Celebrating the Donation of the Oberlander Collection

December 3, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

(by Marlo MacKay, originally appeared in Today @ Dal)

A significant new collection of over 500 books is now available at the Dalhousie Libraries. The materials were all handpicked by one of Canada’s most eminent landscape architects, Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander

Ms. Oberlander, a Companion of the Order of Canada and one of the first women to graduate from Harvard with a landscape architecture degree in 1947, has designed both high-profile buildings in Canada, Europe and the U.S. and landscapes for low-income housing projects. She also designed landscapes for playgrounds, including the Children’s Creative Centre Playground, Canadian Federal Pavilion, featured at Expo ’67 in Montréal.

With over 70 years of experience as a landscape architect, Ms. Oberlander has amassed a significant professional library. Recently, she donated that collection to the Dalhousie Libraries.

Ms. Oberlander reached out to Christine Macy, then dean for the Faculty of Architecture & Planning, in June 2018. She wanted to donate her professional collection to Dalhousie University after hearing about the construction of the new Emera IDEA Building at Dalhousie’s Sexton campus and because the university was working towards starting a master’s program in landscape architecture at Sexton Campus.

“The materials in the Oberlander collection are wonderfully diverse, including books on grasses, trees, flowers, and the importance of bees, butterflies, and insects. This collection will be invaluable to aspiring and experienced landscape architects,” says Donna Bourne-Tyson, Dean of Libraries. “On behalf of the Dalhousie Libraries, I’d like to express our sincere thanks to Cornelia Hahn Oberlander for this significant gift.”

A selection of books from the collection.

Dean of Architecture and Planning Joseli Macedo and Dean of Libraries Donna Bourne-Tyson

Associate Dean Resources and Head of Sexton Design and Technology Library Michelle Paon

Landscape Architect Sue Sirrs

Former Dean of Architecture and Planning Christine Macy

An extraordinary acquisition

Most of the collection is at the Sexton Design & Technology Library and some of the collection is at the MacRae Library, but books can be sent to any Novanet library through the Novanet Express service, making them accessible to a much wider audience. Many of the titles are unique to the Novanet catalogue.

To celebrate this extraordinary acquisition, the Dal Libraries recently held a reception with attendees from the local architecture community, faculty members from the Faculties of Architecture & Planning and Agriculture and other special guests. (Ms. Oberlander, based in Vancouver, was not available to attend.)

Donna Bourne-Tyson hosted the event, which featured remarks from the Dean of Architecture & Planning Joseli Macedo, Associate Dean Resources and Head of the Sexton Design & Technology Library Michelle Paon, local landscape architect Sue Sirrs, and former Dean of Architecture & Planning Christine Macy.

Both Sue Sirrs and Christine Macy know Ms. Oberlander personally. Sue Sirrs shared a collection of personal photographs featuring Ms. Oberlander and a group of local landscape architects, remarks from Ms. Oberlander’s convocation address when she received an honorary doctorate from Dalhousie in 2008, as well as a humorous anecdote praising Ms. Oberlander’s steadfast nature.

Christine Macy explained the significance of the ginko leaf, Ms. Oberlander’s personal symbol, which represents longevity and endurance. Like the ginko leaf, Ms. Oberlander herself embodies longevity and endurance as she maintains her landscape architecture practice into her 90s. In correspondence with the Dal Libraries, Ms. Oberlander explained that she found a ginkgo leaf in Nanjing in 1976 on a walk to the tomb of Sun Yat-sen, a Chinese philosopher, physician, and politician considered by many to be one of the greatest leaders of modern China.

Preparing the collection

The task of processing and preparing the collection for the shelves has taken staff and librarians at the Dal Libraries the better part of this year, and as they worked, they delighted in becoming acquainted with this unique collection. In addition to the materials added to library shelves, the Dal Libraries will be making some items, mostly duplicate titles, freely available to students, according to Ms. Oberlander’s wishes, giving students the opportunity to add to or start their own professional libraries.

“Thanks to Ms. Oberlander’s generosity, this collection adds a significant dimension to the landscape architecture resources of the Dalhousie Libraries,” says Michelle Paon. “Faculty, students, alumni, community members, and researchers will have access to a wider range of relevant materials as well as the opportunity to consult books and journals that both informed and inspired Ms. Oberlander’s landscape architecture decisions.”

Cornelia Hahn Oberlander continues to inspire the landscape architecture community. Recently, The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) announced that the $100,000 International Landscape Architecture Prize will be named for Ms. Oberlander, who they call “the Dean of Canadian landscape architects.”

More information about the Oberlander collection, including the complete lists of titles added to the Dalhousie Libraries, is available at the Dal Libraries website.

GIS Centre’s Lunchless Learn Series Fall 2019

September 16, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

What is a “Lunchless Learn”? It’s a hands-on tutorial, held around lunchtime, open to all on campus — without the food.

A GIS, or Geographic Information System, is “a computer system for capturing, storing, checking, integrating, manipulating, analyzing and displaying data relating to positions on earth’s surface.” In other words, it’s a way at looking at the world differently.

