*Nation website, upcoming events, a book review, and membership news.

Happy summer, and happy reading!

~Emma Wood, LTAIG Newsletter Editor & Social Coordinator

With summer in full swing many of us are turning our thoughts to vacations, trips to the beach, barbeques, and other fun summer activities. But the LTAIG Committee is still finding time to keep busy as we start preparing for the coming year. A few significant changes have occurred on the committee, including some new roles and new members.

I have officially stepped into the Committee Chair position, adding to my current responsibilities managing our website. Diane Walker has passed on the chair duties after four years in the role. Diane was part of a small group of individuals who got together in 2002 and revived the Library Technicians & Assistants Interest Group. Diane deserves special thanks for all of her hard work and dedication to LTAIG over the years. It is largely due to her passion, dedication and leadership that the LTAIG Committee has been able to accomplish all that it has. Fortunately, Diane will continue working with the committee in her capacity as liaison with library support staff associations throughout the country.

Carol Fowler will step down as email list manager at the end of summer. Taking her place is Jennifer Brown, who will add managing the email list to her current duties as committee secretary. Special thanks to Carol for doing a superb job in managing the list, and especially for her diligence in alerting list subscribers to new job opportunities. We wish her the best of luck.

Courtney Walker, one of LTAIG's social coordinators, has volunteered to manage LTAIG's next Canadian Library Support Staff Survey, which is planned for spring 2007.

The LTAIG Committee has also welcomed four new members: Lisa Morry, our student liaison to UCFV; Judy Johanson, student liaison to Langara; and Christine Hagemoen & John Alexander, members at large.

A full list of committee contacts is available on our website at: www.bcla.bc.ca/memfiles/10126388 .

It is an exciting time to be involved with the LTAIG Committee! As incoming chairperson, I am looking forward to working with a fabulous group of talented volunteers. LTAIG was fortunate to have a representative at the recent BCLA strategy session, and we have come away excited at the possibilities for the year ahead. Some of the activities we have on the go include: a barbeque in September, participating in the Langara LIT program's 40th anniversary celebration, and developing our next cross-country survey.

LTAIG always has room for more volunteers and more ideas. After all, this group exists for the library support staff of British Columbia, and we are only as active as our members. Check out www.bcla.bc.ca/ltaig for more information on LTAIG, and drop us a line at ltaig@bcla.bc.ca if you would like to get involved.

~Rob Golbeck, LTAIG Chair & Website Administrator

Many thanks to everyone who participated in LTAIG's survey on email list and discussion board usage. We used your feedback to revise our policy, which is now available on the LTAIG website at: www.bcla.bc.ca/__page/10100134.100.41.aspx .

The results of the survey are also available at: www.bcla.bc.ca/memfiles/10128312 .

If you haven't had a chance to look at them yet, we encourage you to read over and familiarize yourself with the Policy and General Posting Guidelines.

School will begin soon for new classes of future library techs and assistants in BC. One of the most beneficial parts of library training is the work experience or practicum placement, and most techs will tell you that they are essential for getting your foot in the door and earning valuable experience in the field. That said, they can also be nerve-wracking and challenging to organize. Never fear – LTAIG is here!

Judy Johanson, LTAIG Committee member and Langara LIT student, suggested that we invite people to share advice, experiences, and tips for how to have a successful practicum. Send your tips and advice to LTA I GNewsletter@gmail.com and watch for them in the next issue of our newsletter!

Diane Walker attended the annual conference of the Canadian Library Assocation, held in Ottawa from June 14 to 17, 2006. The theme of this year's conference was "Libraries Build Communities".

I was honoured to be the winner of the inaugural Library Technician Award of Merit from the Canadian Library Association's Library Technician Interest Group – and delighted to learn that a flight to the 2006 CLA Conference in Ottawa was part of the award. Attending a national library conference is a wonderful way to meet people and get a chance to learn about issues in the wider library world.

[Editor's note: Please see this link for a picture of Diane receiving her award, and more information on the LTIG group! http://www.cla.ca/about/igroups/CLA%20LTIG%20Update%20June%202006.pdf ]

Some of my favourite conference experiences included:

Library tours of:

Ø       The brand new "browsing branch" of Ottawa Public Library developed for their 100 th anniversary ( www.opl.ottawa.on.ca/explore/branches/sc_e.cfm )

Ø       The Parliamentary Library, which is open again after four years of renovation ( www.parliamenthill.gc.ca/text/cmplbr/lbrprl-e.html )

Keynote address by:

Ø       Father and son team, Stephen and Avi Lewis, in conversation about Stephen's development work regarding AIDS in Africa, and Avi's attempts to find his own style of political activism. The Stephen Lewis Foundation website is at: www.stephenlewisfoundation.org

Some interesting conference sessions I attended included:  

Ø       A session on the results of the CLA President's Council on the 8Rs, relating to the employment future in the library community – details at: www.cla.ca/top/whatsnew/presidents_council_8rs.htm

Ø       A new website to inform and intrigue young people about library careers launched on July 1 at: www.infonation.ca -- submit your story of why you love library world of work. [Editor's note: see Jen Brown's review of the Info*Nation website below!]

