DALHOUSIE LIBRARIES ANNUAL REPORT 2019/20 July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020
MESSAGE FROM THE DEAN OF LIBRARIES While it can sometimes feel like we’ve been dealing with the effects of COVID-19 for a very long time, most of the previous academic year passed before Dalhousie cancelled in-person classes and we had to temporarily close our physical locations. Much of this report will reflect on our activities between July 2019–mid-March 2020, but we do include a special feature in this report on how we adapted our services during the pandemic. With most of us still working from home and our spaces open for bookable appointments only at the time of this report’s publication, I want to say a special thank you to each amazing staff member of the Dalhousie Libraries for their incredible efforts over the past six months. Weathering the uncertainty and upheaval to their regular routines and workflow, the resourceful and resilient Dal Libraries team continues to provide essential services to our appreciative users. One of the core values for most libraries is equity, and we strive to ensure all our users — students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members — have free and unfettered access to our collections, 2
services, and spaces, while prioritizing our mandate to support the academic mission of the university. This means we ensure the spaces are as accessible and barrier-free as possible, that the hours of operation for spaces and services are flexible and responsive to the schedules and lifestyles of our users, that we acquire a broad range of scholarly resources in a variety of formats (with a priority on electronic resources for reasons of accessibility), and that no one is disenfranchised due to a lack of access to technology or the internet. During the pandemic and subsequent phases of lockdown and reopening, ensuring equitable access has continued to be central to all that we do. We worked hard to provide off-campus access to collections through laptop loans to students, the continuation of our document delivery services during the closure of our buildings, the creation of a curbside pickup service, and the reintroduction of library
openings as early as we safely could. When Dalhousie moved to online learning and teaching, we were there to support faculty and students with Brightspace technical support, embedded eResources, and librarians and staff delivering excellent online services and instruction. Earlier in the year, with our partners in Novanet, we eliminated overdue fines as an additional equity measure. It’s important that student access to scholarly resources and their chances for academic success are not hindered by late fees. By any standard, 2019–20 was a productive, innovative year for us. The unusual end of the academic year found the Dalhousie Libraries still at the heart of Dalhousie, in person and online. I am
incredibly proud of the work we are doing for Dalhousie and the greater community.
Donna Bourne-Tyson Dean of Libraries
Dalhousie University is located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq. We are all Treaty People. Photo: Sarah Prosper, professional dancer from Eskasoni First Nation and Dalhousie student in the Faculty of Health, dances as part of a Dal Reads tribute to Rita Joe at the campus mawio’mi in September 2019. Photo by Adam Gould.
3
Open Educational Resources (OER) & Open Access (OA) For the first time, we collaborated with the Centre for Learning & Teaching (CLT) to provide a grant to fund the creation of an OER. Dr. Leanne Stevens in the Faculty of Science was the successful recipient with her plan to create an OER for the Introduction to Psychology course by adapting an existing open textbook, potentially saving Dalhousie students thousands of dollars. Also with CLT, we presented a public lecture by Brett McCollum about OERs.
4
ran a faculty survey about OERs in June and July of 2019. The survey was designed to determine awareness of OER among Dalhousie faculty and learn how much OER activity was happening at Dalhousie. The results indicated there is a fair amount of interest in and use of OERs by Dalhousie faculty. Of the 147 respondents, 72 per cent said they had used or were using a range of types of OERs as part of their course materials; however, only 22 per cent indicated they had created an OER. The main reasons faculty are using OERs is to improve student use of and engagement with course materials and to reduce students’ costs.
During Open Access Week (October 21–27), in an effort to inspire wider participation in open access activities at Dal, we offered workshops and information sessions on creative commons, OERs, and predatory publishers. We also published an interview with the Schulich School of Law’s Lucie Guibault about her belief in the value of open access.
Through the Open Journals Systems platform, we are now hosting the Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography. We host 10 other OA publications on this platform, including the Dalhousie Journal of Legal Studies and the Dalhousie Medical Journal. We are also continuing to publish the Raddall diaries, which are the personal diaries of famed Nova Scotia author Thomas Raddall.
