Murray Has Been Busy

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The past few weeks have been very hectic here at the Murray Library! Between exams, Take a Break, Darlene retiring, celebrating the new ground floor office, and Cathy changing roles, I think we’re all ready for the peace and quiet of summer.

To help counter the stress of exams, we had our alumni handing out box after box of snacks and a bajillion bags of popcorn, and 10 different activity stations where students could do puzzles, create origami, figure out how to play Sudoku, write obviously random words in an attempt to look like they knew how to do crossword puzzles, or wind down with some colouring (we even bought better crayons this year!).

As usual, we asked for feedback and here were some of our most inspirational and motivating comments:

  • Lego isn’t fun. There were no snacks.
  • Easier puzzles plz. These ones gave me anxiety.
  • Kittens instead of stinky dogs.
  • #verydisappointedyetstillcompletelymetmyexpectationsattheUofS

So inspirational!

We also had one of our student casuals, Josh, create a beautiful whiteboard. Thanks Josh!

“Mreow”

On April 11, we had a small gathering in room 122 to celebrate Darlene’s retirement. The cake was absolutely amazing!

The cake was from Calories and worth every penny! I mean nickle, since we no longer have pennies…

As Darlene had been with the University for so long, it’s understandable that it was emotional. Darlene gave a beautiful speech and wanted to impress upon everyone the importance of being kind.

Sarah was very kind to give Darlene’s parrot a new loving home.

We’ll miss you Darlene!

Now that you’re retired, you can eat alllll the cake you want.

Next up, we had a party to celebrate the opening of the new office on the ground floor! Do we have a room number for it yet? Just like in high school, I was unable to attend the party because my mom said no (I was actually on vacation), but I heard the punch was great!

The party was so wild that a sign had to be put up saying that we would still help you (if we had to).

The pictures I was given don’t really show a party, but I’m sure it was a wild one. Everyone knows library people know how to have fun!

Behold the feast!

And finally today is Cathy’s last day in circulation! We’ll finally have her back in room 122!!

Cathy’s OLD department decided to send her off in style by decorating her OLD desk.

They’ll miss you Cathy!! It says so right here.

I bet they’ll keep that image of her head on the wall, even after she’s safely in Interlibrary Loans.

Oh, and there were doughnuts, which I happily partook in.

The explosive biohazard at the Murray Library

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A special Branching Out guest post by Lisa S.

Protective Services visited the Murray circ desk on Tuesday morning to inform us that during their walkthrough, they had discovered that the map area on the 2nd floor smelled like barf. I decided to take one for the team as I have 3 kids and 2 dogs so always seems to be dealing in body fluids and solids of some sort. Mimi (our caretaker) came up with me and we didn’t notice a smell until we got around halfway through the room. The smell hit us like a wall. No gradual “ease” into it. We knew immediately that there was vomit somewhere. We searched the floor, chairs, tables and took the garbage can apart. Nothing. We were able to tell with our keen sense of smell which zone of the room it was in, but could not see anything.

After a few minutes, a girl approached us and asked what we were looking for, but I could tell she already knew. I said we were looking for the source of vomit smell. She said it was likely related to the travel mug on the shelf behind us that had EXPLODED an hour earlier. We turned to see the wall covered in barf from about the 5’5 mark to the floor. The shelves were covered in chunks, and the poor books that were the innocent bystanders were covered in someone’s sick. Mimi and I went closer to take a look and despite my high school chemistry teacher telling us to never sniff stuff, we sniffed stuff. We immediately looked at each other and dry heaved. Then dry heaved again. Possibly a third and fourth time. We left to get Younas, another custodian, to help Mimi with cleanup. The cleanup required the shelves being removed and sprayed down, as well as a good wiping of the wall. A library staff member took care of the books that got spattered.

I am perplexed as to why the girl did not report the fact that 1) something had exploded and 2) that it happened to be a cup of puke. It’s not every day that you come across a puke projectile (puke-jectile?) in the library so this is one for the history books.

The moral of this story is: Don’t sniff stuff, especially when it looks like barf because it probably is.

“Historic” Discoveries

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It really is amazing what you can find at the Library!

It all started around June of 2018. I was going through the inventory list of the Murray Library lockers on the first floor. Over a few days I had been working on the women’s lockers, checking to see if any of them were supposed to unoccupied, if the names and locks matched what was on our list, and switching out locks as needed. On this particular day, I thought it would be just like any other:  I would open a locker and find it empty or full of garbage…however, this time was different.

