Diane Philip: Life at the lemonade stand

With such a healthy sense of humour and a positive relish for her job, you would never know that Diane Philip (shown at left) is coping with a split personality. Philip, whose official title is Library Assistant, has two distinct roles to fill, one as a reference assistant and the other as a provider of technical support for library systems.

Her work week is supposed to be divided exactly in half, but she has discovered that "two departments always add up to more than one job. If you take a day off, then you have to change your schedule to make sure that you give equal time to each department. It can get confusing."

Philip needs a clear head for her stint at the reference desk of the McLennan Library, a spot so busy it requires three people to meet the demand for information. And Philip says those seeking help are frequently under a lot of stress. "Most are students with term papers due. Their nerves are frayed. They don't know how to find what they want, they don't know how to use the equipment, and there are lineups everywhere."

Philip, a former winner of the Library Staff Excellence Award, says at times she needs to employ a little psychiatry. "It's like Lucy at the lemonade stand in Peanuts. You have to be able to size people up. With some you can be kind of glib, but others feel very intimidated. They come to the desk and say, 'I have a stupid question.' I usually tell them, 'Don't worry. If you knew it all, I'd be out of work.' I try to make them feel better."

Often helping customers locate information means doing on-the-spot training in the library database systems, known as MUSE and PERUSE. And Philip is eminently qualified to provide it, because in the other half of her job, she not only helps maintain the systems, she also gives workshops to groups on how to use them. Another part of her work away from the frontlines is answering e-mail directed to the libraries' webmaster.

People send all sorts of questions, mostly about research, but some a little less weighty. "We've had people write and ask if they're related to James McGill, and someone wrote to me from Paris and asked for the name of a good bar in Montreal. I answer each one individually. I don't give anyone stock replies the way they tell you to do in the manual. If you're the first contact people have with McGill, then you reflect the institution."

Philip started working at McGill in 1976 at the law library, but says, "I got most of my reference training in the undergraduate library, which is gone now. It's where the Redpath Library is. At that time, McLennan was for graduate students."

Over the years, she was seconded several times to the systems office to work on documentation for MUSE and PERUSE with Jane Aitkens, Systems Development Librarian. In 1994, she was asked to work on the libraries' first web page.

"I was there at the start. I got things rolling, then I gave the library staff instruction on how to make a web page and now people have gone way past me. It's like having a baby. I just lie back and watch it grow."

Sounds pretty easy. But with prompting Philip admits that she taught herself first -- the hard way. "I would hear about something new, and so I would trot down to the bookstore, get the book and then sit down and figure it out."

In addition to being a member of a master's swimming program and "bouncing between Montreal and Ottawa, the home of my insignificant other," Philip is also a member of the James McGill Society.

"It's because they're interested in the history of McGill, the people who built the place," says Philip. "It helps me know the campus better. I like working at McGill. I've had opportunities to work on special projects here, like Open House, but my best memories are of getting computers and going on-line. Being involved on the ground floor with the technological aspects of the library has been fun."

Diana Grier Ayton

This is a myth, the myth of chance in science. You ask a scientist, 'How's your lab structured?' and he says, 'Oh, it's anarchy, it's chaos, anything goes.' But you go in there for a couple of months and you see it is a beautifully designed lab.


Psychology professor Kevin Dunbar, in The Washington Post. Dunbar spent two years observing how discoveries are made in research labs. One conclusion: Scientists are much better organized than they let on.

A new book called The Urban University and its Identity explores the relationships between a broad range of universities and the cities in which they're located. Among the schools under the microscope -- Beijing University, Queen's University in Belfast, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Montreal's own Concordia University.

The section on Concordia was written by the university's former associate vice-rector (services), geography professor Max Barlow.

Barlow's view? Concordia serves its city well in a number of respects -- by offering a solid education to an ethnically diverse student body and by being sensitive to the needs of part-time and older students. "Terms such as 'welcoming,' 'inclusive' and 'accessible' are fundamental to Concordia's educational philosophy."

Still, Barlow thinks his university can do a better job in some areas.

"Research on Montreal's problems is sporadic, scattered, uncoordinated and has a relatively low profile," writes Barlow. "Strengthening and developing this research in a concerted and strategic fashion would help to address the teaching-versus-research issue and enhance the university's contribution to the city."

Barlow also writes that "an urban university should be directly involved in improving the city through conscious efforts to be a model institutional citizen. In the case of Concordia, relatively little attention has been given to the matter." He believes that his school should do more to establish widely used programs aimed at recycling, waste reduction and resource conservation.

Source: Barbara Black, Concordia's Thursday Report

The jobs that used to go to university students and graduates are going to older people. So they have to accept less attractive work, and high school kids are being pushed out by university kids. I don't stand next to open elevator shafts these days. It's too risky.


Economics professor Tom Velk, speaking to The Montreal Mirror, about the tough job market young Canadians are facing.

While many of us spent much of last month waiting for the lights to come back on, Noemi Berlus hung out with the prime minister, most of Canada's premiers and hundreds of the country's top business executives in sun-soaked Latin America.

Berlus, a marketing and finance student, was one of a handful of Canadian business students selected by the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade to take part in the Team Canada mission to Latin America.

Berlus was supposed to have some McGill companions on the trip -- vice-principals Bill Chan and Pierre Bélanger were scheduled to take part in portions of the mission, but those plans were scotched by the ice storm, the resulting blackout and the need for senior people to stay close to McGill during the crisis.

The trip involved jam-packed days filled with presentations and seminars. According to Berlus, the Canadian business leaders and Latin American officials all seemed keen to expand a trade relationship that already involves billions of dollars in transactions.

Berlus has a job lined up after graduation as a consultant specializing in strategic planning. Not surprisingly, she has some strategic advice to offer McGill if it ever sends a student on another Team Canada mission: be more, wellÉstrategic.

She thinks students should be given the opportunity to be ambassadors for their schools. "We could be a link between businesspeople and our deans, for instance."

She also advised federal trade minister Sergio Marchi that his department's mentoring program should allow students more responsibility and greater access to the business figures taking part in the trade mission.

Berlus confesses that she didn't know a great deal about Latin America before the trip. And now? "I'm a lot more interested in learning Spanish."