Dalhousie’s OER Working Group, cochaired by Associate Dean Learning & Teaching Anne Matthewman, Associate Dean Scholarly Communications Ann Barrett, and our colleague Suzanne LeMay Sheffield, Director of the CLT, aims to raise awareness of OERs among faculty and librarians at Dalhousie, advocate for OER use, and provide ways to motivate and support faculty to use existing OER resources or create their own. The working group, with support from Dal Analytics,
Learning & Teaching Information Literacy & Academic Integrity In October, learning and instruction librarian Lindsay McNiff launched a pirate-themed escape room called Buccaneer Breakout. Teams of two to four were invited to sign up for the hour-long escape room adventure. Participants solved a series of puzzles on the theme of informa-
tion literacy in order to open a treasure chest filled with chocolate coins. Director of Academic Technology Services Marc Comeau is co-leading the university-wide Future of Learning and Teaching self-study group and Associate Dean Learning & Teaching Anne Matthewman is a member. It is one of eight self-study groups that are forming the foundational work for the new President’s strategic directions. Dr. Deep Saini, the new President, started at Dalhousie in January. For Academic Integrity Week in June, Anne, along with librarians Deborah Hemming, Louise Gillis, and Allison Fulford, formed a panel on avoiding accidental plagiarism.
David Michels and Hannah Steeves welcomed incoming law students to the law library with an Amazing Race themed orientation activity. Students learned where to find the key resources they’ll need during their studies through a series of fun challenges. In May, we presented the online version of Research Bootcamp, a suite of modules designed for teaching and research assistants and graduate students. We also continued with our Scholarship @ Dal webinar series for the Dal community, offering sessions on GIS and citation and data management.
A team of students who successfully completed the escape room. Provided photo.
5
Dal Reads Dal Reads is the unity reading program of Dalhousie. Each year, with support from the President’s Office, a university-wide committee chaired by Dal Libraries Communications Coordinator Marlo MacKay selects one book that will be the Dal Reads book for the year. The Dal Libraries purchases copies of the book for distribution across campus and in conjunction with faculty members from across the university, we offer programming based on the book. The Dal Reads Steering Committee includes students, faculty members, librarians, library staff, university staff, and has representatives from senate, the Black Faculty and Staff Caucus, and the Indigenous Advisory Council. This year, we put out a call to the Queer Faculty & Staff Caucus, and were thrilled to gain two new committee members. The 2019/20 Dal Reads book was Song of Rita Joe: Autobiography of a Mi’kmaw Poet. After consulting with Rita Joe’s family and receiving their permission to proceed with their mother’s autobiography as the Dal Reads selection (Rita Joe passed away in 2008), we purchased 2,000 copies of the book, and for the first time, an eBook copy that allowed for simultaneous usage.
6
Rita Joe published six books of poetry and is widely recognized for speaking the truth about residential schools and for being an ambassador for the Mi’kmaq. At the annual campus mawio’mi in September, Rita Joe’s grandson and Dalhousie law student Madison Joe recited one of her most famous poems, I Lost My Talk. Madison’s recitation was accompanied by a dance performance by professional dancer and Dalhousie student in the Faculty of Health, Sarah Prosper. Sarah comes from Eskasoni, the home of Rita Joe. In November, students living in residence organized Poetry Night: Listen, Write, and Share to celebrate Song of Rita Joe and provide an opportunity for students to share their own stories. Passages of the book were read and attendees were encouraged to share their own poetry. We hosted two events with Mi’kmaw poet and artist Michelle Sylliboy. Michelle is working to reclaim her original written komqwej’wikasikl language, and in 2019, she published a collection of photography and Mi’kmaq (L’nuk) hieroglyphic poetry called Kiskajeyi—I Am Ready. In addition to an artist talk where she discussed the process and inspiration behind her book, Michelle led an art workshop in the Indigenous Student Centre. Participants used Michelle’s Mi’kmaq-to-English/Englishto-Mi’kmaq dictionaries to paint original poems in hieroglyphics on birch bark that Michelle had prepared and brought with her from Cape Breton.
