In April Carolyn Doi took over the full back page of On Campus News with All the right notes (http://words.usask.ca/news/2016/04/15/all-the-right-notes/). This week David Francis is featured in an article about The art and science of instructional design (http://words.usask.ca/news/2016/07/13/the-art-and-science-of-instructional-design/). Congratulations Carolyn and David!

Congratulations to Beth Matheson who is the winner of the Veterinary Medicine Library Treasure Hunt.  She won a beautiful Harden & Huyse Chocolate Puppy.

Thanks to everyone who came out to visit our branch and participate in the Treasure Hunt.

Have a great summer!                                                                                                    Vet Med Library Employees

This spring, the staff at the Science Library have been amusing themselves by watching people in the Bowl perform the Caterpillar Dance. To join in, walk under a tree, then either duck and weave from side to side or stagger backwards while flailing your arms and sputtering.

Cankerworms and their cousins, tent caterpillars, are known as defoliators, insects that strip deciduous trees of their leaves. The outbreak we are currently experiencing in Saskatchewan is one of four species of tent caterpillar (though “ours” shouldn’t really be called tent caterpillars at all because their larvae congregate in clumps, not tents). Often, “outbreaking insects” like tent caterpillars are thought of as a single unit: basically, a homogenous eating machine. This article states that there are lazy caterpillars and more aggressive, hungry caterpillars. Their individual behavior greatly affects the ecology of the species.

Photo courtesy of Glenda Goertzen

Visit the Saskatchewan Environment website for more information on forest tent caterpillars.

Dangling worms aren’t the only insect to threaten us on campus this season. After venturing out on Saturday to the prairie at Wanuskewin, walking beside the tall grasses and under the hanging trees for several hours, a Science Library staff member came home happily bug free. However, sitting down at a workstation on Monday, the staff member, mind not quite attending (saving us from a screech) followed the feel of tiny feet and flicked an insect onto the floor. Retrieving it on a piece of paper, she carried it into the back office for confirmation. A tick! It was duly identified, photographed, catalogued, and dissected in the sink. The staff determined the bloodthirsty little hitchhiker was not the Lyme-carrying deer tick, but a smaller and less dangerous species. For more information about ticks and how to keep them off your pets, visit this article courtesy of the Veterinary Medical Centre.

Photo courtesy of Megan Johnson
Tick courtesy of Beth Matheson

Our campus recently made the news when 75,000 honeybees were collected from the exterior of the Health Sciences Building by a Saskatoon high school student.

Let’s be careful out there!

Leaves on the trees, new sprinklers, and dandelions.  Children running, jumping and enjoying their lunch.  Students throwing Frisbees, kicking soccer balls, and suntanning (remember your sunscreen everyone!) The Bowl has been alive with life since the weather turned nice and we at the Science Library have been reaping the benefits of easy access to the outdoors!  We have noticed other staff heading out to take walks in the sunshine – wave as you pass our windows — we can see you even if you can’t see us!

As for what’s happening inside the branch, we are happy to say…a lot!  We had a Hawaiian themed birthday party last week, as well as a picnic for an Un-Birthday the week before!  We have several projects on the go, including a new display (Why does it smell so good after it rains?) that will be going up the first week of June; we are also working on archiving past displays.  And, of course, our students are enjoying their short&sweet&warm&relaxed summer classes, and show us their dedication by studying until 4:29:59 most days.

Enjoy the sunshine everyone, and we hope to see more of you enjoying it over the coming summer!

Another wonderful display is being showcased this month at the Science Library. The theme is the Solvay Conference of 1927, the fifth in a series of conferences still held to this day.  Sponsored by Ernest Solvay, the conference brought together the greatest scientific minds of the time to discuss scientific theories; in 1927, the list of attendees included familiar names such as Marie Curie, Einstein and Schrödinger. The theme that year was Protons and Electrons, and the main discussion was centred on the newly formulated quantum theory. Over a dozen Nobel Prize winners are highlighted in the new display.

Along with the new display is the new grass that is just peeking out around the building.  The staff have all spent a minute or two laughing at the ground squirrels and birds running, jumping and fighting each other on the grounds.  We are all eagerly awaiting the budding of the trees and the blooming of the flowers, if for no other reason than to shade us from the noon sun that streams almost blindingly into our office.  Poor us.

Not to be confused with What’s That, UASC? Nobody reads these for the pithy and creative titles, I hope.

So, what is new with us?

Well. . . we’ve been moving around furniture trying to make our space look more welcoming.  Instead of these scary grey cabinets by the front door:

we now have a freebie table / display cabinet (right now showing some food-relevant items such as old cookbooks, handwritten recipes, and ration stamps courtesy of curator Amy Chillog). Two other new cases have also been installed and will hopefully be used for more permanent display of art and artifacts held within the University Archives and Special Collections.

Amy also represented UASC at:

We were given the opportunity to supplement the film showing with a small display of lesbian-related materials from the Neil Richards Collection of Gender and Sexual diversity.

For anyone interested in a similar film-related event, check out the Queer As Film Series at the Frances Morrison Central Library. A small sampling of Neil Richards’ queer film posters will also be available for viewing.

Another important development has been the completion of a linked resource through the Great War database which allows anyone searching the name of someone connected to the University of Saskatchewan who served during WWI to find everything we have within the archives on that person, as well as their records in provincial and federal memorial websites. Check it out at:  The Great War Database

Also over the past few weeks, Nancy from iPortal (and Truda also learning the ropes) have been scanning 5 volumes of the Journal of Aboriginal Economic Development (JAED) [http://www.edo.ca/edo-tools/jaed] to add to the iPortal. The merging of iPortal and UASC is an important step in the digitization for use on the iPortal of this and other resources of value in the study of indigenous history and current aboriginal affairs.

The Murray Library Interlibrary Loan/Document Delivery unit at the University Library recently completed the American Library Association/Reference & User Services Association STARS Rethinking Resource Sharing Initiative’s Star Checklist. With a total score of 167 points, the University Library achieved 3-Star Status, which recognizes that we are engaged with 80% or more of the initiatives on the association’s internationally-recognized best-practices checklist for interlibrary loan and resource sharing and affirms that our library is keeping up with best practices in interlibrary loan and resource sharing. Congratulations to the staff in the Murray Library ILL/Document Delivery unit!