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The other night, the stars aligned—or at least the schedules of seven adults in four different timezones—and my friends and I were able to play Jackbox together. For those who don’t know, Jackbox is a series of party games designed to be played online, requiring only one person to have the packs and stream the game. The rest of the players watch the stream and play the game on their own device via jackbox.tv. For our group, we play using Discord so we can also voicechat, for strategy and for making dumb inside jokes.
For people who don’t live near each other—our group is scattered across Canada, the US, and the UK—games like Jackbox are a great way to socialize, especially during a pandemic. In early 2020, during the worldwide Covid-19 lockdowns, publisher Jackbox Games struggled to keep up with a sudden influx of new players; jumping from 100 million players to 110 million in two months, according to this Washington Post article. This meant completely overhauling their sites, ad copy, and even the way they’d envisioned playing the game.
Fortunately Jackbox is easy to start and stop, so different players can join in and leave as needed. Rounds are generally short and there’s no minimum amount of players, though generally only 7-8 maximum and some games just aren’t as fun with only a few people. For us Jackbox tends to be a commitment—we say we’ll just play for a few hours, or a few rounds, and suddenly it’s 2 am in my timezone and our UK friend has stayed up the entire night. It’s fun and addictive and best of all, I can play it in my pyjamas.
Libraries have been offering games and spaces to play them in for years now. Kitchener Public Library, for instance, has a collection of thirty different games, focused on helping children learn and grow, available to borrow with just a library card. Other libraries offering games to their patrons include North Perth Public Library, Newfoundland & Labrador Public Libraries, and Spruce Grove Public Library.
Board games aren’t the only types of games libraries help support. There’s video games and associated consoles, of course, but many libraries also have a focus on tabletop games like Dungeons & Dragons, which generally have an older audience. Though I’ve personally never really gotten into that kind of roleplaying game, at least three of my friends have regularly scheduled sessions and we’ve discussed having our own little one-off game. If we do manage to arrange that, I’d probably benefit from reading a game guide like Mordenkainen Presents: Monsters of the Multiverse or Dragons & Treasures by Jim Zub.
According to market research company Euromonitor International, Games & Puzzles became the fastest-growing toy market globally back in 2016—long before the current pandemic. But that doesn’t mean the pandemic hasn’t affected sales, especially among those aged 20 and older. Lockdowns meant lots of free time, not to mention digital fatigue; with everything moving online, sitting down to a physical game is often a welcome break for the mind.
Board games as a whole have improved through the years as their popularity grows. While there are still the classics like Monopoly—also known as Monotony in my family—and Battleship, there are also plenty of newer games to occupy an evening. These range from easy and quick—like Bananagrams—to updates of classics—like Catan Junior, geared more towards kids and new players—to more involved games like Gloomhaven, which contains almost 100 scenarios to play through and specialized mechanics to make each game completely unique. Many games—Cards Against Humanity comes to mind—are also being geared more towards adults, especially those of us who still have the sense of humour of a 12-year-old. No matter your skill level or interest, there’s sure to be a board or tabletop game out there for you.
There’s a new patch coming out on April 12th for the MMORPG that my friends and I all met on, Final Fantasy XIV. This means the servers will be down for most of the night while the game updates—and we have another opportunity to play Jackbox. As the current reigning champion (no matter what my friends may claim) I have a duty to defend my crown—or at least make as many dinosaur references and dirty jokes as possible.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram @LibraryServicesCentre, and on Twitter @LSC_since1967. We also encourage you to subscribe to the Weekly Update, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world. |
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Let’s talk about memes. A meme (pronounced ‘meem’) is defined as “an idea, behavior, style, or usage that spreads from person to person within a culture” and “an amusing or interesting item… or genre of items that is spread widely online especially through social media.” The word was coined in Richard Dawkins’ 1976 book The Selfish Gene but it wasn’t too well-known until the explosion of the internet. In 1993, in the June issue of Wired, Mike Godwin proposed the concept of the Internet meme and a cultural phenomenon was born.