Clockwise from top: Michelle Sylliboy leads the art workshop. Sheets of birch bark prepared by Michelle. Photos by Nick Pearce. Madison Joe recites I Lost My Talk at the Mawiomi. Photo by Adam Gould.
7
Pandemic Response When Dalhousie suspended all in-person classes in mid-March, our physical spaces also closed, but we continued to provide service to our users. We, along with most academic and public libraries, were reaping the benefits of having already moved many of our services and collections to the digital realm over the years. With everyone working from their homes, communication was key to keeping both staff and library users informed as things changed rapidly. We created a COVID-19 page on our website that highlighted how to access services while our spaces were closed, kept staff informed through weekly email updates, and later, through weekly town hall meetings via Microsoft Teams software. The unit managers also held weekly staff meetings and virtual coffee breaks to stave off feelings of isolation, foster learning communities, and further develop a network of support. The fact that the Dal Libraries comprise eight service points in three communities in two provinces means that we already knew how to work together remotely and provide virtual services. The experience of working from home was new for some staff, but they quickly adapted, learned new skills, and pivoted into transformed roles. 8
Maintaining Services A key way we maintained service to students in those early days of the pandemic shut-down was through LiveHelp, a Novanet-wide, chat-based way for students and faculty to get library assistance. Weeks before the closure of the Dal Libraries’ physical spaces, in anticipation of an extended closure, we trained additional staff to provide LiveHelp service. Working with our Novanet colleagues, we were able to extend the LiveHelp service hours for the spring term to 8 p.m. from the usual 4 p.m. closing at that time of year. For more in-depth research questions, the librarians could be reached by email and were available for remote appointments. We kept our book drops open when most of the book drops in the province had to close. Access Services staff took turns coming in to safely empty the book drops and sort through the returns. We knew many of our students were heading to a home out of province and had library items they wanted to return before leaving Halifax. And, as a member of the provincewide Borrow Anywhere, Return Anywhere program, we received returns of books from libraries across Nova Scotia that we held onto until regular book delivery services resumed. After many months, all of those books have since found their way back to their home libraries. Course eReserves was another service that also saw an increase in demand when the majority of classes moved online and access to our print collections was tem-
Access Services staff Alex Nwankwo, far left, and Nellie Clyke, seated, help students navigate the new check-in procedures upon entering the library. Photo by Nick Pearce.
porarily unavailable. After faculty submit their course reading lists to the libraries, Access Services staff find the content, get the copyright clearances, digitize the content if it doesn’t already exist in an electronic format, and make the content available through the appropriate course spaces in Brightspace. Our laptop loaning service expanded dramatically, first by extending the loan period from a few hours to the end of the term, and then extending loans as needed. It didn’t take long for us to exhaust our on-site supply of laptops before we had to purchase more. Demand continues to grow for this crucial service. Sharing Our Collections with the World When most of the world’s libraries shut down in March, a strain was put on the international lending network, but our
Document Delivery department was ready to go remote. Weeks before our physical spaces closed, the Academic Technology Services team (ATS) — the in-house IT support for the Dalhousie Libraries — provided the Document Delivery team with laptops loaded with the software required to request and share resources between institutions so they could work from home if needed. That aspect of the transition went well, but a big piece of the regular Document Delivery service was missing — providing access to Dalhousie’s excellent print collections. We were one of the few libraries in the country still running a document delivery service that included scanning from our print collection, and we were the only one in Atlantic Canada at that time, so business was booming.
