As part of Saskatchewan Library Week: October 19-25, Stories in the Bar was held this past Thursday, Oct 23rd at Amigos Cantina.  It was a blast!!  The bar was packed with eager library employees who showed the general public that we are not as stuffy as they are led to believe.  The night started off in true form with story time, featuring the books The Book with no Pictures by B.J. Novak and The Story of the Little Mole Who Went in Search of Whodunit by Werner Holzwarth.  These books were funny and imaginative.  Lots of fun to listen to.  The entertainment throughout the night was amazing; even leading to my non-library working friend (who thought the night would be lame) to say: They should have this every week!!!!

But now to the good stuff……….throughout the night between acts, library trivia was offered to the crowd.  These questions started off easy enough: “What is a call number?”, but then ranged to:”What is a palimpsest?”  Anyone know???

Our U of S library staff was not silent during this part of the night.  I am pleased to announce that 3 library employees answered the questions correctly and walked away with a fabulous prize…………..an SPL discard!!  WHOOT WHOOT!

Laurianne Jones (Collection Services) answered “What is a colophon?” and won: Ice Crash: Disaster in the Artic, 1928 by Alexander McKee

Amy Chillog answered (Collection Services) “What is a call number?” and won:Lunar Bases and Space Activities of the 21st Century  Edited by W.W. Mendell

Robin Parent (Law Library) answered “What is tattle-tape?” and won: Passionate Pleasures by Beatrice Small

Not too shabby I’d say….

Halloween approaches……………..Things go bump in the night……….The Law Library actually has a fun display???????

I know, wierd hey.  But we decided that we needed to shake things up here at the Law Library.  Our Halloween display of True Crime was set up October 20th for all to enjoy.  Hope you like it too!  Cause we sure do!!!

Happy Sustainability Day!

On Monday, in partnership with the university’s Office of Sustainability, we launched our printSMART campaign to encourage students (and perhaps by extension ourselves) to consider when, what, and how they print. Included in the campaign is an infographic designed by a member of the Sustainability Office to highlight the amount of paper used on Learning Commons printers in the last year. Jaw-dropping, at least to me! Continue reading →

Your colleagues from Murray Client Services and the University Learning Centre invite you to join us in a pumpkin decorating competition! Who will have the best pumpkin? Which department will claim the top prize?

Note: The U of S Horticulture Club is selling pumpkins this week!
Thursday October 9th from 10 am to 3 pm in the Bowl
Friday October 10th from 9 am to 4 pm in the Horticulture Field Lab

Here’s how it works:

• Individuals or teams of up to 4-5 people can enter.
• Please let Lara, Justine, Erin or Donna know you intend to decorate a pumpkin by Monday, October 20^th so that we know how much display space we’ll need.
• You provide your own pumpkin of any size (within reason – no county fair prize winners for Biggest Pumpkin Ever).
• You can carve and/or decorate a pumpkin however you’d like. Be creative! Don’t break any Occupational Health and Safety rules!
• Pumpkins will be displayed on the 1^st floor of Murray alongside a Halloween book display.
• Bring your pumpkin into the Murray Library on the morning of October 29^th. Stop by the Reference Desk on the 1^st floor where you can register your pumpkin. Each pumpkin will get a number, so that voting remains somewhat anonymous and impartial.
• Pumpkins will stay up on October 29^th and 30^th while people vote for their favourite one. Anyone – staff, students – can vote.
• The votes will be tallied at the end of day October 30^th and the winner will be announced on October 31^st, Halloween Day.
• Winners get glory, bragging rights, and/or pictures of their pumpkin posted on social media.

Need some inspiration? Here are some links to book & literary themed pumpkins:

• Literary pumpkins carved by AbeBooks
• Amazing Literature-Inspired Jack-O’-Lanterns
• 18 Literary Pumpkins For A Bookish Halloween
• BOOk Pumpkins!
• Or Easy DIY No-Carve Pumpkin Ideas

Have any questions? Feel free to ask Justine or Lara from the Murray Library or Erin or Donna from the ULC.

September seems to have flown by at an alarming pace. So fast, in fact, it is difficult to know what to say about it. So let us begin with the simple. We got new chairs:

These are replacing older chairs like this:

and this:

Also this month:

* Dee Gibson has put together a print suite of the images produced for last month’s Printed Matters Now exhibition. These are to be given as gifts to those artists who participated in the show, and a copy is to be kept for our own Special Collections.

* We have seen a mighty influx of co-operative (and other) publications from the serials department. We are grateful for all of your hard work!

*This month, and the month before, also saw a huge influx of newly cataloged materials from the Neil Richards collection, in particular. Thanks again to the ladies upstairs for all of their hard work. We are currently getting through some of our backlog, prepping further materials to go up for cataloging, and so the cycle continues. . .

*We continue working towards soft launches of our two new websites: the Courtney Milne photography site, and the Great War site

* Our Year of Queer exhibit which went up this month, featuring some of the latest additions to the Neil Richards collection of sexual and gender diversity–including everything from Victorian cross-dressers to Marvel comics and back.

Say hello to Dorothy, a spirited bunny who visited Services to Libraries employees on Green & White Day. To show her school spirit, Dorothy brought along some green kale to accompany her all-white coat.

Back at home, Dorothy enjoys the company of her human, aka MetaDonna.

This month saw the installation of A World Closely Observed: The Photography of Courtney Milne, our most recent Link area display featuring a variety of artwork by famed Saskatchewan photographer Courtney Milne, as well as personal and family ephemera. Hats off to Cheryl Avery for pulling this one together. This colorful show will continue into the winter months, and I’d encourage anyone needing a break from dreary weather to wander down to the first floor to take a look at these vivid, inspiring images. 

Because Milne’s materials are so visually stunning, we are also hoping to release something of a catalog to go with the exhibition. Writing is underway, and I look forward to seeing the finished product.

Also, on the topic of exhibitions in the link, let me introduce you to this little fellow:

While it might not look like much right now, this stand will provide an interactive element to the Link exhibitions, as it is intended to support an ipad which can display anything from slideshows to web pages to virtual guest books and–well, pretty much anything you can get or build an app for. We are very excited to have the opportunity to work with this new technology in the Link, and are hoping to have something implemented for the Milne show as well.

Another thing to look forward to is the web page on the First World War I had mentioned briefly in last month’s post. Work is progressing steadily, and the bulk of the content has been digitized and/or written. I hope to have more to share with you in the coming month, but for now, here is an interesting item I came across while sifting through materials for our Medical segment: