Come to the Science Library and learn some interesting facts about chocolate. With a new space to use, Raegan and Beth have started a series of holiday themed mini displays. Missed solstice? Come on over for the heartfelt season of chocolate.
Also on display: Legend in Concrete and 7 women, 8 prizes, Nobel.
Walk into the Murray Library this week, and you’ll see some big changes as soon as you come in. Our check-out desk is under construction! This is the first of many major renovations expected to happen in Murray over the next few years, thanks to the university’s bond.
The Reserve shelving area has been consolidated, and soon a new office space will be built along the back windows for our circulation staff. While this new space is being built, the entire reserve area, as well as a large portion of the circulation desk have been walled off by the construction crew. Our centre island has been demolished and our reserves counter will be downsized.
This is what you see when you walk into the library now. A big white wall.
For the first time in a long time (or maybe ever?) students who want to borrow reserve items at Murray will have to follow the same procedures as they do at the other branches: look up the item’s call number and show it to the staff, who will then retrieve it for them.
Rachel H. cheerfully models our new uniforms.
Our high-demand reserve material will remain on book trucks behind the desk, but there are still many lower-demand items trapped in the construction zone. Several Murray staff members attended site safety orientation, and are now prepared to retrieve these reserve items when students request them. It won’t be a quick process – we have to don safety boots, vests, gloves and hardhats before we’re allowed to enter the construction zone. But we’ll do anything to get our beloved students the resources they need. (And any excuse to walk around in a fun hardhat is a good one.)
The tables are full! Come on up to the 6th floor of the Murray Library now!
** Rm 630.45 ~ 10 am to 2 pm **
The Christmas spirit has arrived! If you feel like taking a walk, come by and pay us a visit and stroll through our winter wonderland. From everyone at the Law Library, we wish you a happy holiday season and a fantastic New Year!
Another successful orientation season has come to a close. Thank you to everyone who volunteered for our activities. Your help was invaluable and we could not have done it without you!
Here is a quick breakdown of our major orientation events for your reading pleasure.
Library Passport Tours:
The winner of our Library Passport Tour was Taeyeoun K., she won a $100 gift certificate to Shop usask.
We had 6 staff volunteers take the students around on a walking tour of all libraries on campus, including The Shannon Library at STM. We offered a total of 6 walking tours and 9 students took the tour. We made a total of 365 passports and of that, 249 passports where taken by students and 31 completed passports were turned in.
Orientation Day:
We had well over 200 students come to our library table to talk to us and find out how we can support them during their academic career. We handed out a total of 192 library branded tumblers to students. 10 staff volunteered to do roving and be a friendly face for students trying to navigate their first week on campus. We also had 7 staff volunteers taking shifts at the orientation table welcoming students to the University Library.
Murray Library Tours:
The Murray Library offered 28 tours combining tours of the physical space and an overview of the library’s website. 40 students attended the tours hosted by 6 staff volunteers. The tours highlight library spaces and services.
A special Thank-You to all our volunteers!
Amy Putnam
Amy St.-Jacques
Candice Dahl
Cathy Grant
Chalyse Lalonde
Gina Koehn
Heather Acton
Jo Ann Murphy
Justina Datta
Kate Langrell
Kelly Juliusson
Lara O’Grady
Laura Harris
Lexi Whitter
Rachel Hildebrandt
Ron Peters
Shannon Lucky
Shelby Sluth
Susan Murphy
Tina Leckie
Staff members in the Murray Building were tasked with decorating their office doors for some spooky Halloween fun. Which door is your favourite?
(And no, you’re not allowed to pick LS&IT’s door as your favourite.)
The Law Library brought their best Halloween faces today! Please meet our Book Wizard and Book Fairies. If you’re lucky, you may find them fluttering around the Library assisting students, keeping the collection organized, and sprinkling fairy dust everywhere they go. Sadly, our Supervisor Fairy is out with the Fairy Flu today and could not be here with us.
Fairy wings, skirts, wands and Wizard scarf were all recycled and made from discarded books removed from the Law Collection.
From our Library to yours, Happy Halloween everyone!
Li Zhang successfully creeps out her co-workers. Did not stop them from eating the lot. Yum.
Yesterday some staff from the Science, Engineering, and Leslie & Irene Dubé Health Sciences Libraries decided to lift their Monday spirits by going for shots after work. 
Here at the Murray Library, we absolutely adore Saskatchewan Library Week. Besides being an excellent way to promote libraries in our beautiful province, it’s also the best week of the year to bring out our inner poets. We (Lara, Kelly, and our newest member, Brittany S.) maybe had a little too much fun making book spine poetry, but we also got a lot of engagement with the amazing display Brittany made.
We made it easy for everyone to make their own poetry by putting out a variety of interesting titles.
Here are some example titles people could use on the display:
And just like that, a poem is born!
We posted a poem on our Facebook page for each day of Saskatchewan Library Week, so we’d like to think we now know where to find the best book titles (at least at Murray Library). If you want to make darker poems, we’d suggest searching the history section from D – DX (lots of war books with titles to reflect that tone). If you’re more into silly poems, we’d suggest checking in the North Wing (Language and Literature), especially in the PR9299s. Alternatively, if you’d like to create racier poems there’s the women and gender studies section in the HQs (but you didn’t hear that from me!).
Here are some of the poems we created this week:
This is one of Lara’s creations. I think she was feeling wistful for the Royal Wedding when she made this.
This is one of mine (Kelly). It received a “#inspired <3<3<3” comment on Facebook that made me very proud.
If anyone else celebrated Saskatchewan Library Week by making book spine poetry, we’d love to know about it!