9
With one of the largest collections in Atlantic Canada, we felt it was our obligation to keep providing access to as much information as we could. Even at the height of the lock-down, Joe Wickens, the manager of Document Delivery, with support from Access Services staff, came in daily to safely scan copyright-cleared portions of print material that were essentially needed and not available in an electronic format. Then, when the National Library of Medicine in Maryland stopped scanning from their print collections, we saw another surge in requests, particularly for information from our dentistry collection, which contains some rare materials. The Dalhousie Libraries was uniquely positioned to continue to provide this service given the conditions, with collections that are large enough to have the depth to respond to requests, and buildings small enough to fill the requests safely under COVID-19 restrictions. Larger library institutions were shutting down their scanning services because so many workers were needed to search their enormous facilities and with the public health restrictions on social contact, they couldn’t do it safely. We filled requests from as far away as New Zealand, Australia, Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Despite the incredible job that Document Delivery did providing access to information, especially during those early days of the pandemic, we knew we had to find a way to safely loan items from our collections again. After much planning, we developed a curbside pick-up service 10
that launched in June, where Dalhousie and King’s students, faculty, and staff could place a request online and come by later to pick up their materials from Access Services staff through a no-contact system. We later expanded the service to include access for alumni and off-campus borrowers. We also knew that we had to start reopening our spaces for those that didn’t have access to a quiet space to study and work. Through careful planning in concert with the university’s Return to Campus Committee, in early July, we started reopening our spaces for controlled access by appointment to current Dalhousie and King’s students, faculty, and staff. One area where we saw exponential growth was in the number of requests we’ve received for streaming videos. Even if a film is already held as a physical copy in the Dal Libraries’ collection, we had to find a streaming source of the video for the online teaching environment. We invested in a number of new streaming video resources including Audio Ciné, Criterion, Curio, Films-on-Demand, and Kanopy. Supporting Remote & Online Teaching The Dal Libraries’ Academic Technology Services (ATS) team manages the university’s IT Help Desks and Brightspace (the learning management system for Dalhousie), providing training for faculty and back-end technical support.
To address the mass move to remote teaching, their team grew exponentially in a matter of days. On the evening of March 12, the day before Dalhousie announced that in-person classes would no longer continue, the Brightspace support team had four members, and by March 15, their team had grown to 42, including some library staff from other units, who temporarily filled in to meet demand. Many of the new hires were graduate students who had completed the Certificate in University Teaching and Learning and who would be providing technical support to faculty in Brightspace.
still running daily from 9 a.m.–8 p.m. through the week and from 9 a.m.–3 p.m. on the weekends. We also established an emergency remote teaching website in a matter of days, designed to quickly direct students and faculty to the supports they needed. Thanks to Marc Comeau, Director of ATS, and Mick Bottom, Manager of Services, Support & Training for their leadership on this mission-critical front.
ATS introduced a virtual Brightspace drop-in support service for faculty that’s
Once the acute period of emergency remote teaching passed and we learned
Above: The core ATS Brightspace support team. Clockwise from top: Carlye Stein, Norbert Addo, Michelle McDonald, Mike Duggan.
11
classes would also be online in the fall, we developed a brand-new online teaching website in partnership with the Centre for Learning & Teaching (CLT) to replace the emergency remote teaching site. We also worked with our CLT colleagues to develop a weekly digital newsletter for faculty called Connected Classrooms, designed to keep faculty up-to-date with the latest news and resources related to online teaching. Throughout the spring, we continued to develop services to address faculty needs in the mostly online world. Using the expertise of our Classroom Technologies team, we created a service where faculty could arrange to record their lectures on campus. Supporting the Community’s COVID-19 Response One of the most unexpected ways we responded in the early days of the COVID-19 crisis was by contributing to the university-wide drive for personal protective equipment for the local hospitals, organized by Dal’s Environmental Health and Safety Office. We donated a significant number of N95 masks and Nitrile gloves that had been left over from past renovation projects. Responding to the unusual circumstances this spring challenged us in new ways. It’s been anything but business as usual, but we’re working hard to support our users through the pandemic. We will continue to tweak our services as needed and follow our strategic plan which we adjusted in response to COVID-19. 12
Archives Increasing Capacity in the Archives — Compact Shelving Installation The biggest project we completed last summer was the installation of compact shelving in the Archives. This $300,000 project was finished on time and on budget, thanks to the great planning and oversight by Manager of Financial & Physical Resources Janice Slauenwhite and Associate Dean, Archives, Special Collections, & Records Management, and University Archivist Michael Moosberger. This work couldn’t have been completed without the work of the Archives team who packed the entire collection for offsite storage, and then put it all back again after the new shelving was installed. Renovations were also made to the Special Collections Reading Room. Archival Initiatives We received an archival development program grant of $15,000 from the Nova Scotia government that funded two sixmonth contract positions to process the papers of former Dal faculty members Eric Ricker, Gil Winham, and Ronald MacDonald. The Archives is now a regular contributor to Dal Magazine as there has been an increase in interest in the university’s history following the success of Dal 200.
