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news.library.ualberta.ca
  • BLOG HOME
  • About
    • Author Profiles
    • Five Things You Need to Know About the Library
    • Cinq choses à savoir sur la bibliothèque
  • Collections
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    • Cinq choses à savoir sur la bibliothèque
Author

Emily Zheng

Emily Zheng

Emily works on Library Publishing and Digitization within the Digital Initiatives team. She has a background in history, loves dogs, and knows a lot of irreverent trivia (especially about bizarre animals).

    Hidden Gems: Edmonton Queer History Collection

    by Emily Zheng March 14, 2023
    written by Emily Zheng

    The University of Alberta Library offers access to numerous resources that are core for certain disciplines, but also really deserving of wider attention. Here is one of those gems…

    The Edmonton Queer History Collection features 2SLGBTQ+ community magazines, newsletters, and items of historical significance in and around the Edmonton area. 

    Fine Print (1983) is one of the earliest periodical issues we digitized for this collection. Lent to us by the City of Edmonton Archives.   

    The collection is an ongoing collaboration between the University of Alberta Library’s digitization services, MacEwan University Library, and the Edmonton Queer History Project, a university-community collaborative initiative. 

    The digital items are hosted on Internet Archive, where it is fully open and free to view for anyone with an internet connection. 

    What is in this collection?

    So far, we’ve digitized several periodicals from the early-1980s to the 2000’s. These titles are now available to browse & search:

    • Fine Print (1983)
    • Fresh Magazine (2003-04)
    • Times .10 (1993-2005)
    • Womonspace (1982-2008)

    And we’re in the process of adding more issues and titles.  Check back for updates! 

    Womonspace (1999) is one of the longest-running periodicals in this collection. Lent to us by the Pride Centre archives.

    Where did we get these materials? 

    All of the materials have been identified by the Edmonton Queer History Project, who also coordinated our access to the print materials, as well as securing permission to put them online.

    Some material came from organizations like the Pride Centre and the City of Edmonton Archives. Others were donated directly by the local community.

    Why are these materials important to digitize? 

    As Dr. Kristopher Wells told us:

    We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with the UofA and MacEwan university libraries to help highlight, preserve, and share important parts of Edmonton’s 2SLGBTQ+ rich and diverse history. This history has often been excluded from official archives, public records, and is still largely invisible in school curricula and text books. Edmonton’s queer community has a storied history of vibrant community groups, clubs, bars, social networks, and service organizations. Before the advent of the Internet, club newsletters and community newspapers were the primary means by which information about 2SLGBTQ+ news, events, and happenings were shared. In a very real sense, it was an underground network that was vital to building and sustaining our community. Virtually, every community group, large or small, had a newsletter of some kind ranging from Fine Print (1983), Times .10 (1993-2005), Fresh Magazine (2003-04), and Womonspace (1982-2008), among many others. Our small and growing collection represents an important archive of not only how our community has grown and evolved, but also how we have overcome adversity and flourished.

    By digitizing these records, we are trying to make a previously-hidden part of our city’s history a bit more visible. These publications can show us how marginalized individuals organized, resisted, and formed communities. And they can provide us with a historical context for some of the issues that concern us today.

    Times. 10 (1999) was printed in colour, which allowed for a vast array of vibrant photos (and photo collages!)

    Why is the University of Alberta Library Involved? 

    The University of Alberta Library’s (UAL) Digitization Strategy focuses on building unique, distinctive, and diverse digital collections to enable access to materials that are otherwise hidden. In addition to digitizing items held in our own collection, we’re open to collaboration from external groups, if they fit within our scope. This project fits perfectly with these criteria. 

    We had the digitization infrastructure, expertise, and staffing capacity at that time, so we said yes!

    What’s next for this project?
    We’ll soon be adding more issues of Times. 10. And we’re excited to start working on the Coronation Ball programs from the Imperial Sovereign Court of the Wild Rose, dating back to the 1970s. If you haven’t heard about our city’s rich history of drag, check out this series on Edmonton City as Museum Project!

