Goodbye & Good Luck Norma!

August 28, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Norma Yorke is retiring after 39 years of working at Dalhousie. In 1974 she started at the Registrar’s Office, and spent time working in the Division of Community Dentistry and in the School of Recreation, Physical and Health Education before coming to work in the Killam Library. Norma has worked in the Killam for 16 years.

Her plans for retirement include expanding the home-based ornamental concrete business that she and her husband started seven years ago, Serenity Ornamental Concrete. “I enjoy the customers and the satisfaction of creating something that people enjoy,” says Norma.

“Norma has been a welcoming, friendly and helpful presence at the Killam Library’s main service point. She has developed strong friendships with many of her colleagues and built relationships with library patrons. She will be greatly missed by many! It has been a pleasure working with Norma and I wish her much happiness in her retirement years,” says Sandra Dwyer, who was the Head of Circulation at the Killam for a number of years.

Best wishes Norma, and we will miss you!

Some samples of Norma’s concrete work:

Intern Profiles 2013: Jannaya Jensen, Dalhousie University Archives

August 28, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Jannaya with some very old, bound editions of the Dal Gazette.

When asked why she chose to enrol in the Master of Library and Information Studies degree at Dalhousie, Jannaya Jensen answers, “It felt natural.”

“I’ve always loved the educational environment of libraries,” says Jannaya, who has experience in both academic and public libraries, and now, in archives. With a Bachelor of Arts in history, Jannaya says working in the Dal Archives makes a nice connection with her educational background.

She is fascinated by the sheer variety of materials held in the Archives, and also by all the steps involved in making these materials available to people. “It can be very complex, processing these materials so they can be found and accessed by researchers and other archive users,” she says.

Jannaya has been spending her summer migrating accession records (the initial records created for newly acquired materials) from Microsoft Access to Archivist’s Toolkit, cleaning up the data in resource records (the larger and more detailed descriptions of archival materials), publishing them online to create finding aids, and describing issues of the Dalhousie Gazette, which was first published in 1869. “Right now, I’m describing issues from the 1890s. There is so much interesting content in them, so it’s exciting to be involved in the process of making the issues more accessible,” says Jannaya.

Coming all the way from Saskatoon, Jannaya says she was drawn to Halifax because she loved the idea of living in such a different area of Canada. She’d also heard great things about the MLIS program at Dalhousie.

“My time at the Archives has been so valuable to me. It’s been a hugely educational experience and one that I recommend to any student interested in working in this field,” says Jannaya.

Dal Libraries are closed on Labour Day

August 27, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Take a look at the fall hours for the academic term, starting soon at a library near you.

Intern profiles 2013: Maggie Neilson, Intern at the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library

August 27, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Maggie checks out some of the medical equipment in one of the Kellogg Library’s group study rooms.

In Maggie Neilson’s family, libraries are in the genes. This soon-to-be third generation librarian has a grandmother who was a librarian in Montreal and a father who has worked as a librarian at Memorial, Lakehead, and UNB. With a family history like that, it’s no surprise that Maggie has just completed her first year of the Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree at Dal and is spending her summer working at the Kellogg Library.

“I know I’m supposed to be a librarian,” says Maggie, who did her undergraduate degree in animal science at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College (now known as Dalhousie’s Agricultural Campus). Even while she was pursuing her Bachelor of Science, Maggie spent two summers working in the MacRae Library as a summer student. “I was encouraged by the staff of the MacRae Library to pursue my MLIS degree,” says Maggie. “They could see that I really liked the role that libraries play in research.”

This summer, Maggie has been revamping the design of the Libguides, assisting with systematic reviews (large searches that involve upwards of 10,000 articles), and helping students and researchers with their searches. One major undertaking that she is especially excited about is a bibliometric project where she is counting citations in five different clinical pharmacy journals. (Bibliometrics is the statistical analysis of books, articles, or other publications.) Maggie is assisting with evaluating how often the journals cite other sources and how often other people cite them. This information will be used in a paper to help science libraries select the best journals, based on both popularity and prestige.

“A health sciences library is a great fit with my undergraduate degree and I’d heard that the Kellogg Library offers an extensive internship with boundless learning opportunities,” says Maggie. “Every day I have an opportunity to help someone. Working at the Kellogg Library allows me to contribute to the health of my community, and that’s very exciting to me.”

