Community

Welcome back! Grab a socially-distanced lawn chair and join us for our second instalment of Green (and Gold) Thumbs, the three-part series that showcases the botanic beauty nurtured by our talented University of Alberta Library staff. If you missed Part I, feel free to wander down the garden path to the story on our blog to get caught up! Our Digital Content Specialist, Anna Bombak, shares this array of plants waiting for staff…

Hey Augustana folks! Hope you’re doing well in these upside down times! Do you miss Augustana’s friendly community? Hanging out in the busy Forum? The library? Its beautiful corners? Sunshine through the big windows? Do you miss the chit chat with the library staff while petting Hutch, the library dog? I know you do! All this and the fact that Hutch and his human Mark, two big-hearted staff members at our library,…

For our University of Alberta Library staff, April showers (and snow), bring May flowers (and vegetable seedlings)! An email call-out to our folks to share their ‘green (and gold) thumbs’ yielded such an abundant crop of photos that we need to dig through this series as a trilogy! Stay tuned to our blog over the next three Fridays so we can give you all the dirt (presented in no particular order)! A…

Written By Abbie Schenk When we think of data visualizations, we often think of charts, maps and other forms of expressing data in digital ways. But humans have visualized data for thousands of years, long before computer screens were invented. Some of the earliest data visualizations go back to 5500 BC when Mesopotamians used clay tokens to visualize data. Today, representing data in a physical manner is called data physicalization. The Digital…

Staff profiles tell the story of an organization. Here at the University of Alberta Library, this is ours… In early March I had the opportunity to interview Erin O’Neil about her role as the University of Alberta Library’s first Wikipedian in Residence from February until August of 2020. This interview was recorded prior to University of Alberta Library closing our physical locations temporarily due to COVID-19. Because of the temporary closures, Erin…

Sunday, May 10th is Mother’s Day! Like many other recent celebrations, we will have to celebrate our mothers at a distance. I feel like Celine Dion was really referring to this quarantine Mother’s Day when she sang: Far across the distance In spaces between us… … Near, far, wherever you are You are here in my heart And my heart will go on and on. Well, maybe not, but having recently watched…

With the majority of students and staff being advised to work and study from home, this is how our archivist is supporting online learning… Being a social introvert, Anna has fully embraced working from home. As long as she has her husband, son and two dogs nearby, she is content, happy and incredibly productive! Ok sure, Anna can’t actually process records, create inventories or physically acquire new records, but there are a…

With the majority of students and staff being advised to work and study from home, this is how our librarians are supporting online learning… How can I receive alerts for new COVID-19 publications? Public Services Librarian Janice Kung provides these step-by-step instructions to help researchers set this up!  Step no.1 Go to PubMed’s Advanced Search Step no.2 There are multiple search boxes in the Advanced Search. In the first search box, copy/paste the following search filter for…

Our stellar staffers share more hobbies and interests during our sixth week of sheltering-in-place. Welcome to the second instalment of our #StayatHome Hobbyists feature. We ran out of blog room last week as we highlighted the hobbies of some of our library staffers, so we are pleased to have you join us as we continue our showcase. Librarian David Sulz has been known to bust out an impromptu concert in the Rutherford…