There’s so many memes out there that a single blog can’t possibly do more than scratch the surface. I could, in fact, write an entire blog just about loss.jpg and how the sequence of characters | || || |_ actually means something to me. There are entire Tumblr essays about how memes can be combined and build on each other into a memeception that would make absolutely no sense to anyone not into that particular culture at that particular time. Perhaps that’s what makes memes so enduring as a whole, even if the majority of individual memes explode and die in weeks or even days: the versatility of putting text on an image and seeing if it makes other people laugh.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, our YouTube Channel, and now on Issuu. We also encourage you to subscribe to the LSC Weekly Update, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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It’s been a long winter and an even longer year, spent mostly cooped up inside due to various lockdowns and stay-at-home orders. But though we’re still battling the coronavirus, getting outside into the sunshine and fresh air is important, even if we have to do it spaced apart. Unfortunately trips to take the garbage out don’t count, according to my mom, but I have a good excuse to get outside in an isolated area: my horse and his propensity to find every single burr in the field, get it in his mane and tail, and turn into a unicorn.
Getting kids outside is especially important for their health, both physical and mental. Even a quick walk around the block can lower blood pressure, boost energy, and improve your state of mind. With winter retreating, the sun is getting stronger and there’s nothing as invigorating as turning your face up to the spring sunshine (just make sure you wear sunscreen and don’t look directly at the ball of burning light). Although kids have had to adjust how they play and who they can play with, getting them outside – with family, if possible – will benefit everyone.
On the other hand, some kids aren’t very outdoorsy, and that’s okay. As a kid and teen, I often took a beloved book and relaxed out on the back deck while I read, but I was never big on activities like camping, or sports that didn’t involve animals. There’s nothing wrong with bringing traditionally indoor activities like painting, writing, or board games outside, to backyards or local parks. And while most parents would like their kids to have less screen time, the portability of modern electronics means video games and TV can go just about anywhere.
So if you’re feeling sluggish and everyone’s sick of looking at a screen, head outside on a nice sunny day. Take a walk, get down in the dirt, or stretch out in the backyard with a good book and your favourite drink. If anyone needs me, I’ll be at the farm, pulling endless burrs off my horse.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, our YouTube Channel, and now on Issuu. We also encourage you to subscribe to the LSC Weekly Update, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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There’s a common misconception (among those who don’t use them) that libraries are a product of a bygone era, good only for books and fairly useless in today’s high-tech age. This isn’t true, as anyone who’s stepped foot in a library in the past decade can tell you. Beyond print books, libraries offer audiobooks, AV like DVDs and video games, and even toys and games.
They are community hubs where you can learn how to write a resume, how to use a computer, and how to create art ranging from knitting to 3D printing. Libraries provide a space for anyone to use, no matter their income; offering study groups, tutoring lessons, children’s activities, or just a warm place out of a cold Canadian winter.
One way that libraries are changing to meet current technical needs is by offering kits that can be borrowed just like a book. These kits can contain a multitude of things, including educational toys, STEAM activity books, and technological gadgetry like the Raspberry Pi and solar robots. Kits can also be more party-based, like with green screen props; focused on music like the ukulele; or even a collection of family games like a kid-friendly magnetic darts board.
Discovery kits are a good way for libraries to help support the school curriculum in their community. Kits can cover a wide range of subjects, from chemistry to astronomy to minerals, crystals, and rocks. You can even go on a dinosaur dig in the comfort of your own home! The hands-on aspects of these kits help kids learn by doing, but for those that are more reader-inclined, discovery kits also include print books.
For those with mathematical minds, DK is publishing Math Maker Lab in July. Suitable for ages 10 and up, the book offers 25 creative projects and experiments designed to make learning about math fun. Projects include a times-table dreamcatcher, a multiplication machine, and the ability to draw impossible objects.
Adults can get in on the fun by working on projects with their kids (or by themselves; no judgement, says the woman with a 2-foot cardboard T. rex on her side table) or by looking for kits geared towards adults at their local library. These kits can include textile art like quilting or cross-stitch; gardening complete with seed packets; or even tool kits for DIY home repairs.
Libraries are a vital part of the community. They provide safe spaces, community outreach, and, yes, books. Libraries are ever-evolving and working to support their communities, so if you haven’t been to one in a while, take a trip there and see what they have to offer.
