September seems to have flown by at an alarming pace. So fast, in fact, it is difficult to know what to say about it. So let us begin with the simple. We got new chairs:

These are replacing older chairs like this:

and this:

Also this month:

* Dee Gibson has put together a print suite of the images produced for last month’s Printed Matters Now exhibition. These are to be given as gifts to those artists who participated in the show, and a copy is to be kept for our own Special Collections.

* We have seen a mighty influx of co-operative (and other) publications from the serials department. We are grateful for all of your hard work!

*This month, and the month before, also saw a huge influx of newly cataloged materials from the Neil Richards collection, in particular. Thanks again to the ladies upstairs for all of their hard work. We are currently getting through some of our backlog, prepping further materials to go up for cataloging, and so the cycle continues. . .

*We continue working towards soft launches of our two new websites: the Courtney Milne photography site, and the Great War site

* Our Year of Queer exhibit which went up this month, featuring some of the latest additions to the Neil Richards collection of sexual and gender diversity–including everything from Victorian cross-dressers to Marvel comics and back.

This month saw the installation of A World Closely Observed: The Photography of Courtney Milne, our most recent Link area display featuring a variety of artwork by famed Saskatchewan photographer Courtney Milne, as well as personal and family ephemera. Hats off to Cheryl Avery for pulling this one together. This colorful show will continue into the winter months, and I’d encourage anyone needing a break from dreary weather to wander down to the first floor to take a look at these vivid, inspiring images. 

Because Milne’s materials are so visually stunning, we are also hoping to release something of a catalog to go with the exhibition. Writing is underway, and I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Also, on the topic of exhibitions in the link, let me introduce you to this little fellow:

While it might not look like much right now, this stand will provide an interactive element to the Link exhibitions, as it is intended to support an ipad which can display anything from slideshows to web pages to virtual guest books and–well, pretty much anything you can get or build an app for. We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with this new technology in the Link, and are hoping to have something implemented for the Milne show as well.

Another thing to look forward to is the web page on the First World War I had mentioned briefly in last month’s post. Work is progressing steadily, and the bulk of the content has been digitized and/or written. I hope to have more to share with you in the coming month, but for now, here is an interesting item I came across while sifting through materials for our Medical segment:

Another busy month here in the University Archives and Special Collections. This month not only saw the return of Special Collections Librarian David Bindle from his sabbatical leave–it also saw the beginning, continuation, and/or culmination of a number of major projects:

1. The Printed Matters Now art show went up on July 21st, and is (sadly) ending today. The show consisted of a variety of prints produced by University of Saskatchewan artists and alumni artists, as inspired by materials in the University of Saskatchewan’s Archives and Special Collections. The show was well received, and the participating artists will be gifted with suites of prints later this month in the spirit of an art-exchange. If you were not able to catch the show–don’t worry! All prints will also remain available for perusal at the University Archives and Special Collections, along with the materials used to inspire the artists.

2. Progress is being made on our Courtney Milne project, which will make thousands of his works available online. Not only is our number of scans now up to approximately 46, 314  but we have seen this month the body of the website come to life, thanks to Steve Brecker. Thanks also to Karim Tharani, John Yobb, Mike Moore , Craig Harkema, Joel Salt, and of course Leesha, our tirelessly working summer student for all of their contributions to this project. Although our work is still far from done, we look forward to seeing what the finished product will look like with all of the data uploaded and the front end complete.

3. We have also made huge progress on a project being spearheaded within the archives by Patrick Hayes in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the First World War. Tentatively titled RememberUS, the finished website will feature hundreds of pages of documents from that period, reflecting the effect of the war on campus, on the city, on the province, and worldwide. Beth Richert has been working with us for the past several weeks, digitizing these important materials, and has done an amazing job at collecting an array of images that effectively form a snapshot of the War from a variety of perspectives.

In association with this project, the University of Saskatchewan will be honouring the students, faculty, and staff who fought in the First World War on August 7, 2014 at 11:00 am with a Program and Plaque Unveiling at Convocation Hall

All things considered, June was sort of a crazy month for us here at UASC. Although we haven’t seen the volume of researchers we see during the school year, the visitors we have had have been looking at a great many things in great depth. It is always exciting to get involved, even peripherally, in these massive research projects.