Ø       The new mandate of Library and Archives Canada – the tension between the library and archival communities is showing! ( www.collectionscanada.ca/index-e.html )

Ø       Women in politics – a female politician, activist and journalist talked about the importance of increasing the number of women in all levels of elected government, an effort advocated by Equal Voice ( www.equalvoice.ca/index.htm )

Ø       The rebuilding of the Library at Alexandria in Egypt ( www.bibalex.org )

Mark your calendars! A joint CLA/BCLA Conference will be held in Vancouver, on May 21-24, 2008, and you will want to be there.

~Submitted by Diane Walker, LT Association Liaison

Emma Wood attended the annual conference of the Special Libraries Association, held in Baltimore, MD from June 11 to 14, 2006.

I was extremely fortunately to be sponsored by my firm to attend three days of this conference. This was my second time attending the annual SLA conference and I had a great time attending sessions, learning about new products and services, meeting other members, and taking in the sights of Baltimore and nearby Washington, D.C.

As a library technician in a special library, it is sometimes hard to find professional development activities that are relevant to my job. The wonderful thing about the SLA conference is that there are dozens of sessions to choose from and no matter what type of setting you work in, you are bound to find sessions that appeal to you and are related to your field. Most of the sessions I attended focussed on search, internet technologies, research, marketing, and trends in the delivery of information services. The keynote speech given by Walter Mossberg, the personal technology columnist for the Wall Street Journal, was one of the highlights!

I was a Western Canadian Chapter blogger for the official conference blog ( http://slablogger.typepad.com/sla_2006_conference_blog/ ) and posted my thoughts and summaries of several sessions there as well. This was both useful and stressful: useful because I had to immediately process what I'd learned and try to post somewhat cohesive thoughts for others to read, and stressful because I didn't want to be spending all of my down-time in front of the computer! In the end I posted a lot less than I had anticipated, and think that if I were to do it again another year I would definitely bring the laptop to the conference with me (I left it at the hotel because I didn't want to be hauling it around – plus, there wasn't free wi-fi in the convention centre) and type my notes instead of writing them by hand, using downtime between sessions wisely.

As with last year's conference, I returned to Vancouver feeling inspired and energized and ready to put what I'd learned into action. While many people feel that the true value of conferences is in the networking, I find that attending high-quality sessions presented by thought leaders and experts is just as valuable – you can't recreate that experience with a PowerPoint presentation or even a videoconference. Being in a room full of colleagues from around the world, eager to learn and share, is an affirmation of the worthwhile nature of library and information work, and a reminder of the passion and enthusiasm that unite us.

~Submitted by Emma Wood

Since LTAIG started tracking visitor traffic to our website we have been monitoring a number of patterns in the site's usage. Using free software from StatCounter.com , we are able to follow such indicators as search words used to find the site, other websites that link to ours, number of visitors and return visitors that come to the site, and visitors' geographic location.

While the bulk of visitors to the LTAIG website are, not surprisingly, in British Columbia, more and more they are tapping in from right across Canada, and frequently from international locations such as the United States, Australia, Britain, Pakistan, Japan and Hong Kong. The most common sections viewed by these international users are the 2005 survey, the LIT program listings, and the career section. They use search words that indicate an interest in education opportunities in Canada, working conditions, and salary information. They also enter our website through links on other sites, for example, LibrarySupportStaff.com, Associates e-journal, ALA Allied Professional Association, and the Vancouver Law Librarian Blog. Increasingly, LTAIG is becoming a destination for many web users regardless of their location.

These geographic indicators are a reminder that, while the Library Technicians & Assistants Interest Group exists for the library support staff of British Columbia, we are in fact part of a much larger, global community that shares many similar concerns and interests.

Links cited:

BCLA Library Technicians & Assistants Interest Group: http://www.bcla.bc.ca/ltaig

StatCounter.com: http://www.statcounter.com

LibrarySupportStaff.com: http://ww.librarysupportstaff.com

Associates: the Electronic Library Support Staff Journal: http://associates.ucr.edu

ALA Allied Professional Association: http://www.ala-apa.org

Vancouver Law Librarian Blog: http://vancouverlawlib.blogspot.com

Info*Nation is a website created by the Canadian Library Association, designed to promote library and information careers in Canada. It has a great design with funky pictures and fun write-ups. Everything revolves around promoting the library field as something more than just working with books, and there is a pervading sense of discovering something more.

The site is organized into eight sections: Welcome, At the Core, Skills for Success, Benefits, Take a Tour, Library Blogs, Job Descriptions , and Get Started! Each section has an assortment of links and information.