We continued our work with Dr. Jacquie Gahagan in the Faculty of Health to establish the Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors Archive as part of the Dal Archives’ holdings. This important collection is the result of the first true collaboration between the Dalhousie Archives and a community archive. We’re actively working with the community to create a foundation for the archive, deciding together what is retained, and developing a profile for the collection. The Archives is processing the collection and providing a safe space to preserve the original materials. Above: Buttons donated to the Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors Archive. Right: New compact shelving in the Archives. Photo by Dalhousie Archives staff.
13
Special Collections Using funds from the Kipling endowment, we purchased the 1937–39 published editions of Rudyard Kipling’s works. This is the last complete set of Kipling’s works that he was directly involved in editing. This purchase complements our Kipling Collection, a research collection of international significance and reputation; described as “the single most comprehensive collection” by prominent Kipling scholar Dr. Thomas Phinney.
Records Management The Dalhousie Libraries is the unit responsible to introduce and support the university’s records management policy. Records management activities are situated within the Archives. Records Manager Courtney Bayne works with units and committees across the university, including the Information Risk Management Working Group (IRMWG), formed in 2019 to assist the Dalhousie community to address and mitigate risks related to information management, such as privacy breaches. The group is comprised of individuals from the Privacy Office, Information Technology Services, Dalhousie 14
Libraries, and Internal Audit. Several key guidelines have been developed by this group including Where Do I Put My Stuff? When everyone moved to working from home in March, the Records Management Office supported the transition by releasing guidelines for the management and storage of university information while working remotely.
Partnerships The Libraries work with Dalhousie departments and faculties as well as other partners external to the university to achieve our goals. Internally, we work closely with the Centre for Learning & Teaching, Information Technology Services, and the Research & Innovation Office. Externally, we frequently work with the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia and Halifax Public Libraries to present literary events. We also work with a number of Nova Scotia Sandboxes, including SURGE and Cultiv8, with the latter being located in the MacRae Library. Sandboxes is a provincial program that’s hosted in universities and community colleges to bring students, mentors, and advisers together to develop an entrepreneurial mindset. This year, we worked with SURGE, based in the Faculty of Science, to host a series of librarian-led workshops on the topic of open science.
Supporting Research With support from the Strategic Initiatives Fund, Dalhousie purchased a 4,000-user license for qualitative data analysis software called NVivo. Our Academic Technology Services (ATS) team is supporting the software, which can analyze all forms of unstructured data. We continue to offer workshops and support the faculties on UNIWeb, a research information system (RSI) that enables the university to prepare faculty annual reports and research profiles, build research networks, and effectively reflect our academic output. The Dalhousie Libraries administers UNIWeb on behalf of the university, providing technical support and training, with leadership from Associate Dean Scholarly Communications Ann Barrett, and team members Melissa Rothfus, Carlye Stein, and Ahmed Mahdy. Research Data Management (RDM) In November, Dalhousie approved an Institutional Research Data Management Strategy. We acknowledge the leadership and support of Vice-President Research & Innovation Dr. Alice Aiken and the contributions of librarians Erin MacPherson and Melissa Rothfus, as well as Associate Dean Scholarly Communications Ann Barrett, Associate Dean Planning Sarah Stevenson, and other RDM team
members. With this strategy in place, we can develop a capacity that supports researchers in adopting responsible RDM practices, including making their research data findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable. Erin MacPherson and Melissa Rothfus also conducted an RDM survey focusing on the research community at Dalhousie that included faculty at all ranks. The purpose of the survey was to contribute to a national growing body of knowledge on RDM in universities. The results of this survey will also help us to develop infrastructure and educational programs to meet the RDM needs at Dalhousie. Additionally, two of our librarians, Melissa Helwig and Hannah Steeves, are serving on two Dalhousie Research Ethics Boards, each for a three-year term.
Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) In February, several members of the Dal Libraries EDI committee and other Dal Libraries staff participated in the Council of Atlantic University Libraries/Conseil des bibliothèques universitaires de l’Atlantique (CAUL-CBUA) forum on equity, diversity, and inclusion. The EDI Committee also provided an opportunity for staff to attend a webinar on trans and gender non-conforming inclusion in libraries. 15
Special Events In August, Zuppa Theatre, a Halifax-based theatre troupe, returned to the Killam Library to do a limited run of their original production, The Archive of Missing Things, before taking their show on the road to Toronto and the United Kingdom. The production, first staged in the Killam in 2017, is described as “an online scavenger hunt in the middle of an immersive, undercover performance that happens in libraries.” In the fall, we partnered with the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia (WFNS) to present Scary Stories in Shirreff Hall, an annual Halloween event featuring professional storytellers telling traditional and original tales in the suitably atmospheric Victorian Drawing Room. We also partnered with the WFNS to present an evening with the 2019 Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award winner, Lisa Moore, at the Halifax Central Library. Lisa won the Raddall Award for her short fiction collection Something for Everyone. She was joined in conversation with Dal Magazine editor Kim Pittaway. All five Dalhousie Libraries participated in Blind Date with a Book, our annual Valentine program that sets up library users with the book of their dreams. Each library makes a selection of fiction and literary non-fiction books, wrapping them in brown paper and tagging them with 16
tantalizing descriptions. People are encouraged to read the tags and take home the one that most appeals to them. In March, we co-presented A Conversation about Elizabeth Bishop with Nimbus and Halifax Public Libraries. Elizabeth Bishop, who spent some years of her childhood living in Nova Scotia, won a Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1956. The panel was moderated by author and educator Alexander MacLeod, and panelists included Rita Wilson and Emma FitzGerald, creators of A Pocket of Time: The Poetic Childhood of Elizabeth Bishop; Bishop scholar Sandra Barry; and poet Alison Smith. We also hosted two literary events at the MacRae Library — one with Allan Weiss and one featuring four faculty members launching books: Dr. Patricia Cove, Dr. Chris Hartt, Dr. Kathleen Kevany, and Dr. Deborah Stiles (retired). Right, top: Kim Pittaway (left) in conversation with Lisa Moore. Photo by Marlo MacKay. Middle: Blind Date with a Book at the Sexton Library. Provided photo. Bottom, from left: Rita Wilson, Sandra Barry, Alison Smith, Alexander MacLeod, Emma FitzGerald. Photo by Marlo MacKay.
Celebrating Our Colleagues Last year, the Faculty of Management introduced an award for part-time instructors who exhibit educational leadership, innovation, and sustained commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. The inaugural recipient was Lindsay McNiff, our learning and instruction librarian. Lindsay has also been a part-time instructor in the School of Information Management since 2015. Evidence synthesis librarian Robin Parker received a Killam Trust scholarship, one of Dalhousie’s most celebrated awards. Robin is currently enrolled in the interdisciplinary PhD program. Congratulations to Lindsay and Robin!
New Faces & New Roles This year, we welcomed a number of Dal Libraries staff into new roles. We also welcomed some brand-new staff members, too. Mike Duggan, with the Dal Libraries since 2015, became the Instructional Technologies Architect. Jason Flynn returned to the Dal Libraries as the Manager of Operations for ATS
17
after a time with Information Technology Services. Carl Harvey, with the Dal Libraries since 2017, became a Help Desk Technician. Denise Irving, with the Dal Libraries since 2016, became the eResource & Metadata Specialist. Scott MacPherson, with the Dal Libraries since 2019, became a Library Services Assistant. Krishna Sirivuri, new to Dalhousie, became the Systems Developer. Carlye Stein, with the Dal Libraries since 2019, became an Instructional Support Technician. Charles Tourneur, with the Dal Libraries since 2009, became the new Stack Supervisor in the Killam Library. James Wilson, formerly of the Faculty of Medicine’s MedIT Department, became the Video Conferencing Coordinator.
