yoURArcher

Last week I had the opportunity to give a presentation to the University of Regina Board of Governors focused on the Archer Library in the 21st century (aka the Digital Age). There is no question that libraries have evolved over the past 25 years as the digital world has come into its own in both positive and negative ways — but it is sometimes easy to miss how dramatic this evolution has been.

The first thing that we always hear as library and archives employees is that nobody uses us anymore because: EVERYTHING of value is already free on the Internet; whatever isn’t free is readily available from Amazon (even though EVERYTHING IS FREE); and, libraries are really just quiet warehouses that people have forgotten.

As the Board already knew, and as I expect everyone on campus also knows, this is nothing like the Archer Library of today or its research library peers across the country. While use has definitely shifted from physical journals and hardcover books we are busier than ever. One of the biggest changes we have seen is the Library as a learning space. Over the past year, our study rooms were booked 2,400 hours each — the equivalent of 1,200 days of group work. Our study and work space is in such demand that we have decided to permanently support extended hours during the winter and fall semester exam periods — with the result that Spring saw 3,900 students preparing for exams and final projects on the main floor between 11:00 p.m. and 2 a.m. More than 630,000 people passed through our front door and borrowed the equivalent of 32 electronic and physical items for every student, faculty member and staff person on campus.

But, as has been the case at least since the 1970s, collections and space do not a library make. Library faculty and staff are truly the keys to the success of our services and collections. Over 12,000 of you asked a question, got assistance in using our resources, had a one-on-one meeting with a library employee, or attended an information literacy session. While you no longer need to ask us how tall Mount Everest is, Archer employees have expanded their role as true partners in learning, teaching and research

This Archer Library newsletter will be your window into exciting new services, collections, programs and people at the Archer Library, as well as a place to introduce some of the issues and challenges facing us as academics (did someone say copyright?). And if you have any questions or suggestions, don’t hesitate to contact me at university.librarian@uregina.ca.

• Brett Waytuck, University Librarian

Welcome everyone to the official University of Regina Library blog, yoURArcher! yoURArcher is brought to you by a team of librarians and staff at the Archer Library. We will be sharing weekly posts showcasing new resources, services, reading recommendations from the UofR community, some laughs, and a variety of other interesting topics!

Our blog will also post to the Archer Library Facebook page so you can catch us there as well!

We hope to catch you on our blog!

 

-yoURArcher Blog Team

This September, the President’s Art Collection welcomed two Student Research Assistants to join Curator Alex King. Stephanie Ross and Sarah Timewell have been tasked with contributing research and extended texts about selected artwork in the President’s Collection. The results of their findings will be published on a campus art tour website that will be launched to coincide with Congress 2018, providing curious visitors, students and staff with a greater understanding of the University’s art holdings. By way of introduction to themselves and the work they’ve been undertaking, Stephanie and Sarah were asked to write a short blog post about their experiences.

Stephanie Ross

I am a fourth year student working towards a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, and a minor in Cultures of Display. What an unbelievable experience I am having working with the collection, I am learning so much! It is an honor to be working so closely with such influential art works. Right now I am working on researching the Regina Five and focussing on the Regina Five Wall in the Riddell Center. This wall is truly a marvellous and lasting legacy of the past faculty of this University.  These men were instrumental in breaking the artistic isolation of Regina in the 1950’s. Through their determination to broaden the horizons and artistic standards they organized the Emma Lake Workshops; where prestigious artists came to a retreat in Saskatchewan to build, bond and share in artistic practice. Their work also gained national attention with the May Show, an exhibition that started here, at the Norman MacKenzie Art Gallery. The exhibition then went to the National Gallery of Canada and was entitled, Five Painters from Regina, and toured Canada.

Sarah Timewell

I am of Métis and Hungarian ancestry and originally from Vancouver, BC. I am currently in my final term of the Bachelor of Fine Arts (Indigenous Art) program at the First Nations University of Canada. Although I enjoy working in many mediums, my focus is on Indigenous fine arts, including mainly beadwork and drawing. It is my goal to continue on to obtain a Master of Fine Arts and work as a professor teaching Indigenous fine arts to the next generation.

Through my work with the President’s Art Collection, I have researched many of the Indigenous artists in the collection including Henry Hunt, Kenojuak Ashevak, and Roy Thomas, to name a few. One of my favourite commissions by the university includes three hooked rugs made by artists Bernice Runns, Marjorie Yuzicappi, and Martha Tawyaka of the Standing Buffalo Dakota First Nation. In the late 1960, a number of women came together to form the Sioux Handcraft Co-operative. Adapting historical designs usually painted on ceremonial robes, the women converted the age-old tradition into a rug-making venture that operated until 1972. To reference their roots, the rugs are referred to as tah-hah-sheena which is the original name of the decorated animal hides.

