The Newsstand: News & Happenings @MTA_Libraries

Library Newsletter - Spring 2018

Roughly three times yearly the Libraries & Archives submits a report to the Atlantic Provinces Library Association Bulletin outlining library news, librarian & staff activities, and other noteworthy happenings. Our Spring 2018 report  lists some notable things we did over the 2017-18 academic year.

Events and related news:

• It’s been a long time coming. The R.P. Bell Library will be the next large renovation at Mount Allison University. The Libraries 2025 Vision Committee will advise the University on “the vision, scope, design, construction, and schedule for a major project to revitalize our Libraries and Archives,” states the  Committee’s Web page. The committee of 10 has three representatives from the Libraries & Archives: University Librarian Marc Truitt; Data & Digital Services Librarian Elizabeth Stregger; and Interlibrary Loans Coordinator Jason MacDonald. The Committee is in the early consultation phase, and has thus far held town hall meetings and created a campus-wide survey.
   
• What call number are you? During the last two weeks of March, the Library hosted two pop-up art events enabling people to print laptop stickers showing their favourite Library of Congress call number. Anthropology professor Patricia Kelly Spurles donated her printer and multi-coloured sticker material, and Librarian Elizabeth Stregger helped people find their LC area. Students, faculty and staff participated, printing stickers of favourite subjects and books. For example, one graduating student printed the call number of David Boyd’s The Right to a Healthy Environment. “It has inspired the work that I’ve done this semester, so it’s definitely a meaningful book for me.… I’m super glad I came over,” she told The Argosy.
   
• Librarian Elizabeth Stregger and Women’s and Gender Studies professor Christiana MacDougall held several Wikipedia edit-a-thons in the Library in February, as part of Dr. MacDougall’s Gender in Science course. Students created Wikipedia entries on underrepresented and marginalized groups in the scientific community. This successful event – popular with students and librarians – inspired another Wikipedia edit-a-thon in conjunction with the Resurfacing conference on Canadian women writers in the 1970s, which took place at Mount Allison and Université de Moncton in late April.
  
   
• In a first for the Mount A. Library, we invited children to participate in a Celebration of Books for Children, a Saturday morning of dramatic readings and presentations from authors. On March 17, about 30 people came to meet Camelia Airheart, the wandering New Brunswick Canada Goose (authors Odette Barr, Colleen Landry, and Beth Weatherbee); Herman the Monster (author Paul McAllister); and Kit and the Calico Cat (author Brigitte Marsden). The event, held on the main floor of the library from 10 a.m. to noon, was part of the New Brunswick Book Design Exhibit, organized by Chapel Street Editions, a small New Brunswick press. Feedback from participants was overwhelmingly positive, and the Library plans to host similar events.
   
• The R.P. Bell Library hosted the New Brunswick Book Design Exhibit during the month of March. The launch featured readings from four New Brunswick authors with books in the exhibit: poets Allan Cooper and Jane Tims, novelist and memoirist Beth Powning, and novelist Peter J. Clair. The event, held on the main floor of the library, drew about 60 people. The exhibit, created by small publisher Chapel Street Editions, displayed contemporary book design by small New Brunswick presses (or presses with a New Brunswick connection, such as Gaspereau Press). It featured dozens of colourful, large-size reproductions of book covers and about 25 physical copies of books.
   
• On Feb. 28, the Library hosted a talk by Dr. Uzoma Esonwanne, professor of English at the University of Toronto. His talk, “Things Fall Apart: Then and Now,” honoured the 60^th anniversary of Chinua Achebe’s great novel. The event was sponsored by the Office of the President, the Library, and the International Centre.  
   
• The Library’s Truth & ReconciliAction Film Series continued in the winter term, with a lineup of six films on Indigenous issues. On March 2, we screened Water Warriors, which documents the successful efforts of a community and activists to stop hydraulic fracturing. Guest speaker Annie Clair, who was on the front lines of the fracking resistance from Elsipogtog, spoke after the film and answered questions from the audience of students, staff and community members. 
   
• The Library hosted guest speaker LaDonna Brave Bull Allard for three days in February for a public lecture and visits to classes. Allard is a Lakota historian who became a leading activist in the Standing Rock Sioux’s resistance to the Dakota Access Pipeline. University Librarian Marc Truitt initiated and organized the visit, in cooperation with a small library committee. The Libraries & Archives brought Allard to campus so the Mount Allison community could hear her story of the Sacred Stone resistance camp, and learn from her about Indigenous and environmental activism. Despite a blizzard, more than 100 people attended Allard’s public talk. The day after her talk, Allard met with students involved with Divest MTA to discuss the local and global divest movement. She also gave a guest talk in a Geography and Environmental Studies class, and met with two additional classes of students.

Staff news:

• Systems Librarian Elizabeth Stregger has been appointed to the position of Data & Digital Services Librarian, effective July 1. In this capacity, Elizabeth will take the lead in designing and implementing innovative data and digital services for the sciences, social sciences, and emerging digital humanities initiatives at Mount Allison. She will a promote data research collaborations across departments and disciplines, and work to create a culture of data and digital literacy among faculty, students, and staff.
   
• Robert Cupido, who has been working in the University Archives, will be finishing up his yearlong Bell Fund-sponsored work on the papers of Dr. Marie Hammond-Callaghan. Archivist David Mawhinney says the papers are a treasure trove of information about the origins of Women’s Studies at Mount Allison University and the women’s peace movement in general.  They include papers relating to the feminist biography of Gertrude Richardson (1875-1946) with related research files compiled by the late Barbara Roberts. The papers contain information about the Voice of Women (VOW) and Prof. Hammond-Callaghan’s doctoral work on the women’s peace movement in Northern Ireland.
   
• Librarian Jeff Lilburn was elected to the board of directors of the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) for 2018-2021.
   
• Librarian Jeff Lilburn has been promoted to Full Librarian, beginning July 2018. Jeff has worked at the Mount A. Library for 18 years. Jeff is subject librarian for Drama, English, French Literature, and Sociology.
   
• The Library has received confirmation that the search for a new University Librarian will commence in 2019, with the retirement of University Librarian Marc Truitt.
   
• The Library welcomed Archival Intern Sean Bourque in May, who is continuing the work of Young Canada Works intern Kevin Melanson. Melanson worked on the papers of noted Allisonians Christan Nicholson (portraitist) and Gordon Monahan (performance artist). Crake ArtsWork intern Brenna MacMillan has been focusing on the Department of Fine Arts slide collection. It has yielded some of artist Alex Colville’s original slides, which will be featured at Colville House this season. Both interns work under the direction of University Archivist David Mawhinney.