For any interested for personal research or reference purposes,  I’ve posted the latest archival materials processed at UASC over on our blog. Topics include: Saskatchewan writing and journalism, history of public libraries in Saskatchewan, Saskatchewan heritage, personal residential school histories, Northern indigenous affairs and art, art in Saskatchewan, Diefenbaker, the University of Saskatchewan, music, and education. If any of this strikes a chord, send us an e-mail for the full finding aid at ua.sc@usask.ca

The library’s Christmas party was held on December 12th at Pink Cadillacs in Willowgrove. Although it was a small group of 20ish library employees and a few significant others, we all managed to have a great time. There were French fries and bookish drink names, deep fried pickles and party games. Pink Cadillacs had a fun atmosphere and the poodle skirted-waitresses served delicious diner food.

The party games included “Christmas Bingo”, “Guess the Christmas Carol Lyric”, “Christmas Trivia” and “Christmas Alphabet”. For every game you played, you were able to add an entry to the draws for prizes.

Congratulations to Lexi, who was the grand prize winner. Lexi won a hollow book, hand-carved by Robin, and perfect for storing secrets. There were also eight secondary prize winners, who all won handmade knit coffee mug sleeves, created by Justine and Kim.

A huge thank-you to Robin and Justine for organizing the event! Click on “continue reading” to check out some pictures from the photo booth below the cut!

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We would like to wish everyone Happy Holidays from the Law Library Staff!

(Where’s Emmett Hall?)                                            (Who’s Emmett Hall?)

                                        Little baby tree…………So teeny and cute!

Merry Christmas to all!

Working with all these sweet people, Lois grew her heart two sizes.

November is, of course, a month of remembrance — and so, it is appropriate that this was the month selected for the installation of Patrick Hayes’ Link Exhibition on the Great War. The display has a degree of interactivity, with QR codes directing viewers to certain pages on the Great War site for further information.

We are also running a draw for the high-quality reproduction of a trench map displayed near Murray 154. If you would like to enter, like the post pinned to the top of our Facebook page. The draw will occur in January, when the display is being taken down.

Edmund Oliver’s Trench Map for draw

Patrick’s display has garnered some media attention, with the Saskatoon Star Phoenix running an article on the letters of Nursing Sister Brock, featured in the exhibit.

Our autumnal mini-display was replaced with 349 poppies around Remembrance Day — one for every member of the University community who served during the First World War. This display was, in turn, replaced with a mini-exhibit on Truth and Reconciliation, which will be shown in the cases on the ground floor next to Starbucks and room 301 through January.

Also this month:

• I put together a little post on the importance of collecting Queer-negative literature in a collection like the Neil Richards Collection for Sexual and Gender Diversity.
• A great deal of archival material was featured in The Sheaf’s Throwback Issue thanks to the hardworking gals on staff there who were willing to come into the archives and do some digging. You can see some of their throwback materials at The Sheaf website.
• Material from our collection was featured recently (actually September) in the documentary Al Purdy Was Here, directed by Brian Johnson. To view the trailer from the Toronto International Film Festival, go here.

And last, but definitely not least, we were thrilled to welcome Beth Richert back to our ranks in November–looking forward to having her around!

David Francis celebrated receiving his Doctor of Philosophy from the College of Education (Educational Administration) in style. Great hat!!

Congratulations on your PhD!

David’s thesis is titled “A Study of Organizational Learning in a University Efficiency Initiative.”

Asking around the office for ideas of what to post for October-in-review, I was met with a general sense that October was busy, went by much too quickly, and nobody can pinpoint what, exactly, occurred in it.So, a few points.

• Amy put together her first mini-exhibit — “All About Autumn: From Acorns to Zombies”. This is the poster she made for it. Fun fact: The green arm is a cleverly photoshopped version of her own arm.
• A few days ago we had British novelist Patrick Gale come visit in the Reading Room, where he was kind enough to sign (in his words, “deface”) a stack of his books from the Neil Richards collection.
• Jill Crawley-Lowe’s excellent horse display in the Link is now being replaced with a display on the First World War by Patrick Hayes. Keep an eye out for it — it looks to be really interesting.
• A series of Great War vignettes are being released by University Communications in honour of the hundred-year anniversary of that terrible conflict. The latest, on a local nurse who spent years overseas in France and Greece, can be found here .

The College of Education had a pumpkin carving contest this year complete with a lunch. We had a great time carving the pumpkin and seeing all the entries. Rohan had never carved a pumpkin before so we put his surgical skills to good use!