News from Prince Edward Island

Public Library Service
Contributed by Nichola Cleaveland and Trina O’Brien Leggott

Public Library Service Newsletter

The Public Library Service has introduced a quarterly library e-newsletter,  Public Library Service Newsletter (English title) / Service des bibliothèques publiques Bulletin d'information (French title). The inaugural issue of the e-newsletter, published in March 2009, is available via our website http://www.library.pe.ca.

Renovations to Confederation Centre Public Library

Confederation Centre Public Library (CCPL) is located in the Confederation Centre of the Arts complex. Work is now underway on the Confederation Centre of the Arts’ five-year plan to upgrade and improve the facility. The repairs include new windows and doors, repairs to the skylights in Memorial Hall and general upgrades throughout the building. The goals are to restore and upgrade the structure to achieve conservation and energy efficiencies and to improve the centre’s accessibility and visibility.

As a result, a really large crane, men in hard hats and the sound of tools and machinery at work are the order of the day at CCPL these days. CCPL expects to have new front doors installed at the end of March, and replacement of windows will be an approximately 8-week project in May/June. Staff are holding off on scheduling programs at this time as we do not yet know the full impact of the construction on the library.

Passing of Edith Campbell

We are all saddened at the death of long-time and valued staff member Edith Campbell. Edith worked at PLS Headquarters for 20 years and will be greatly missed.

Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island175 Richmond Street, 4th floor Coles Building, Charlottetown(902) 368-4290 archives@gov.pe.ca
Contributed by Pam Wheatley

With a recent transfer of baptismal records to the Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island, genealogists and historians who visit the Archives will find indexes for baptisms up to 1923 in the Reading Room. These indexes can lead the researcher to the microfilmed church records, with the exception of post-1900 Catholic records, which remain closed by request of the diocese. The Archives is in the process of compiling the newly-acquired baptismal records for addition to the existing online database, but this process is long and labourious (just ask our number one data entry volunteer, Jean MacLean): http://www.gov.pe.ca/cca/baptismal/

Also newly available on microfilm in the Reading Room of the Public Archives: death records from 1906 to 1921 and marriage records from 1920 to 1933.

Provincial Archivist Jill MacMicken-Wilson is on educational leave until the end of the summer, as she works on her Ph.D.

ACADEMIC LIBRARIES

Holland College Library Services
Contributed by Andrea Stewart

We are very honoured and excited to have received a generous donation of art books from the estate of Erica Rutherford. Among her many accomplishments, Erica Rutherford was a very successful painter and printmaker. She made lasting contributions to the Prince Edward Island arts scene, including being instrumental in the formation of the Great George Street Gallery and the P.E.I. Printmakers Council. Her work has been exhibited in hundreds of group and solo shows, and is in the collections of the Canada Council Art Bank, the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the Arts Council of Great Britain. Her legacy continues with this wonderful donation of books which will be a great asset to our students and faculty in a variety of programs including Fundamental Arts, Graphic Design, and Video Game Art and Design. Once all of the items have been catalogued and processed, we will celebrate with a news release and gathering in the Charlottetown Centre Library. We extend our sincerest thank you to Erica’s family.

Holland College Library Services has recently partnered with Better World Books to help raise funds for the literacy project ‘Books for Africa’. Better World Books collects and sells books online to fund literacy initiatives worldwide.  For the ‘Books for Africa’ initiative, the organization has collected more than 16 million books through book drives at over 1,800 colleges and universities and has partnered with over 1,400 libraries to collect books. We send them discarded, used, and unwanted books at no charge and they will resell them on 18 different marketplace websites, including http://www.betterworldbooks.com with funds raised going to a non-profit literacy program of your choice. We are happy to participate in a program that not only raises money for a good cause, but is also environmentally friendly through their commitment to the redistribution, reuse, and recycling of previously loved books.