    March 14, 2023 0 comment
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  • Gender-Inclusive Language in Academic Writing

    by Emily Zheng March 9, 2023
    by Emily Zheng March 9, 2023

    This post was originally posted in March 2021. Although many of our language conventions are nested in the gender-binary, language is not fixed or set in stone. Language is―and has always been―fluid. As people of all gender identities become more visible in our world and on our campuses, it’s increasingly important that we adapt academic writing conventions to include everyone.  As we mark another UAlberta Pride with celebration and activism, let’s also…

  • MISE À JOUR DU DROIT D’AUTEUR CANADIEN : LE DOMAINE PUBLIC GELÉ PENDANT DEUX DÉCENNIES

    by Emily Zheng January 5, 2023
    by Emily Zheng January 5, 2023

    Co-écrit avec Joana Mazumder, assistante des initiatives numériques ; et Amanda Wakaruk, bibliothécaire du droit d’auteur et des communications savantes. Comme vous l’avez peut-être déjà lu dans Le Quad, la durée des œuvres protégées par le droit d’auteur au Canada change en raison de l’Accord Canada-États-Unis-Mexique (ACEUM), qui est en vigueur le 30 décembre 2022. La loi portant exécution de certaines dispositions du budget de 2022 du gouvernement fédéral rallonge la durée générale…

  • Canadian Copyright Update: Public Domain Frozen for Two Decades

    by Emily Zheng January 4, 2023
    by Emily Zheng January 4, 2023

    Co-written with Joana Mazumder, Digital Initiatives Assistant; and Amanda Wakaruk, Copyright & Scholarly Communications Librarian.  As you may have already read in The Quad, the term length of copyright-protected works in Canada is changing due to the Canada-United States Mexico Agreement (CUSMA), effective December 30, 2022. The federal government’s Budget Implementation Act of 2022 extended the general term of protection from 50 years after the year of death of a work’s creator…

  • Digitizing SEE & VUE (part 3 of 3): Why is this project important?

    by Emily Zheng December 13, 2022
    by Emily Zheng December 13, 2022

    This is a 3-part series on the Digitization of SEE Magazine and VUE Weekly. In the first part, we gave you an overview of the project, and answer the “how.”  In the second part, we outlined a short history of the publications (the “what”).  Now, we’re closing out with the “why”, with a description of research possibilities and personal memories! Research Potential In print format, these magazines can be flimsy, brittle, and…

  • Ghost Tour of Western Canada: Spooky Photos from the Historical Postcards Collection

    by Emily Zheng October 27, 2022
    by Emily Zheng October 27, 2022

    This post was originally published on Oct 27, 2020. Cold fall air. Howling wind. Crackling leaves on the ground… Halloween spirit is in the air! Although these images weren’t created to scare, sepia has been generously applied by the passage of time… and they emerge as the perfect backdrop for spooky stories… Let’s start at the iconic Alberta Legislature Building, which looks like it’s holding a flashlight up to its face. A…

  • Digitizing SEE & VUE (part 2 of 3): What are Edmonton’s Independent Weeklies?

    by Emily Zheng October 18, 2022
    by Emily Zheng October 18, 2022

    This post was written in collaboration with Abirami Muthukumar, Digitization Assistant, and Sarah Severson, Digital Projects Librarian. This is a 3-part series on the Digitization of SEE Magazine and VUE Weekly. In the first part, we gave you an overview of the project, and answer the “how.”  In this part, we outline a short history of the publications (the “what”).  The third part closes out the series with the “why”! The Papers…

  • ISTL: Celebrating 100 Issues of Science & Technology Librarianship!

    by Emily Zheng September 13, 2022
    by Emily Zheng September 13, 2022

    Congratulations to ISTL: Issues in Science & Technology Librarianship, for publishing their 100th issue this month!  With its first issue published way back in 1991, ISTL was an early adopter of the electronic publishing medium. Back then, they were distributed using simple text files, and used ASCII art to represent the logo of STS (Science and Technology Section of the American Library Association)! Over the years, ISTL’s format evolved into HTML and…

  • Digitization Program: A Closer Look

    by Emily Zheng April 14, 2022
    by Emily Zheng April 14, 2022

    Here at U of A Library, we have a Digitization program that makes digital copies of physical materials, with research, teaching, and long-term access in mind.  All digitized material is available for public viewing at no cost. While we do handle some one-off requests, much of our work is in large-scale digitization projects.  These are big logistical undertakings! Here’s a bit of information about how we do it, interspersed with some cool…

  • Digitization Spotlight: Alberta Street News

    by Emily Zheng March 2, 2022
    by Emily Zheng March 2, 2022

    U of A Library has completed a digitization project, which made the entire run of Alberta Street News‘ archives available to read online.  Known at its 2003 inception as Edmonton Street News, and later renamed Alberta Street News in 2011, the newspaper is sold by vendors on the streets of Edmonton and Calgary. It features writing by folks experiencing homelessness, and gives a voice to these perspectives, especially on topics related to…

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The University of Alberta is situated on traditional Treaty 6 territory and homeland of the Métis peoples. Amiskwaciwâskahikan / ᐊᒥᐢᑲᐧᒋᕀᐋᐧᐢᑲᐦᐃᑲᐣ / Edmonton


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