This locker had been especially stubborn. Facilities staff had attempted on-and-off for years to cut off the lock; with enough force it finally gave in and I was able to look inside. The first thing that hit me was the smell. The other lockers had no real odor to them but this smell was almost like a musty, old book. Then I spotted a discolored (almost yellow) piece of paper folded over a hanger and a dark navy blue jacket next to it.

Newspaper from February of 1977. 17 years before I was born!

A jacket from the 70s can still be slightly fashionable in 2019.

I then looked down and saw a straw-like looking bag which wound up containing the following: an old Chatelaine magazine, a couple of Shoppers Drug Mart paper bags, and a pair of shoes. From the magazine we were able to determine who this locker must have belonged to at one point. I briefly thought that this person may have left in the last few years, however, with the help of Kerry and looking at the ‘era’ the items are to be from, we determined that it must have been at least 41 years since this individual last worked or was associated with the University Library.

Interesting what some people forget about.

I then proceeded with the standard steps of taking the items out of the locker and switching out the locks. I brought the items back to the Dean’s Office and ‘regaled’ Nicole and Kerry with the story of my find. They encouraged me then to share this fun little story with the rest of the Library and I thought that this was a good idea (but as you can tell, it’s been a bit delayed).

A few days later I then proceeded to work on the men’s lockers and once again I made an interesting discovery. As I opened a particular locker, I noticed that there was a large rolled up piece of bristol board and my first thought was that this was a past project that a student had abandoned. Upon unraveling it I discovered that it was actually drawing by infamous Saskatonian, Sailor Dan. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

To think that this was just left behind

Once I finished with my original task, I made my way back to the office and revealed the drawing to Nicole. We were slightly amused at the fact that I, once again, found an interesting ‘treasure’ and in the end we determined that the drawing would hang in Dean’s Office coffee room as our very own piece of art.

Moving Day(s)

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Last week, staff in the circulation unit of the Murray Library finally got the answer to the question they’ve been asking all year: “When are we moving downstairs?” The answer to that question is Wednesday, March 27th, 2019.

Although they had been mentally preparing themselves for months, the announcement of a firm deadline sent them scrambling to clean their desks and pack all of their worldly goods onto book trucks in preparation.

All my bags are packed, I’m ready to go

On Tuesday afternoon, their computers were unplugged and put on carts as well, ready to be put back onto the desks once they all reached their final destination.

I’m standing here outside your door / I hate to wake you up to say goodbye

The desks were left quite bare, as they waited for the arrival of the movers from Facilities Material Handling on Wednesday morning.

But the dawn is breaking, it’s early morn

The movers were a bit late on Wednesday morning, leaving the circulation staff at loose ends, not knowing where to go. But they did finally arrive, shortly after 9, and started hauling everything downstairs.

The taxi’s waiting, he’s blowing his horn

When the desks were removed, many dust bunnies and miscellaneous pieces of ancient debris were discovered. Who knew Duane had so many dried leaves under his desk?

Already I’m so lonesome I could die

Room 122 is now half-empty of people and fully-full of emptiness. Room [number not yet assigned] is now fully-full of people and half-full of hope. Circulation and LS&IT staff are hard at work putting everything together again.

Cause I’m leaving on a jet plane / don’t know when I’ll be back again

There’s still lots to do, so please be patient with Duane, Rachel, Kim, Cathy, Brittany P, Muhammad and Lisa if they don’t respond to emails or answer phone calls today. They literally don’t have computers or phones right now.

(Wondering why all this office movement is happening? It’s all part of the University Library’s Master Plan!)

Are you interested in visiting the new circulation office on the Murray ground floor? We’d love to have you visit, but we’re still unpacking and getting settled in! We are tentatively planning a come-and-go reception for April 17th April 25th. Keep an eye out for an invite in your email inbox coming soon!

3.1415926535 Mangled

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Science Library has been treated to a pie this Pi Day. You may see here and appreciate the beauty of Steven’s work and generosity. It has since been mangled and we are contented at our desks wondering who will volunteer to clean the cherry stained plates.

Copyright: The Card Game!

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Do you remember that old Shakespeare quote, “To study or not to study copyright, that is the question”? Well, maybe it wasn’t him and instead was something Cathy said when we were talking about playing “Copyright: The Card Game!”.

But, I digress. In honour of Fair Dealing/Fair Use Week that happens annually during the last week of February in Canada and the United States, the Copyright Office hosted five teams to duke it out in a friendly game of who knows the most about copyright. It was kind of like Crossfit® and who can exercise the fastest. Rumour has it that many of the teams pulled all-nighters and diligently scoured the USask copyright website for hints, tips and other advantages. While noshing on Skittles (#DYK they have been in North America since 1979) and peanut butter M&Ms (which Kate accidentally bought instead of normal M&Ms), to a carefully curated 80s Spotify playlist, teams passionately hovered over their cards in hopes to answer the copyright questions posed by Kate. Critical thinking and the highly competitive nature (who knew!?) of library staff helped bring out the copyright ringers on each team (I’m looking at you Myles!).

