*Taps microphone* Hello? Is this thing on? Is anyone still here? *clears throat*

Hello everyone! It’s time to tell you the story of the Eighth Annual (Minus 2020) University Library Mini Golf Tournament of Champions.

It was a beautiful, hot end-of-summer evening when employees of the University Library gathered at Putt’n’Bounce for the annual staff tournament. This year was a special year, because it was the return of our team competitions. Before this year, we had only had team awards in 2019. This was also a special year, because we had a lot of new competitors, including two library employees, Rissa and Muhammad, who had never ever mini-golfed before in their lives. They both played amazingly though, and were a credit to their respective teams! It was also a wonderful opportunity to catch up with two of our staff members on maternity leave, Racheal W. and Megan R., who came by to join in the fun, as well as Robin who is still a member of the library family, even though she left us to go work in the Arts building.

Library employees competing fiercely on a beautiful sunny evening.

The most important part of any Branching Out blog post about mini golf is announcing who the winners of all the prizes are. Luckily, this year, there was no controversy about guests trying to win prizes (like back in 2019), since all guests were comfortably average at mini golf. Prizes were awarded to the Best Golfer, Worst Golpher, Best Team, and Werst Teem in a well-produced and touching awards ceremony at Fuddruckers immediately following the event.

The Best Golfer of 2022 (after 5 years away from the podium) was DUANE TURNER with a score of 39!

Duane hates having his photo taken, so I quickly snapped this one before he could stop me. Sorry/not sorry, and also congratulations!

The Worst Golpher of 2022 (in her very first appearance at the tournament) was BETH MATHESON with a score of 68!

Congratulations! We expect many great things from you in the years to come

For the team awards, we combined the total scores of each team member. Most teams were proper golf foursomes, but a few only had 3 team members which meant that they were threesomes. (I put this joke in here for Robin and Tina, because they hated whenever I used the word foursome when we did chat community of practice stuff when working from home.) For the threesomes, we found the average score of the three team members and used that number to calculate a fourth math something something, calculators were involved, I promise.

The Best Team (with a combined total score of 168) was the DEBBIE DOWNERS – Shelby, Racheal, and Matthew (guest)!

Racheal and Matthew, I hope you share the story of winning this wonderful award with your daughter as she gets older.

The Werst Teem (with a combined total score of 216) was DEAN ON THE GREEN – Josh, Emily, Melissa and David!

None of the other team members wanted to be pictured with this trophy for some reason.

Team Dean on the Green full of enthusiasm right before they started their winning round.

Many, many more photos of the evening’s events are available for viewing in the library’s O: drive at O:\Murray\Social Committee\Mini Golf 2022\Photos. Feel free to take a peek! It includes shots of team Weapons of Grass Destruction’s amazing homemade costumes, as well as lots of shots of library employees making fun faces and awkward golf poses.

Full scores are listed below.

Teams:

• Debbie Downers (Shelby, Racheal, Matthew [guest]) 168
• Complete and Putter Madness (Duane, Kelly, Megan J, Robbie [guest]) 178
• One Under Par (Lara, Muhammad, Chris [guest]) 186
• Weapons of Grass Destruction (Robin, Brittany P, Brittany S) 199
• Team Two Book Two (Ann, Rissa, Luke, Finnley [guest]) 200
• Green on the Green (Amy P, Beth, Rachel H, Brian [guest]) 215
• Dean on the Green (Josh, Emily, Melissa, David) 216

Individuals:

• Duane – 39 (2 holes in one)
• Finnley (guest) – 41 (1 hole in one)
• Luke – 41 (1 hole in one)
• Matthew (guest) – 41 (2 holes in one)
• Racheal W – 42 (3 holes in one)
• Shelby – 43 (1 hole in one)
• Brittany P – 44
• Kelly – 45 (2 holes in one)
• Brian (guest) – 46 (1 hole in one)
• Lara – 46 (1 hole in one)
• Megan J – 46 (1 hole in one)
• Chris (guest) – 47
• Muhammad – 47 (2 holes in one)
• Robbie – 48 (2 holes in one)
• Amy P – 50
• Brittany S – 50
• David S – 50
• Robin – 50 (1 hole in one)
• Melissa – 51
• Rachel H – 51 (1 hole in one)
• Josh – 55 (1 hole in one)
• Ann – 59
• Rissa – 59
• Emily – 61
• Beth – 68

*Holes in one do not include the last hole Jester’s Challenge. Everybody managed to get a hole in one there except for Megan. Sorry Megan. Also worth highlighting is that Emily actually managed to win the Jester’s Challenge by getting her ball over the bridge and into the clown hole. Congratulations, Emily! You got the only prize that had any monetary value.

See you all at the links in 2023!

Ignore the storage in the background. It’s the antlers, Ron’s sweater and Sue’s post eye appointment shades that are important.

Merry Christmas everyone!

-The Education & Music Library Crew

At the Education & Music Library, we are giving out free buttons to wear in support of Orange Shirt Day on September 30^th and also to honour Stolen Sisters on October 4^th.

Orange Shirt Day: September 30^th is a designated day to commemorate the residential school experience, to witness and honour the healing journey of the survivors and their families, and to commit to the ongoing process of reconciliation.

No More Stolen Sisters: On October 4^th, hundreds of Sisters in Spirit vigils will be held in communities across Canada to honour Indigenous women who have gone missing or been murdered. Wearing a button shows support for finding solutions to end the Canadian human rights crisis of violence against Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirit persons.

