Signalling At Ottawa Public Library

In the process of experimentation there are endless opportunities for error, and the free search for truth therefore involves friction and waste.
L. T. Hobhouse, Liberalism, p. 59

Could you imagine the uproar in the City of Walmart, er, ah, the City of Ottawa if a person with a graduate degree in Library Science was promoted to the position of Chief Urban Planner for the City of Ottawa!? Why all the land rapers and soulless corporate house flipping whores would be in a totally catatonic state. But when a want'a be failed urban planner (?) gets set up as the replacement for the retiring Head Librarian of the the venerable Ottawa Public Library, well you just get the contractor spin doctors out and put the story into the Sunday edition of the skanky Ottawa Citizen! Nobody reads the Ottawa Citizen, especially on Sunday... You only buy the Ottawa Citizen for the TV guide... (and the cat box and bird cage....)

A library is not a "business"...

 For the first time since the utterly disastrous amalgamation of the City of Ottawa the new head of the Ottawa Public Library will not be a librarian! One can only surmise which office that this decision came from. But the signal it sends is wrought with doom if you are a fan of the Ottawa Public Library. And when you hear the expression that the Ottawa Public Library is a "business", well you can conclude that the decision came down from the Prime Ministers Office, not the mayors office. And as you may have have noticed anything that is named McDonald is getting a pretty free ride today.

Ottawa Public Library - Main Branch
Future site of Bayshore Phase III?

Did you know dear reader that the Ottawa Public Library is the largest French-English library in North America? Did you know that it is the second largest public library in Canada? The only larger public library is  in the City of Toronto! With an annual budget of over 50 million dollars, don't you think the incompetent powers that presently are could get a search on for a posh "Cadillac" Head Librarian? Why the Oracle of Ottawa has a pretty good picture of the successful candidate already! Let us take a break from the spiral to the bottom and shoot high... Lets see... Undergraduate degree from a prestigious College at Oxford, you know, a Rhodes Scholar.  The University of Oxford has books! Over 11 million of them! And a very large percentage of them are all but priceless. One hears that the Oxford library science program is world class. A side degree in the "Greats" and /or philosophy would be utterly perfect also. Why not? The stature and presence of the second largest public library in Canada deserves a Head Librarian with a doctorate in library science. I mean really...

Now dear reader, we all know what a job like this should pay. I figure the starting salary should be about $125,000 per year to start. And then there are the language requirements. Ottawa, even in the 'Harper Government' era,  is a very cosmopolitan city, don't you know! Why the Oracle of Ottawa figures that the new Head Librarian of the Ottawa Public Library should be able to speak the big four languages of the Western Civilized World, don't you? That of course means English, French, German, and Spanish. A bonus should be offered and payed if the new Head Librarian could speak the core languages of the Classical World also, those being of course Greek and Latin. The Oracle of Ottawa deeply regrets that all pass arts degree trots from Cartoon U need not apply....

Books are sacred. A Library is not a "business". It does not market and sell products for the purpose of "profit". Go back to the drawing board and start the open selection process for a proper and posh Head Librarian. Chop chop, of you go little people....