At the end of the game, after some well-argued-for bonus points had been awarded, we had to go to a tie-breaker between the Legal Eagles and BrainSTEMS!. BrainSTEMS! edged out the Legal Eagles by milliseconds on the squeezing of the squeaky toy to give the correct answer. Congratulations to Team BrainSTEMs! on their inaugural win!

Thank you to all who attended and supported this event – Team TBD ©, Circulation Formation, The Infringers, Legal Eagles and BrainSTEMS! We look forward to seeing you for the second annual Copyright: The Card Game event!

A Vague Construction Update from Murray Library

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This post’s creation can be attributed to Kim Unger’s desire to show pictures of “the higher-ups” dressed in construction gear. That, of course, can only take a post so far, thus I’ve taken the liberty to share some current photos of our Check-Out Desk construction zone.

Can’t miss seeing these cool cats.

Christine and Rachel are telling Duane (off-screen) that the orange clashes with his shirt. Probably. I wasn’t actually there, but it sounds right.

Kim didn’t want the others to feel silly alone. Unfortunately for the others, this look suits Kim a little too much.

You, dear reader, are probably here for the actual construction photos. Let me paint a picture for you first:

You’re sitting at the Check-Out Desk, trying not to bump your leg on the elevator box for a third time (or maybe that’s just me). There’s a strong scent of wood, dust, and fresh paint in the air. It tickles your nose and you hope you can find the tissue box in the surrounding chaos. A student approaches the desk, hoping to borrow a book on Reserve. At least, that’s what you hope they said. There’s currently some very loud banging happening right behind you. You confirm the call number twice as there’s a hammer coming down every time they say the letter D (or was it B?). Luckily, Rachel Hildebrandt is amazing and put all term 2 reserve books on carts behind the desk! Unfortunately, that means you have to fight your way past the other 4 carts lingering between you and your destination. You hope your limbs survive the journey…

Don’t be fooled by their innocuous cart-ness. One of them is a level 5 demon warrior that WILL wreck your toes if you aren’t careful. Oh, and I guess the room looks good too.

Forbidden books in the background (unless you’re wearing your +2 construction gear).

They’ve been painting today. Hopefully drywall won’t flutter down from the ceiling when we close the security gate anymore!

A sneak-peek of G5’s future. No more sitting in here spying on people in the smoker’s pit.

Small Displays at Education & Music

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Currently, there are fewer reserve items on the shelves behind the circulation desk at the Education & Music Library. So, we have been using the available space to make small displays that highlight various items in our collections.

At the beginning of February, we gave a little nod to Valentine’s Day by displaying items that were red, pink or white in colour and focused on love, gifts, food or flowers. A favourite was the book Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin.

We also had a display to celebrate Reading Week, followed by a Welcome Back display.

At the moment, we are featuring March and have a few items up that highlight the month of March as well as the act of marching and marching band music.

With such fun and diverse collections, it’s hard not to make a new display every day!

Love is in the air at Murray

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Today is a very romantic day at the Murray Library. Our break table in room 102 has been covered with Valentine’s Day decorations and treats. Staff members are dressed in matching red attire (obviously we called each other last night to plan this). And the best Valentine’s Day surprise of all – a singing Love Note delivered to us from our dear friends at the Education & Music Library! Thank you!! We are feeling the love today.

Don’t look at the shoes!

L is for the way you look at me

There are still lots of V-Day snacks left this afternoon, so anyone is welcome to come by and enjoy a treat and the warm glowing warming glow of our platonic love.

Indigenous Achievement Week 2019

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The Law Library put together a display for this year’s Indigenous Achievement Week’s theme of “Powerful Voices.” The display profiles four exceptional Indigenous Lawyers who made huge contributions to Saskatchewan throughout their careers.

The Display includes William Ivan Clarke Wuttunee who was the first Indigenous Lawyer to graduate from the University of Saskatchewan’s College of Law program and become the first Indigenous Lawyer in Western Canada. Our display includes excerpts from Robert McBain’s book, Their Home and Native Land for which he had exclusive interviews with Wuttunee.

The display will be up for the remainder of the week. Please feel free to come and have a look and read about the other three exceptional lawyers we have on display: Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond, Eleanore Sunchild, and Donald Worme.