This is a series to give people a taste of what GIS is and how it can be used. To accommodate more people we are offering the same session at different locations. These sessions are meant to be self contained. After the intro session, take only the topics that are important or of interest to you.

Due to the high level of interest in this series, we ask you to sign up for session(s). To sign up, contact gis@dal.ca

Intro – First Encounters of the GIS Kind
Wed., Sept. 18/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)
Mon., Sept. 23/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)
Tues., Sept. 24/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Data: so you want to make a map – where and how to find data
Mon., Sept. 30/1–3 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Studley Campus)
Tues., Oct. 1/1–3 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Raster: how to become a raster master
Mon., Oct. 7/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)
Tues., Oct. 8/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

Carto: maps — the good, the bad, and the ugly
Tues., Oct. 15/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)
Mon., Oct. 21/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)

ArcGIS Online – GIS that’s in the cloud(s)
Mon., Oct. 28/1–2:30 p.m. | C Building, Room C300 (Sexton Campus)
Tues., Oct. 29/1–2:30 p.m. | Killam Library, Room G70 (Studley Campus)

An evening with Lisa Moore

August 30, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 5TH, 7 P.M.
PAUL O’REGAN HALL,
HALIFAX CENTRAL LIBRARY

Every year, we host the winner of the Thomas Raddall Atlantic Fiction Award. Congratulations to the 2019 winner Lisa Moore for her short fiction collection Something for Everyone.

Lisa, born and based in Newfoundland, is the author of four books of short fiction and four novels. She has been nominated for the Giller Prize, the International Dublin Literary Award, and the Man Booker Prize. Lisa won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize Best Book Award, Caribbean and Canada Region for her novel Alligator and the Atlantic Canadian Alistair MacLeod Short Fiction Prize for Something for Everyone.

The stories in Something for Everyone pulsate with raw energy and a fierce, searching intelligence. In a series of unconventional tales that explode off the page, Moore ushers her reader into a familiar but fractured and anything-but-straightforward reality. Her characters’ anxieties mirror our own: family, love, employment, finances. But from these commonplace lives she conjures spellbinding mini-dramas, drawing us in from each story’s opening line, generating great suspense and fully engaging our sympathies. The writing is vibrant, uninhibited and packed with sensual detail. (From the juror’s citation.)

This reading is presented in partnership between Dalhousie Libraries, the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia, and Halifax Public Libraries.

The Cochrane Library – Access for All Through Regional Collaboration

June 17, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

by Cynthia Holt, Executive Director, Council of Atlantic University Libraries (CAUL)

All residents of Atlantic Canada now have full access to The Cochrane Library thanks to the Atlantic Health Knowledge Partnership. Led by the Council of Atlantic University Libraries / Conseil des bibliothèques universitaires de l’Atlantique (CAUL-CBUA), this partnership includes post-secondary institutions, health authorities, and hospitals in the Region and was struck with the goal of supporting healthy communities.

The Cochrane Library is a collection of databases in medicine and other healthcare specialties which summarize and interpret the results of medical research and are a key resource in evidence-based medicine. Plain language summaries are also available.

To access The Cochrane Library from within Atlantic Canada, go to https://www.cochranelibrary.com/ and start searching.* Access to The Cochrane Library when outside of Atlantic Canada is possible through your home institution (CAUL-CBUA member, health authority, hospital) or local public library website.

Tutorials, webinars, and guides for using The Cochrane Library are available here: https://www.workcast.com/ControlUsher.aspx?cpak=9621168547619827&pak=5334253650203132

Region-wide access is made possible by financial contributions from Dalhousie University, Cape Breton University, St. Francis Xavier University, Mount Saint Vincent University, the Nova Scotia Community College, Memorial University, the University of Prince Edward Island, the University of New Brunswick, the Nova Scotia Health Authority, Horizon Health Network, Réseau de santé Vitalité, and the IWK.

*When you access the Internet from your home, some Internet Service Providers (such as Bell, Rogers, or Xplornet) assign IPs (Internet addresses) that might be from outside of the Atlantic Region. Your provider usually assigns you a new IP each day, and as a result, some days you may have an IP from the region and other days you may have an IP from outside the region. If you are physically located in the region and are having difficulty getting to the full text of the articles, please go to https://www.iplocation.net/find-ip-address to see if the IP you’ve been assigned that day is from the region. If it is not, you’ll need to access The Cochrane Library through your home institution or local public library website.

University Librarian’s Message to Graduates

May 27, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

On behalf of the Dalhousie Libraries, I offer heart-felt congratulations to all graduates. We know the sacrifice and hard work it took to get to this day and we are bursting with pride for all of you. Regardless of your faculty or area of study, in the Libraries we consider all Dalhousie grads to be our graduates.

We’ve enjoyed supporting your academic needs, and as you become alumni, we want your relationship with the Dalhousie Libraries to continue. We offer a number of services to alumni, and we encourage you to explore the possibilities with an alumni benefits card.

