July’s installment of 7 Questions With… AAAL Members features Dana Ouellette, Information Services Librarian, Concordia University of Edmonton.
1. If you could learn to do anything, what would it be? Mountaineering/climbing. It’s just something I’ve wanted to try for a long time, and I’ve never gotten around to it. It seems like the next logical step if you love mountains and hiking. That or whitewater kayaking looks fun.
2. What songs are included on the soundtrack to your life? Asking me this question is like asking Rob Gordon (High Fidelity is both one of my favourite movies and books ever). It depends on the day, my mood, the season, the weather.
- Pixies – Caribou
- Björk – Jóga
- Thee Silver Mt. Zion Memorial Orchestra & Tra-La-La Band – God Bless Our Dead Marines
- Sigur Rós – Popplagið
- Propagandhi – And We Thought Nation States Were a Bad Idea
- Bad Religion – Modern Man
- Agalloch – Into the Painted Grey
- mewithoutYou – Fox’s Dream of the Log Flume
- Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath
- Paul Simon – Call me Al (because why am I soft in the middle when the rest of my life is so hard?)
Pretty much every single song Damien Jurado, David Bazan, and The Appleseed Cast have ever written.
3. If you could be any fictional character, who would you choose? Ed Chigliak (from Northern Exposure) – Nothing ever fazes him and he’s always ridiculously happy. I want that.
4. If you had to work on only one project for the next year, what would it be? I would love to build a responsive website that provides a more consistent user-experience for Concordia students and better integrates the experience of the website, discovery service, a-z database list, authentication system etc… (Just a dream right now).
5. What is your best piece of career advice? I feel like I haven’t been a librarian long enough to give advice, but one lesson I picked up pretty early on is that our users are usually right, so listen to what they say, and vendor sales reps are usually lying, so be skeptical of what they say.
6. What is your favourite thing to binge watch? Any science, astronomy, natural history, or travel documentary; I can lose a whole evening. I also have a mild obsession with Richard Feynman and I will watch anything by or about him.
7. What do you do when you’re not working? I really love mountain biking. I also love hiking, backpacking, kayaking, and traveling. I basically love having adventures, and I love mountains. But sometimes I also love to be lazy and just watch movies with my wife.
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