Hope you all have a great long weekend. 🙂

If you need some free Canada Day swag, we’ve got you covered.

– Education & Music Library

Shelby Kirilenko was a student in INTS 380: Internship in Library and Information Studies, which is offered in the winter term by the University Library for students in the College of Arts & Science. Shelby completed a three-month internship with Maha Kumaran, Head, Education & Music Library. Staff at the Education & Music Library branch collaborated on creating the interview questions below. The interview questions and Shelby’s responses provide us with an understanding of the intern’s perspective of the program, librarianship, and our library.

An item featured in Shelby’s Asian Heritage display.

Tell us about your experience in the Library internship program.

I joined the Library Internship Program to learn more about the ever-changing field of academic librarianship.  My experience was excellent. There’s a class portion and an internship with a librarian. The class is completed over one semester for three credits. I met with Maha Kumaran, Head Education & Music Library, almost every Monday and Friday from January 2019 to the beginning of April 2019. I learned about ethnic diversity in librarianship. I also learned about copyright issues, ordering materials and processing library materials, cataloguing, and various collections including the Aboriginal education collection, historical texts, and the young adult collections. I also visited the Murray Library and learned about other resources such as the Indigenous Studies Portal (iPortal). It was somewhat difficult to try and fit 70 hours of interning over the course of one semester, but it was very rewarding.

What did you find different or surprising about the field of librarianship?

The most surprising thing I learned about librarianship is the number of different paths to practice librarianship. From cataloguing to subject librarians, in public or academic libraries, there are many different paths and career choices with room for everyone, no matter how varied their library interests may be.

How did this program prepare you to organize information for the Asian Heritage display?

After consultations with Maha, based on my interests, and timeliness of the internship which ended in April, I chose to work on the Asian Heritage display. I was able to find resources by learning how to search and find materials through the catalogue and the various relevant research guides. The program also helped me by teaching me how to choose items based on audience levels (children and young adults were my focus). Maha also directed me towards young adult book award websites and the Young Adult Library Services website (YALSA), which were very helpful.

To determine materials for the Asian Heritage display, I thought about what would be most informative to the audience who visit this display. I chose books with a focus on: Asian characters; Asian authors; the history of Asian Canadians; or books set in an Asian country. I posted information about what Asian Heritage month is, as well as Canadian associations involved. I also wanted the display to be eye-catching, so I used pictures and added short informative paragraphs about them. For the pictures, I chose a mix of Asian Canadians that users may or may not recognize as Canadians, and therefore may not be aware of their contributions to Canada. I added a blurb about each person and their contributions under their picture.

On display in Shelby’s Asian Heritage display.

Was it easy to find materials for this display? If yes or no, why/why not? Or tell us how you think the library can make it easier.

It was fairly easy to find books through word and author searches, however, I think searching by subject headings could be improved further. It takes a lot of time to understand how to search library resources and to apply appropriate limits to find what one needs. I found materials using the subject search, but I am not confident that the subject headings are a comprehensive list. To search for specific subjects, sometimes I had to try three different variations of the subject to find what I needed. If I searched the subject “Asia – Juvenile Fiction,” I could only find one result. If I searched for “Chinese Canada — Fiction,” the juvenile fiction results would not be displayed. However, if I was more specific and searched for the subject “Chinese Canada — Juvenile Fiction,” I found what I needed. This means one has to know and search for each country in Asia in the catalogue, and try it with other key subjects, like “Juvenile fiction” or “History”, to get specific results. From here on I could apply location (Education & Music Library) and material format limits (e.g., books, journals, audio-visual) and access what I needed for the display. Since materials are catalogued in many different ways, it can be hard to find what you need unless you know the specific title or author, or have a good knowledge of subject headings.

Part of the display for Asian Heritage.

What did you learn while looking for materials to pull for this display?

I learned that how I search really matters. For example, if I am searching for Chinese New Year, I can use keywords such as “Chinese Festivals”, or “Chinese Celebrations” both of which produce different sets of results with some overlap.  One can also use “China –Festivals” as a subject heading. I learned the importance of searching several resources in multiple ways to retrieve everything I needed.

I also learned how to search Sierra, the integrated relational database, which is the behind the scenes library catalogue. By using this database, I was able to find items in a way that front-end users cannot. For example, I can look at the bibliographic and item records of a book to help locate a book that is not on the shelf. The record will show the last check-in date, so I can learn when and where the book was last checked in.  In the Sierra item records, I could edit the status of an item (from “In library” to “on Exhibit”). Notes that are not displayed in the public catalogue can be added to the item record using Sierra, to provide additional location information. (e.g. items on display).

As a library user, what is your take away from this experience?

I have two main takeaways from this experience: 1. Usearch is not is the most effective tool in finding and accessing materials I need. So, I recommend the use of catalogues and research guides! 2. Do not take library staff for granted. Everyone in the library does a lot of work in the back end, to facilitate end-user access and to help serve its users. To this I am thankful.

If you have any questions or comments, send an email to maha.kumaran@usask.ca

After more than a year of planning, meetings, and voting, the new chairs at the Law Library have arrived – and we think they look pretty fantastic. It was time to replace the out-of-date, stained blue chairs that were so beloved by the Law students. Finding them a close replacement was not an easy feat. We made sure that the students had a voice throughout the entire process. So far the feedback has been quite positive. If you find yourself in our neck of the woods come check them out for yourself!