News from Newfoundland and Labrador

 

The Queen Elizabeth II Library Information Commons celebrated its 5th Anniversary on February 16 with cake and prizes. This unique computing facility provides access to a wide variety of software programs as well as research, writing, computing, one-on-one tutoring, digital media and D2L support services.

 

The Ferriss Hodgett Library celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birthday of Charles Darwin with a number of displays and a special birthday cake. On February 12, students and faculty gathered to sing "Happy Birthday" to Darwin as the head of the Division of Science ceremonially cut the cake. Every year "Darwin Day" is a worldwide celebration of science. This year is particularly momentous. Not only is it Darwin's 200th birthday, it is also the 150th anniversary of the publication of "On the Origin of Species", a book that revolutionized science and remains controversial.

 

The Health Sciences Library is now on Facebook! To check out their presence or to join their group search "MUN Health Sciences Library" in Facebook.

 

Check out the Ferriss Hodgett Library's Twitter profile: http://twitter.com/swgclibrary - to get tweets about library services and resources. Wondering what twitter is? It is a service to communicate quick messages. These short (no more than 140 characters) updates known as "tweets" are posted to your profile, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

 

 

 

A CAP Innovation Grant enabled the St. John's Public Libraries to run a pilot project that introduced new technology such as Wii Fit, digital photography, ipods/MP3 players and GPS to Seniors. The classes were so popular that additional classes, for a wider audience, have been added.

 

Since the last bulletin the St. John's Public Libraries 'Book Clubs to Go' collection of kits has grown from 30 to 68 titles. Each kit contains ten copies of the book and discussion questions. The kits are available for use island wide through interlibrary loan. Search the library catalogue (doing a series keyword search) for a complete list of titles in the kit collection.  The library catalogue is available from the main web page at http://www.nlpl.ca/

 

 

There have been major infrastructure upgrades at a number of libraries in the western region including Stephenville, Deer Lake, Daniel's Harbour, Bay St.

George South and Stephenville Crossing. Special children's-area funding has helped the system improve children's areas in 13 locations. Cary Fagan will be the visiting author in mid-May. He will be travelling throughout the area telling stories and reading from his works. He is best known for his "Kaspar Snit" works and "Gogol's Coat".

 

 

The NLHLA Annual Conference and AGM took place April 23 at the Basilica Museum in St. John’s.  Twenty-one members attended the sessions held in the historic and beautiful Episcopal Library, which contains some of the oldest and rarest books in the Province.  The morning session “Introduction to Project Management” by Randy Murphy, provided an overview of the fundamentals of project management from initiation to closure.  He began by defining key concepts and explaining how projects succeed and how they fail.  Further topics were: the five processes of project management; the twelve basic rules of project management; and the fifteen steps to construct a project.  The first afternoon session,  “EBL: the View from Down Under” was presented by Sue Fahey.  It provided an Australian perspective on EBL, or Evidence Based Librarianship, based on interviews of  local librarians while she was visiting that country. Sue included breathtaking pictures of the landscape and audio files of the interviews which were both uniquely Australian.  In the final session,  “What Happened to the Library?”,  Alison Farrell and Pamela Morgan walked us through the transformation of Memorial University’s Health Sciences Library as it added a state of the art teaching lab. They detailed the many challenges faced and how they overcame obstacles. This presentation complemented the morning session on Project Management.  The Annual General Meeting included updates from attendees on their perspective libraries, as well as election of the new Executive:  Jordan Pike, President;  Karen Hutchens,  Vice-President/President Elect; and Linda Barnett, Secretary/Treasurer.

 

The NLLA (Newfoundland and Labrador Library Association) held its annual conference Friday May 1, 2009 in the Education Building, Memorial University, St. John’s with fifty-two members in attendance.  Sessions  included: Parliamentary Indexing(Trine Schioldan), What’s Happening in the Map Room (David Mercer and Joanne Costello), Issues in Delivering Equitable Library Services for People Living with Vision Loss (Len Baker), The Pre-Librarian Librarian, or the Value of the student Co-op Placement (Amanda Tiller), Hospital Librarianship (Lisa Marshall),  Public Library Services for Teens (Melissa Feaver), A Day in the Life of a School Librarian (Alison Edwards) and the Keynote was delivered by Dr. Orland Hoeber of Memorial University.   The closing dinner was held in scenic Bowring Park, with entertainment by the talented “Paul Simonesque” musician Sherman Downey.  The updated web site with new logo, designed by Paul Quigley, was also launched at the conference.  Check it out at: : http://www.nlla.ca/