The past few weeks have been very hectic here at the Murray Library! Between exams, Take a Break, Darlene retiring, celebrating the new ground floor office, and Cathy changing roles, I think we’re all ready for the peace and quiet of summer.

To help counter the stress of exams, we had our alumni handing out box after box of snacks and a bajillion bags of popcorn, and 10 different activity stations where students could do puzzles, create origami, figure out how to play Sudoku, write obviously random words in an attempt to look like they knew how to do crossword puzzles, or wind down with some colouring (we even bought better crayons this year!).

As usual, we asked for feedback and here were some of our most inspirational and motivating comments:

• Lego isn’t fun. There were no snacks.
• Easier puzzles plz. These ones gave me anxiety.
• Kittens instead of stinky dogs.
• #verydisappointedyetstillcompletelymetmyexpectationsattheUofS

So inspirational!

We also had one of our student casuals, Josh, create a beautiful whiteboard. Thanks Josh!

“Mreow”

On April 11, we had a small gathering in room 122 to celebrate Darlene’s retirement. The cake was absolutely amazing!

The cake was from Calories and worth every penny! I mean nickle, since we no longer have pennies…

As Darlene had been with the University for so long, it’s understandable that it was emotional. Darlene gave a beautiful speech and wanted to impress upon everyone the importance of being kind.

Sarah was very kind to give Darlene’s parrot a new loving home.

We’ll miss you Darlene!

Now that you’re retired, you can eat alllll the cake you want.

Next up, we had a party to celebrate the opening of the new office on the ground floor! Do we have a room number for it yet? Just like in high school, I was unable to attend the party because my mom said no (I was actually on vacation), but I heard the punch was great!

The party was so wild that a sign had to be put up saying that we would still help you (if we had to).

The pictures I was given don’t really show a party, but I’m sure it was a wild one. Everyone knows library people know how to have fun!

Behold the feast!

And finally today is Cathy’s last day in circulation! We’ll finally have her back in room 122!!

Cathy’s OLD department decided to send her off in style by decorating her OLD desk.

They’ll miss you Cathy!! It says so right here.

I bet they’ll keep that image of her head on the wall, even after she’s safely in Interlibrary Loans.

Oh, and there were doughnuts, which I happily partook in.

This post’s creation can be attributed to Kim Unger’s desire to show pictures of “the higher-ups” dressed in construction gear. That, of course, can only take a post so far, thus I’ve taken the liberty to share some current photos of our Check-Out Desk construction zone.

Can’t miss seeing these cool cats.

Christine and Rachel are telling Duane (off-screen) that the orange clashes with his shirt. Probably. I wasn’t actually there, but it sounds right.

Kim didn’t want the others to feel silly alone. Unfortunately for the others, this look suits Kim a little too much.

You, dear reader, are probably here for the actual construction photos. Let me paint a picture for you first:

You’re sitting at the Check-Out Desk, trying not to bump your leg on the elevator box for a third time (or maybe that’s just me). There’s a strong scent of wood, dust, and fresh paint in the air. It tickles your nose and you hope you can find the tissue box in the surrounding chaos. A student approaches the desk, hoping to borrow a book on Reserve. At least, that’s what you hope they said. There’s currently some very loud banging happening right behind you. You confirm the call number twice as there’s a hammer coming down every time they say the letter D (or was it B?). Luckily, Rachel Hildebrandt is amazing and put all term 2 reserve books on carts behind the desk! Unfortunately, that means you have to fight your way past the other 4 carts lingering between you and your destination. You hope your limbs survive the journey…

Don’t be fooled by their innocuous cart-ness. One of them is a level 5 demon warrior that WILL wreck your toes if you aren’t careful. Oh, and I guess the room looks good too.

Forbidden books in the background (unless you’re wearing your +2 construction gear).

They’ve been painting today. Hopefully drywall won’t flutter down from the ceiling when we close the security gate anymore!

A sneak-peek of G5’s future. No more sitting in here spying on people in the smoker’s pit.

Here at the Murray Library, we absolutely adore Saskatchewan Library Week. Besides being an excellent way to promote libraries in our beautiful province, it’s also the best week of the year to bring out our inner poets. We (Lara, Kelly, and our newest member, Brittany S.) maybe had a little too much fun making book spine poetry, but we also got a lot of engagement with the amazing display Brittany made.

We made it easy for everyone to make their own poetry by putting out a variety of interesting titles.

Here are some example titles people could use on the display:

• Dangerous Bodies
• Exceptional Violence
• Hot Thespian Action!
• Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen

And just like that, a poem is born!

We posted a poem on our Facebook page for each day of Saskatchewan Library Week, so we’d like to think we now know where to find the best book titles (at least at Murray Library). If you want to make darker poems, we’d suggest searching the history section from D – DX (lots of war books with titles to reflect that tone). If you’re more into silly poems, we’d suggest checking in the North Wing (Language and Literature), especially in the PR9299s. Alternatively, if you’d like to create racier poems there’s the women and gender studies section in the HQs (but you didn’t hear that from me!).

Here are some of the poems we created this week:

This is one of Lara’s creations. I think she was feeling wistful for the Royal Wedding when she made this.

This is one of mine (Kelly). It received a “#inspired <3<3<3” comment on Facebook that made me very proud.

If anyone else celebrated Saskatchewan Library Week by making book spine poetry, we’d love to know about it!