 

Untitled Rug by Martha Tawyaka, 1971, wool and linen backing, measurements ~15ft x ~5ft

 

 

 

Welcome to September, and to a new school year!

Here’s your weekly links to interesting stories from the world of libraries and archives, books and publishing, and information science.

Got a hot tip? Please send it to Kate.Cushon@uregina.ca (tipsters will be credited!).

MIT will be hosting a summit on the Grand Challenges in information science and scholarly communication in spring 2018!

Public libraries in the US are offering federally-funded summer meals to children: “For kids to be well-read, they need to be well-fed.”

You may love your job at the library, but would you want to live here? Two bookshop employees are creating a library in Colorado where writers, researchers, and readers can stay amid a beautiful natural landscape.

A guide to using a public library card to stream movies for free has been put out by the New York Times.

The “book women” delivered library books – and literacy – on horseback to isolated communities in Kentucky during the 1930s and 1940s.

Your weekly links to interesting stories from the world of libraries and archives, books and publishing, and information science.

Got a hot tip? Please send it to Kate.Cushon@uregina.ca (tipsters will be credited!).

Banned books being used to construct a full-sized Parthenon at an historic book-burning site. (Hat-tip to Corina van den Berg!)

“Death and Taxonomies” explores the darker aspects of libraries, museums, and the organization of information.

Libraries sometimes get accused of restricting patron access to materials, but it’s hard to imagine any system more obviously restrictive than chained libraries.

Just for fun: 22 Librarians on “the most Italian guy they ever had to find a book for.”

On Academic libraries, and how we have something to sell.

Your weekly links to interesting stories from the world of libraries and archives, books and publishing, and information science.

Got a hot tip? Please send it to Kate.Cushon@uregina.ca (tipsters will be credited!).

Some advice for researchers on arranging grant reimbursement materials from an archivist.

On arrogance, and how higher education can promote intellectual humility.

In the U.S., millennials are using libraries more than any other generation.

Canadian graphic novelist Linda Barry addressed the Will Eisner Graphic Novel Grant Reception at ALA Annual, saying that librarians saved her life when she was a child.

Your weekly links to interesting stories from the world of libraries and archives, books and publishing, and information science.

Got a hot tip? Please send it to Kate.Cushon@uregina.ca (tipsters will be credited!).

Having a “real look” at security in libraries in this day and age – probably most relevant for public libraries, but certainly applicable to academic libraries as well – discussing everything from guns to mental health issues.

A related issue: The opioid epidemic in North America is becoming so urgent that public librarians are learning how to treat overdoses. (Hat-tip to Jennifer Hall!)

“If we seem doomed despite the evidence, why continue to support us?” A roundtable discussion of the challenges facing university presses.

The Venn diagram of bookselling and library work has some interesting areas of overlap, including the necessary agony of returning books, which has much in common with weeding a collection, as well as areas of difference.

“Take a Look: An Oral History of Reading Rainbow.”

81-3 Photo 10 Students 1915-16

(L to R) Ruth Willsey (Wilkinson), Chelsea Rowe, Mary Robertson

University of Regina Archives and Special Collections

Your weekly links to interesting stories from the world of libraries and archives, books and publishing, and information science.

Got a hot tip? Please send it to Kate.Cushon@uregina.ca (tipsters will be credited!).

One grad’s guide for graduate students on getting the most out of your academic library – a good reminder that even advanced and driven students may not be aware of basic library services.

The worlds of publishing and post-secondary education collide in a lawsuit: an unnamed student sues for defamation over a book that “that depicts the recent and growing number of campus rape and sexual assault allegations as the result of nationwide hysteria that infantilizes women.”

Although the U of R has had a new University Librarian for 10 months, leadership transition in academic libraries is a process that takes time and is helped with communication and plans for leadership transition.

On higher education and the “false god of attention.”

An essay on the author’s visceral horror of “getting it wrong in print.”

87-54 Photo 155 Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery 1980

Autumn Song (1970) by Douglas Bentham.

“The work was displayed as part of the exhibition organized by the Norman Mackenzie Art Gallery, Douglas Bentham: Getting to Now, 1 August – 31 October 1980. The catalogue for the exhibition lists the sculpture as from the Saskatchewan Arts Board collection.”

Timothy Long — Head Curator, MacKenzie Art Gallery

University of Regina Archives and Special Collections

University of Regina Photography Department