Community To celebrate Munro Day, a Dalhousie holiday named for George Munro, a benefactor who saved the institution from financial ruin in the 1870s, members of the Dal Libraries Health & Wellness Committee volunteered in the kitchen at The Loaded Ladle. The Loaded Ladle is a meal service in the Student Union Building that provides accessible, sustainable, locally sourced free food, serving up to 180 free meals a day, four days a week. 18
In November, Dalhousie’s United Way Steering Committee organized a university-wide dodgeball tournament. The Dal Libraries raised funds for the entry fee and entered a team. We didn’t place in the tournament, but we had a great time playing. The university has a long history of supporting the United Way, an organization that helps with issues such as food insecurity and affordable housing. The Dal Libraries also supports Dal’s United Way Steering Committee, currently through the contributions of Communications Coordinator Marlo MacKay as a member of the committee. Right, top: Sandy Dwyer, Guy LeLievre, and Cassandra Larose volunteering at The Loaded Ladle. Photo by Marlo MacKay. Middle: Pride Week displays at the Sexton, Law, and Killam libraries. Provided photos. Bottom: Kara Paul (left) and Michelle McDonald demonstrate how to play waltes. Photo by Marlo MacKay.
Reconciliation For Mi’kmaq History Month in October, the EDI committee organized an activity for staff to learn the game of waltes. Waltes is a Mi’kmaq game played on a circular wooden dish with six dice made from caribou bone. Dal Libraries staff member Michelle McDonald and Dalhousie staff member Kara Paul led the game. Dal Libraries staff watched a demonstration of how the game is played, learned the history of the game, and then tried their hand at playing. The event was connected via video conferencing equipment to the MacRae Library in Truro, where staff there had their own waltes board and played along. Also in celebration of Mi’kmaq History Month, Michelle and Kara loaned artifacts from their personal collections for a display in Killam Library’s lobby. Items on display included baskets, clothing, games, instruments, and medicine bags.
oping an Indigenous Community Room in the Killam Library to complement the Indigenous Community Room in the MacRae Library. A large room in the Killam Library, just off the Downie Wenjack Legacy Space, has been identified and work has begun on the space. The room will be used for events related to Indigenous culture and reconciliation and the space will contain Indigenous artwork and artifacts.
Healthy Workplace The Health & Wellness Committee was successful in obtaining a workplace wellness grant for its Wellness While Working proposal. The concept is to provide staff with methods of being active while performing their daily library duties. We plan to purchase 10 under-the-desk exercise pedal machines and 10 standing desk converters that would be shared across our seven locations for staff to borrow. As part of the proposal, the Libraries agreed to purchase one treadmill to be placed in a public area of the Killam Library, as a pilot. Staff and library users would be encouraged to take 15-minute exercise breaks on the treadmill. The pandemic delayed the purchase of this equipment, but we hope to continue with our workplace wellness plans when most staff have returned to working in person.
Earlier this year, the Dalhousie Libraries committed to devel19
By the Numbers 3,178
digital objects added
Dal Space
institutional repository
497
theses & dissertations added
5,481
articles added
15,560
IT Help Desk problems solved
8,238
Brightspace problems solved
20
46,745
service point transactions (circulation, printing, directional questions, etc.)