For clients looking to supplement their kits, LSC offers SLIST 44667: 82 titles on science, math, textile art, and more! Kits themselves can be created by special request; please contact our new ARP Coordinator Julie Kummu, or Selection and Customer Service Manager Jamie Quinn.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, our YouTube Channel, and now on Issuu. We also encourage you to subscribe to the LSC Weekly Update, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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Between the ages of 13 and 23, I worked in horse barns, first as a volunteer and then as a full time job. This gave me a mouth like a sailor, because there’s nothing quite as appropriate as ‘!@$%’ when a thousand-pound animal hip checks you into a wall. These days I work in an office and the only horse I see regularly is my own - whose interests lie mostly in how he’s never been fed, ever, in his entire life – but I still tend to pepper my sentences with cursing.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, our YouTube Channel, and now on Issuu. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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Back in January 2020, COVID-19 was just something on the news, happening in a far-away country. We knew about it, we sympathized with Wuhan, but it seemed like just another flu-type illness. By February, it was hitting closer to home: a coworker’s sister, who lives in Italy, was under lockdown and the WHO had declared the outbreak a global public health emergency. Mass cancellations of public events and the closure of schools followed, and by mid-March COVID-19 was officially a global pandemic, sparking lockdowns all over the world. Even as we head into summer now, restrictions remain in place for many people, including social distancing measures and the requirement of face coverings.
So what exactly is COVID-19? In broadest terms, it’s a coronavirus, part of a large family of viruses named for their spiky appearance. According to the CDC, there are four main sub-groupings of coronaviruses – alpha, beta, gamma, and delta – and seven types that affect humans. 229E and NL63, both alpha coronaviruses, and OC43 and HKU1, beta coronaviruses, are the most common and usually cause mild respiratory symptoms. The three remaining coronaviruses, however, are the dangerous ones, evolving from infecting animals to infecting humans. These three are MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV, and SARS-CoV-2, aka COVID-19.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, on Twitter, our YouTube Channel, and now on Issuu. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Stay safe! |
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When I was 16, a friend of mine asked me if I’d heard of NaNoWriMo. It turned out that there was this event going into its second year called National Novel Writing Month, where the goal was to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Both of us were writers and at 16, my only real time concern was being in my last year of high school, so we decided we would both sign up and attempt this challenge.
NaNo (as it’s known to us Wrimos) was small back then, at least compared to today; its inaugural year in July 1999 featured a whole 21 participants. By the time I heard of it, I was one of 5000, and the event was being reported in the L.A. Times and the Washington Post. I won that year with a terrible novel about vampires, a talking cabbage, and a hellhound named Fluffy, because when you need to write 50,000 words in a month, reality is the least of your concerns. I’ve participated every year since, in both the original NaNo and in the spinoff Camp NaNoWriMo, which began in 2011 and allows me to choose my own wordcount goal rather than sticking to the 50K. I’ve also won every year, sometimes legitimately, sometimes by cheating... I mean, rebelling.
In past years, there’s usually been one or two news articles or blog posts questioning NaNo and whether it’s ruining the sanctity of the written word. They usually point out that a novel written in 30 days probably isn’t very good, and also such a singleminded focus on length won’t improve that. This is true. A novel written in 30 days will be awkward and ungainly, full of run-on sentences, illogical actions, and plotholes you can drive a truck through. Characters change names, appearances, and occasionally gender. Authors forget how to English (or whatever their language is), as proved by the hilarious NaNoisms thread that pops up every year for participants to chronicle their worst typos and brainfarts. At the end of the month, you have a novel that is certainly not in any state to be published, or even shopped around to agents.
That’s not the point. The point of NaNo is to get yourself writing. It’s to train yourself to sit down in your chair, put your hands on the keyboard, and write some words. Sometimes that’s only a sentence. Sometimes you drag out the first few (hundred) words and your muse finally engages and you’re off flying, words spilling out so fast your fingers can’t even keep up. Either way, you’re doing something many people say they’ll do but never carve out the time to actually do it.
In the 18 years I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo, I’ve written almost 1 million words. I’ve written halves of novels, full novels, short stories, novellas, 104K in a month, 50K in 6 days (Surgeon General’s Warning: not recommended unless you like uncontrollable tremors). Whether I finish a full novel or rebel by rewriting older stories (or by writing blog posts), NaNo has taught me to just put my head down, stop complaining, and get it done.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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In February 2017, journalist Robyn Doolittle and the Globe and Mail published their Unfounded investigation. The result of 20 months spent interviewing sexual assault survivors and gathering data, the series showed that, across Canada, 1 in 5 complaints of sexual assault were dismissed as ‘unfounded’ – an official police code that closed the case with no investigation. In the wake of the report, over 37,000 cases were put under review, the Federal government pledged $100 million towards a national strategy to prevent gender-based violence, and the RCMP reviewed their unfounded policies.