Academic Term Hours at the Dalhousie Libraries

August 26, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Updated Tuesday, October 8

Sir James Dunn Law Library

Monday – Wednesday: 8 a.m.-10:45 p.m.
Thursday: 8 a.m.-8 p.m.
Friday: 8 a.m.-4:30 p.m.
Saturday: 12-6 p.m.
Sunday: 12-10:45 p.m.

Effective September 16

W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library

Monday-Thursday: 7:30 a.m.*-11 p.m.
Friday: 7:30 a.m.*-7 p.m.
Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Sunday: 11 a.m.-11 p.m.

* Note: Circulation opens at 8 a.m. Mon.- Fri.
Effective September 6

Killam Memorial Library

Monday-Thursday: 8 a.m.-midnight
? Friday: 8 a.m.-midnight new!
? Saturday: 10 a.m.-midnight new!
Sunday: 10 a.m.-midnight

Effective September 5

Dalhousie University Archives & Special Collections Reading Room (located fifth floor, Killam Library)

Monday-Friday: 9 a.m.-5 p.m.

GISciences Centre (located second floor, Killam Library)

Monday-Friday: 9 a.m.-12 p.m. & 1 p.m.-4 p.m.

MacRae Library

Monday – Thursday: 8:30 a.m.-10:30 p.m.
Friday: 8:30 a.m.-6 p.m.
Saturday: 12 -5 p.m.
Sunday: 10 a.m.-10:30 p.m.

Effective September 5

Sexton Design & Technology Library

Monday – Thursday: 8 a.m.-12 a.m.
Friday: 8 a.m.-9 p.m.
Saturday: 9 a.m.-9 p.m.
Sunday: 10 a.m.-12 a.m.

Effective September 3

See Our Revamped Copyright Website

August 26, 2013 Marlo MacKay

The Dalhousie Libraries’ Copyright Office has a completely revamped website, including all new content and a refreshed layout.

The new layout was designed to make the site more user friendly, with helpful sections for students and faculty. The new content includes all the latest information from the Copyright Act, and is reflective of the most recent Supreme Court decisions.

The revamped website has been designed to answer many of our most frequently asked copyright questions, thus saving you the time of making a formal inquiry. But, we are always here to provide assistance with topics such as fair dealing rules, electronic license agreements, copyright rules regarding materials for online teaching, and more. Contact us at copyright.office@dal.ca

Intern Profiles 2013: Samantha Fritz, Killam Memorial Library

August 26, 2013 Marlo MacKay

Samantha in the Special Collections Reading Room, fifth floor of the Killam Library.

Samantha Fritz is spending her summer as an intern in the Killam Memorial Library. Having completed her first year of the Master of Library and Information Studies (MLIS) degree, one of the things Samantha is enjoying so far is seeing the theories she’s learned in the classroom come to life in the library.

“I really enjoy learning the theories behind the organization and classification of information,” says Samantha. “I have a background in history and English, so I was also drawn to the MLIS program because I loved the research aspects to those disciplines.”

Coming to Halifax via Kitchener, Samantha says that she chose Dalhousie’s program not only for the high-quality of the courses offered, but also because of the welcome she got from the people in the program. “The program here at Dal makes you feel like you are part of a community,” she says, adding, “and Halifax is a beautiful city.”

Since her internship began, Samantha and the two other Killam interns have been keeping busy on a number of projects, including citing and uploading to DalSpace more than 350 faculty profiles. Other projects include uploading the Proceedings of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science to DalSpace (older issues) and to Open Journal Systems (newer issues), and offering information assistance at the Killam Library Service Point (formerly the circulation desk). Samantha has also been using Camtasia software to produce a new tutorial video about how to search for journals, a common question asked in the library.

Samantha sees herself working in an archive or special collections library in the future. She is also interested in working in an academic library, and she finds projects that connect the libraries to their universities particularly intriguing. She also enjoys the digitization process. “Learning the technical skills such as HTML coding and working with metadata present challenges which are certainly interesting to grapple with,” she says. “The opportunities with this degree are so diverse, I could go into a traditional librarianship role, or do more of the information management side; the opportunities are endless,” says Samantha. Whatever she chooses, she’ll be well served by her love of organization and challenges.

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