UPEI Robertson Library
http://library.upei.ca/
Contributed by Suzanne Jones, Outreach & Communications Librarian

Library ASK US – Virtual Reference (http://library.upei.ca)

Since February, we have been using LibraryH3lp software to provide the interface for our virtual reference. We also added the application’s Chat Box on every library webpage, making it easier for any of our users to ask questions virtually. These changes have been very well received. With this new software application and its display of the more familiar chat box, our virtual reference statistics have changed dramatically. Compared to the same period last year, chat queries have increased tenfold.

Previously, our virtual chat service used Crafty Syntax. While our LIVE CHAT icon was in plain sight on our web page, its meaning was somewhat obscure. It was also a click or two removed from allowing an instant query.

Freedom To Read Week 2009 – Public Reading Events

The Robertson Library hosted two entertaining open reading sessions (Tuesday, Feb. 24) and Friday, Feb. 27 from 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. ) where members of the UPEI faculty and staff read and discussed excerpts from various books which have been "challenged" in the past for their content and/or point of view. Books included some old familiar favourites, as well as a few more contemporary titles. Thanks to: Laurie Brinklow, David Buck, Roger Cook, Nola Etkin, Cathy Gillan, Suna Houghton, Simon Lloyd, Brent MacLaine, Margaret McPike, and Shannon Murray for their reading participation!

Samuel’s Coffee Kiosk Opened on March 16th in the Library

This addition to the Library has been a spectacular success with library users. The kiosk’s hours of operation currently are: Monday to Thursday 10 a.m. - 9 p.m. and Fridays 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Students are asking for weekend hours, as well. In fact, the constant high demand on the coffee shop has taken almost everyone by surprise. And even library staff line up for the occasional quick treat because of its convenience. Bagel, anyone?

SPECIAL LIBRARIES

Frank J. MacDonald Library
Queen Elizabeth Hospital
Contributed by Julie Cole

Though a small province, there are many special libraries scattered throughout Prince Edward Island. Once such library can be found in the province’s largest acute care hospital, the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH), in Charlottetown, PEI. The QEH is a 274-bed hospital facility dedicated to improving the health of Islanders by providing leadership in acute care and specialized services. Since the hospital’s opening in the early eighties, the Frank J. MacDonald Library (named in honour of the founding chairman of the QEH Board of Directors) has played an important role in contributing to the continuing information and education needs of physicians, nurses, allied health professionals and overall staff of the medical community of Prince Edward Island. Through its consortial relationships with the other hospital libraries through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, as well as the staff of the Robertson Library of the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) and Dalhousie University’s W.K Kellogg Health Sciences Library, the library is able to offer the highest quality of medical information for staff accessing the library’s services.

 Surrounded by windows, the library is a bright and open space where staff can be found working on any number of projects at the library’s computers or sitting in a quiet spot relaxing and reading the paper to escape from the hustle and bustle of working in a busy hospital. The library is located on the third level of the hospital and though not a large library, there are over 85 print/electronic journals as well as many books dedicated to various medical specialties available for staff. The library also subscribes to various medical resources including CINAHL, Cochrane Library and UpToDate for use by its staff.

Hospital Librarian, Julie Cole, is responsible for the overall management of library services for the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Hillsborough Hospital. Julie came to the QEH in October 2007, replacing retiring librarian Marion MacArthur, who is presently an information specialist with NRC-CISTI on the campus UPEI. Heather Cairns, the library’s clerk, works in the library two days a week working on maintaining the library’s collection and assisting in various library-related tasks. When visiting the library, one will often find Julie busy conducting literature searches for medical staff and medical students throughout the province on topics covering administration, policies and legislation, pharmaceuticals, and a varied host of medical-related topics. Along with the everyday challenges of working in the library, Julie has also been kept busy on various special projects for the department including her roles as the Web Administrator of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital and Hillsborough Hospital’s web pages on the PEI Department of Health’s website and the Telehealth and Videoconferencing Coordinator for the QEH.

Working in a hospital library is a very rewarding experience, especially in a community as close as those working within the health field on PEI. Please feel free to visit the library’s website at www.qehlibrarypei.ca or stop by the Frank J. MacDonald Library the next time you are in the Charlottetown area.