3,939
research & reference questions answered
266
copyright questions answered
715
GIS questions answered
1,786,275
2,080
journal articles downloaded
laptop loans
96,394
ebooks accessed
335
library instruction classes taught
127
Archives questions answered
1,594,765 web page views on libraries.dal.ca
Library expenditures by format type: $610,108 ebooks $800,979 print journals $7,103,559 ejournals & databases
$11,520 media materials $798,727 print books $185,835 other collection costs 20
21
A Special Gift A collection of over 500 books is now available at the Dalhousie Libraries; donated by one of Canada’s most eminent landscape architects, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. After learning about the university’s plan to offer a master’s degree in landscape architecture, Ms. Oberlander decided to donate her impressive professional collection, amassed during her 70-year career, to Dalhousie. In addition to the materials added to library shelves, the Dal Libraries will make freely available some items, mostly duplicate titles, giving students the opportunity to add to or start their own professional libraries. Thank you, Ms. Oberlander! Top: Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. Provided photo. Second: Members of the local architecture community, along with former Dean of Architecture Christine Macy (centre) pose with books from the Oberlander collection at a celebration to thank Ms. Oberlander in November 2019. Photo by Bruce Bottomley. Third: Associate Dean Resources and Head of the Sexton Design & Technology Library Michelle Paon (left) and Dean of Libraries, Donna Bourne-Tyson. Photo by Bruce Bottomley. Bottom: A selection from the collection. Photo by Bruce Bottomley. 22
Thank You to Our Donors July 1, 2019–June 30, 2020
Leigh Bahr
Jacqueline C. Gahagan
Lars Osberg
Catherine Banks
Michelle Gahagan
Judith A. Pratt
John Barresi
James Goldie
Thomas Raddall II
Vivien Boniuk
Ero Gray
Douglas Rasmusson
Janice M. Boudreau Donna Bourne-Tyson & Jonathan Tyson
Elizabeth Haigh
Laurene Rehman
Noel Hamilton
Patrick E. Rivest
Vivian Howard
Joyce Rogers
Jessica Scott Kerrin
Alex Ross*
Andrea King
Timothy Ruggles
Raymond Klein
Kant Sahajpal
Linda Lowther
Andre Schmid
Patricia M. Lutley
Charmaine Smith
Gayle MacDonald
Nathaniel Smith
John MacLatchy
O. E. Smith*
Rod & Robin MacLennan
Anne Sproull
Scott F. Macmillan
Carlye Stein The Honourable Ronald C. Stevenson
Robert Boutilier Jason I. Brown Richard Brown Barbara M. Burke Christine T. Chambers Lesley Choyce Fay Cohen John E. Crowley Ken Cudmore Dalhousie-King’s Reading Club Sharon & Dale Dauphinee Gail P. Dewar Doctors Nova Scotia James M. Doyle Robert Doyle* Sylvia Duffus Encore Investments Ltd. Calvin D. Evans Judith Fingard Sylvia J. Fullerton Melissa H. Furrow Julianna Gabor
Mrs. James C. Mason Elizabeth McCarthy Mary C. McLaren-Ashfaq Brian Mombourquette Adam K. Mueller Barbara Murphey T. Jock Murray, OC, ONS & Janet Murray Cynthia J. Neville Nan Nichols Matthew Numer Cornelia Oberlander Irene Z. Oore
David & Elizabeth Sutherland Gerard Veldhoven J. Andrew Wainwright & Marjorie Stone Lori Ward W. Brian Wheelock Kenneth W. Whynot And ten anonymous donors. *deceased
23
Find Us Sir James Dunn Law Library (serving the Faculty of Law) 6061 University Ave 902-494-2124 lawref@dal.ca | libraries.dal.ca/dunn W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library (serving the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry, Health) 5850 College St, Tupper Building 902-494-2479 kellogg.library@dal.ca | libraries.dal.ca/kellogg Killam Memorial Library (serving the Faculties of Arts & Social Sciences, Computer Science, Management, Science) 6225 University Ave 902-494-3617 killam.library@dal.ca | libraries.dal.ca/killam MacRae Library (serving the Faculty of Agriculture) 135 College Rd, Truro 902-893-6669 macrae.library@dal.ca | libraries.dal.ca/macrae
Sexton Design & Technology Library (serving the Faculties of Engineering, Architecture & Planning) 5260 DaCosta Row, Building B, 3rd floor 902-494-3240 sexton.library@dal.ca | libraries.dal.ca/sexton Kellogg Library Learning Commons 5793 University Ave, Collaborative Health Education Building (CHEB), 2nd floor Wallace McCain Learning Commons Found at the end of Lord Dalhousie Drive. Accessible from the Life Science Centre link between the Life Sciences Centre (LSC) and the Chase (Math) and Chemistry buildings. libraries.dal.ca Access journals, eBooks and digitized content 24/7.