The "At the Core" section outlines seven core values of the library profession: Literacy & Education, Serving the Public, Intellectual Freedom, Access to Information, Information Intermediacy, Preservation, and Professionalism. Each core value links to a page of information about that value, with quotes from people working in the library field, which I thought was a really neat addition. Providing real-life quotes makes it feel more accessible and easy to relate to.

The "Take a Tour" section allows you to click on several pictures of individuals working in the library field. These pictures are really cool – all done in black & white illustrations. Each picture takes you to a new page, where you can read all about that person (or people) and what they do in their job. Some BC library technicians appear here, including Stuart Folland (Langara College, Library & Information Technology Program), and Christina Tribe (Harper Grey LLP). There are also many individual write-ups done by others in the field, including one by LTAIG's own Courtney Walker! These write-ups discuss things like why these people love their jobs, what they do, why they got into library work, and so on. They also feature librarians, library technicians, and library assistants from all sorts of libraries across Canada. Again, these real-life perspectives make a career in libraries seem much more appealing. I really think that this will appeal to younger people exploring future career paths.

The "Job Descriptions" section gives sample (hypothetical) job postings in the library field. Right now, postings range from a Cataloguing Technician at Mountain Spring Public Library, to a Children's Librarian at Churchill Library. These descriptions outline job duties, qualifications, and salaries, providing a good background to and salaries, providing a good starting point for what to expect as a library professional.

There is also a link to a salary survey, done by the Faculty of Information Studies at the University of Toronto, which is great background information too. However, this survey is intended for graduates of the University of Toronto's Master of Information Studies, so it provides no useful information for prospective library technicians, or assistants. There is also no information about where in Canada the survey respondents are working, so it doesn't reflect what the job market is like for library professionals across Canada. However, it does provide a good general idea of what to expect in the field. A page of links to various job posting sites (including BCLA's Job Board) is also provided.

The "Get Started!" section outlines what you need to do to begin a career in libraries. Links are provided for information about Library Technician programs, and Library & Information Studies Master Degree programs across Canada.

This is an excellent resource for anyone considering a career in libraries. Everything you need is all there! The layout and design are visually pleasing, and the site is easy to navigate. The pictures are cool and the real-life quotes are a great promotion too. I would recommend this site to anyone considering a career in libraries.

[Editor's note: Info*Nation is still looking for contributors for their profiles and quotes. If you love your job, take a minute and submit something at www.cla.ca/infonation/join.htm !]

~Jen Brown, LTAIG Secretary

Langara's Library & Information Technology Program's 40th Anniversary Celebration

*Inviting all Alumni, Past Students, and the Library Community to Langara's Library & Information Technology Program's 40th Anniversary Celebration!*

Please come and reconnect with colleagues and friends, instructors, practicum hosts, current students, and members of the library community. Highlights of the evening will include displays going back to our early years and looking ahead to our upcoming move to Langara's new library.

Great conversation! Door prizes! Light refreshments!

Friday September 15th 2006 from 5:00 - 9:00pm

Langara College | Employee Lounge | 100 W 49th Avenue | Vancouver BC

LTAIG Fall Potluck Barbeque

The LTAIG Committee is planning a potluck barbeque on Saturday, September 30th and hopes to see lots of new faces! Watch for details on the LTAIG email list.

Talk to the hand: the utter bloody rudeness of the world today, or six good reasons to stay home and bolt the door

Lynn Truss

New York : Gotham Books, c2005.

Having laughed, nodded, and learned a little as I read Eats Shoots and Leaves , I was thrilled when Truss' new book turned up under my Christmas tree this past year. As I plunged in, however, I was disappointed by this rant on the manners of the world's people. I admit that there were parts that made me laugh out loud. There were also parts that made me shake my head at the age-old 'where have all the manners gone' argument that Truss so eloquently represents. The thing that made Eats Shoots and Leaves so enjoyable, the actual discussion of grammar and style conventions that accompanied the editorial, is missing in Talk to the Hand , and that makes it a little hard to swallow.

That said, it is well written and well bound. If you know of someone who is looking for a good argument against banning spanking, this may be your recommendation of choice. But for those who like a little substance to their reading, you'll have to keep looking.

~Samantha Adams, LTAIG Member at Large

This month we're happy to announce that three of our LTAIG committee members have started in new jobs.

Samantha Adams (Langara '06) has started as a casual cataloguing assistant at Surrey Public Library.

Christine Hagemoen (Langara '06) recently started a permanent part-time postition at CBC Vancouver as a Media Librarian.

Jennifer Brown (Langara '06) has started as a permanent library assistant in the CILS department at the Langara College Library.

Do you have a new position, job, or other news to share? Send your news to LTAIGnewsletter@gmail.com and it will be included in the next issue. Please indicate whether we may include your full name (for privacy reasons, we will use only your first name and last initial if you prefer).