While Post Secondary Education (PSE) and academic research in Alberta are evidently not the focus of this blog, they are topics of personal interest and significance for me: I work as a librarian at the University of Alberta; CJSR is funded in part by U of A students, and is part of the campus fabric; and Alberta is my home. PSE in Alberta, and the U of A specifically, are facing serious and troubling times, because of the ideologically driven plans of the United Conservative Party (UCP) government to dramatically remake the entire sector and turn it into the servant of private industry. The ambition behind these plans is staggering, and the impacts are already being felt: massive cuts, changes to student loans, tuition hikes, academic restructuring... With social engineering on this scale, it's a wonder the UCP can call itself conservative with a straight face. This narrow vision for a command economy, which will only limit the horizons of the younger generations of the province a