For those of you who haven’t had a chance to see it, the Kenderdine Art Gallery exhibition about the man himself, Gus Kenderdine, is still on–and will be until August first. A large number of materials from the University Archives and Special Collections are on display there, giving a glimpse into the private life of one of Saskatchewan’s best known artists.

In other news, we have been in the news again this month. First, the Neil Richards Collection of Sexual and Gender Diversity was featured in Bridges this month. The article highlights that, thanks to Neil Richards, the University of Saskatchewan is now home to “the largest collection of media pertaining to LGBT issues in Canada”. As someone who works closely with this collection, I can say I am constantly impressed by Neil Richards’ creativity and initiative in hunting down unique, high quality and frequently quirky items to add to this highly significant accumulation of works.

Also, our own Cheryl Avery and Dee Gibson were featured on Shaw television earlier this month in an interview given on the ongoing Printed Matters exhibition and the accompanying art show which will be taking place from July 21st to August 1st. The opening will be held on Thursday July 24, from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm.

Finally, it is with sadness that we say farewell to Jill Crawley-Low whose time with us ends on July 1st, as she moves on to act as head of the Health Sciences Library during the sabbatical leave of  Susan Murphy.  Jill has achieved much in her year here, setting procedures in place which will lead to greater productivity and efficiency within the unit for years to come. We will miss her eagerness to tackle new challenges, her incredible skills of organization, and her comforting presence.

On the flip-side, of course, we are excited to welcome back David Bindle, returning from his one year sabbatical leave! I am personally looking forward to the opportunity to work more closely with David, as he left for sabbatical shortly after I was hired on at the University Archives and Special Collections.

I have captured all of my notes from the presentations I attended at WILU on my blog.  Click here if you want to learn more: http://whatilearnedinlibraryschooltoday.blogspot.ca/search/label/WILU%202014. 

I have included two fun pictures of Carolyn and I that were tweeted!

In preparation for the launch of the Courtney Milne website, the University Archives and Special Collections has spent the past year (and more) since the acquisition of his materials scanning slides for a truly massive online database.

To date, between the two Braun slide scanners we have set up in UASC and Digitization, as well as with up to five flatbed scanners being used by staff, and particularly by our summer students, we have managed to scan a grand total of:
. . .. and counting!For anyone who is interested, this is what a 100 slide slide scanner looks like:

It makes joyous chatty, whirring, whining, grinding noises that Patrick (on the other side of this orange divider) loves, and we are all now well able to speak and understand the language of “Scanner” .

Lately, we have hit a happy patch where most of what we are scanning consists of pictures Milne took in Hawaii. Every morning, switching out the hundred slides for a hundred fresh slides is like taking a mini-vacation, peering at the beautiful world through Milne’s talented eye. A few examples of our most recent vicarious explorations:

I’m sure you all know the Client Relations Committee updated the Alumni information in a clean, sleek new website http://library.usask.ca/alumni/index.php. In other news, Lara O’Grady also put up a nifty new banner on the main library web site to give our new grads the link to our updated information.

Don’t forget – there is more than one kind of Alumni card. If you find an Alumnus with an old, generic, library card, remind them to sign up for the new card. They can do so online!

April seems to have flown by in a blizzard of book processing, a storm of academic year-end reference inquiries, a gale of exhibition preparation, not to mention a flurry of snow flurries. Frequently throughout the month, our UASC rock beach was covered in snow.

Attractive view, no?

Our team has been very busy with processing adds from the co-operative studies collection, as well as finding space for the new books. After some challenging shifting about, we believe we have found the collection a good home within our main stacks, and look forward to sharing this resource with our researchers.

The unit also had the opportunity to explore a new content-management system this past month. Archivematica is a “free and open-source digital preservation system that is designed to maintain standards-based, long-term access to collections of digital objects.” The University Archives and Special Collections will be employing this system in coming months to manage the born-digital objects donated to the institution, ensuring that these valuable digital objects are safely transferred from their original medium and stored with a wealth of metadata intact. We look forward to better acquainting ourselves with this unique preservation tool.

In further news:

• We are eager to host our SIAST practicum student in the first week of May. Planned activities include tours of our facilities, work with both special collections books and archival materials, handling and scanning of slides, as well as the dismantling of a display.
• Two new exhibits are in the works for the month of May, including a summer-long exhibition of prints and printmaking, and a much briefer exhibition of menus found within the UASC holdings.