Here in Canada, #MeToo spawned AfterMeToo via a Globe and Mail symposium featuring, among others, actresses Mia Kirshner and Freya Ravensbergen, and film producer Aisling Chin-Yee. AfterMeToo calls for change in the entertainment industry, including creating reform and improving current policies, in cooperation with the Canadian Women’s Foundation.
The publication of these books, and others, helps bring the focus onto women and our experiences, both positive and negative. #MeToo and the other movements it’s helped spawn have created a global conversation around women’s rights and the sexual assault and harassment that happens to far too many people. While we still have a way to go, I’m hopeful that society as a whole will continue to shift towards a world where both women and men feel safe, supported, and valued.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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A couple years ago, I was in Michaels looking for something that I could make my Nanny as a present for Christmas, as there’s only so many gift sets one woman needs. Wandering through the aisles, I came across a small section containing cross-stitch kits and various supplies. I figured, can’t be too hard to do a kit; everything is included and besides, I had a vague memory of doing one back when I was eight or so. If a child could do it, surely a 30-something alleged adult could too.
So I bought a lovely little kit featuring goldfinches and lilacs, took it home, opened it up, and stared in horror at the graph. There was a grid and a lot of symbols and apparently I needed to be able to count to do this arts and crafts project. I put it on a nearby surface and that year, my Nanny got gift cards for gas and Tim Hortons.
This whole cross-stitch thing stayed in the back of my mind, however. Sometime in the new year, I was back in Michaels and ended up in the cross-stitch aisle again. This time, I chose a kit that said it was specifically for children, took it home, and promptly did it completely wrong because reading directions is for other people. Two days later (after reading the directions this time), I’d redone it correctly and it actually looked pretty good. More importantly, I’d gotten the bug and I got it bad.
I’m not the only one who uses cross-stitch for mental health. According to hobbyist site The Spruce Crafts, the benefits of cross-stitch include calmness, increased focus, and stress reduction. I can confirm that when I’m cross-stitching, I don’t have time to focus on worries; I’m too busy trying to figure out how I managed to count 5 stitches instead of 6, throwing off my entire pattern. Sometimes I can fix it and no one will ever know, unless they happen to be a cross-stitcher working on the same pattern. Most times it needs to be frogged, but that’s okay; as long as I have the floss, I can redo it as many times as needed to get it right.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy!
*pictures of cross-stitched items by the author
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Over the past few years, true crime in a variety of formats has flourished. Although there’s always been a fascination with heinous murders, daring bank robberies, and hilariously inept criminals, it seems that the genre has seen a renaissance lately. Not only are there books to read, but anyone with access to the internet can explore true crime websites, listen to true crime podcasts, and watch true crime documentaries and docuseries.
TV, film, and especially podcasts centering on true crime are a more modern invention. TV and film can include both documentaries – some with reenactments, some without – and dramatic films based on the crime. One of the pioneers in TV true crime is Forensic Files, a half-hour series that began airing in 1996. Each episode is presented as a mystery and involves both reenactments and interviews with the real detectives and scientists involved with the case. For Canadian cases in a similar format, there’s 72 Hours, which has 3 seasons and a couple of familiar faces in the reenactments.
So why do we love true crime so much? According to a Global News interview with Jooyoung Lee, an associate professor of sociology at UTP, we’re ‘just drawn to extreme cases of violence.’ Part of this is that we’re naturally curious, but also crime grabs our attention by being exciting and entertaining. We also, according to Lee, like to feel like we’re part of the story, especially when it comes to cold cases that we might have a hand in solving.
The true crime genre isn’t likely to go away any time soon. There are always new crimes being committed, and the world will always be fascinated by them, especially in the current cynical, uncertain times.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
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LSC Library Services Centre 44 April 25, 2022 |
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Stef Waring 15 April 18, 2022 |
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Rachel Seigel 38 April 11, 2022 |
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Systems LSC 1 February 7, 2022 |
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Selection Services 3 October 18, 2021 |
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Karrie Vinters 9 June 14, 2021 |
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Sara Pooley 6 April 19, 2021 |