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!

Spring has sprung!

The Murray Social Committee organized a picnic for Murray staff members this week. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and had our lunch outside! We had blankets laid out in the Bowl, lemonade, cake, and bocce ball. A great time was had by all!

It is with heavy hearts that we at the Murray Library announce the end of our popular Take a Break with US activities. The room, which was packed to the brim with activities and snacks for the students, was dismantled on the afternoon of April 30th. Left behind are memories and many many pictures of the wonderful things the students created, drew, and played with. Among the highlights of the creations were a minion made out of Play-Dough, and a collage of a man fighting a dinosaur.

Please come check out our Facebook page for all of the great pictures. No Facebook account? No worries, everyone can see them.

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.

Over the last few months, a small working group of CUG (Christine Drever, Gail Horbay, and Brenda Butler) has been investigating fines in academic libraries through reading the literature, conversations with other Canadian academic libraries, and looking at our local situation. The working group’s report with recommendations was presented to CUG in March, followed by further discussion at the Dean’s Team. The efforts of that working group and of CUG as a whole have resulted in improved client-focused service and a reduction in service barriers.

Beginning Thursday 1 May:

• the loan period for regular stack items has been increased to 30 days (from 3 weeks).
• fines for overdue regular stack items have been removed; however, there are still fines on overdue recalled, reserve, and ILL items.
• the time period between when an item becomes overdue and when a BFR is issued will be reduced to 30 days (from 52 days).
• library staff will encourage clients to place requests on desired items that are currently out — thus generating a recall notice and revised due date.

Thank you CUG and Gail, Brenda, and Christine for your work in bringing these changes to fruition!

After days and days of laborious, strenuous, and exhaustive planning the time is nigh! The Murray Library is proud to announce that the much anticipated sequel to the “Take a Break with US” has opened with a BANG today. And what a bang! So far as we type our count is at over 80 students that have come in to peruse our activities and partake in our complementary libations. Not to toot our own horns but… TOOT TOOT!