I would also like to thank you for any feedback you’ve given to the Libraries over the years. We always learn something valuable when we talk to students and we continue to improve based on what we hear from you. Let’s keep the conversation going – please get in touch at donna.bourne-tyson@dal.ca .

We look forward to supporting your life-long learning journey.

Congratulations!

Donna Bourne-Tyson
University Librarian

Research Bootcamp 2019 for RAs, TAs, & grad students

April 8, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

For the fifth year, the Dalhousie Libraries is offering Research Bootcamp, a suite of sessions designed for teaching and research assistants and graduate students. If you or someone you know could benefit from developing effective and efficient information management techniques and literature search skills to support research endeavors, please share this information with them.

Sessions will cover:

research skills
literature reviews
citation management
copyright
writing abstracts & grant proposals
legal resources
PubMed & other health sciences databases
open access & predatory publishers
grey literature
Canadian data & stats
key resources in engineering & applied sciences
managing human research data
conference posters
APA citation
Excel
data management planning
evidence synthesis
humanities resources
eBooks & scholarly research
introduction to R
ESRI Story Maps
data holdings at the ARDC
data visualization & pivot charts
data cleaning with OpenRefine
Covidence

Complete session list and descriptions are available at: http://dal.ca.libguides.com/ResearchBootcamp/2019/Schedule

Faculty can recommend the workshops to their RAs/TAs or register on their behalf. Participants can attend most sessions in-person in Halifax (various Halifax campus locations) or via video conferencing from the Agricultural Campus or DMNB.

Registration begins Wednesday, April 10: dal.ca.libguides.com/ResearchBootcamp/2019/Registration

Fair Dealing Week 2019 – Beyond Fair Dealing

February 26, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

This is the fifth and final part in our series of blog posts celebrating Fair Dealing Week (February 25th to March 1st, 2019).

Fair dealing is only one exception from the Copyright Act, but it receives a lot of attention. There are numerous other exceptions and resources that overlap and supplement fair dealing allowances in an educational setting.

One exception is Section 30.04(1) of the Copyright Act that provides for an exception from copyright infringement for copying, communicating and performing in public by an educational institution or a person acting under its authority for educational or training purposes of a copyright protected work that is available through the Internet. However, this use is subject to several important restrictions. To find out more about the educational exception for works available through the Internet, visit our website: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/copyright-office/for-faculty/using-materials-from-the-internet.html

Under Section 29.5 of the Copyright Act, films may be shown by faculty and staff to students, without permission of or compensation to copyright owners, provided the screening takes place on the premises of an educational institution, the recording is a legally acquired copy, used in pursuit of education to an audience consisting mainly of students with no admission being charged. There is no longer the need to ensure a public performance license is in place if these conditions are met. Works may be performed live (such as a play) without permission under these conditions as well. For more information on showing films in a classroom setting, please visit the following section of the Copyright Office website: https://libraries.dal.ca/services/copyright-office/for-faculty/showing-films-on-campus.html

These exceptions and others are explained in detail on the Copyright Office website. Please note that all of these exceptions are subject to specific restrictions and guidelines. When in doubt, contact the Copyright Office with any questions or comments at copyright.office@dal.ca

New! GIS & Spatial Data Services on Sexton Campus

January 14, 2019 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

Starting Wednesday, January 9, the Dal Libraries is offering GIS and spatial data services on the Sexton campus.

Every Wednesday from 1–4 p.m. until April 3, GIS Analyst Jen Strang will be available at the Reference & Research Desk at the Sexton Design & Technology Library.

There’s no appointment needed, just drop in. Jen can assist with the following:

finding geospatial data
using ArcGIS
solving spatial problems
making maps

The Medjucks of Dalhousie

August 17, 2018 Marlo MacKay 1 Comment

In conjunction with the 200th anniversary of Dalhousie, the Medjuck family is proudly commemorating 100 years and four generations of association with Dalhousie University.

This association began in September of 1918 when Abraham Medjuck of Glace Bay entered Dal Medical School at the age of 18. Remarkably, this was only ten years after he immigrated to Canada at the age of eight without knowing any English, which was an outstanding academic achievement. Following graduation, Dr. Medjuck moved to New York City where he became a pioneer in Industrial Medicine. His choice of medical practice was in response to the growing medical needs stemming from the large numbers of factories in New York’s Lower Eastside. He remained in this practice for fifty years.

In time, Dr. Medjuck would be followed at Dalhousie by his brothers, nephews, grandnephew, niece, grandniece, and great-grandniece. Ralph, Harold, and the late Frank Medjuck are his nephews. The Medjuck brothers spent much of their childhood on the playing fields of Dalhousie as their home at 293 South Street was a very short distance from Studley Campus. Seventy years later, Harold Medjuck can still visualize the large acorn and chestnut trees, dirt roads, streams, large fields, pond, and the Murray Studley horse barn that once stood on Studley Campus. During their respective years at Dalhousie, each of the three Medjuck brothers became Chancellor of Tau Epsilon Phi Fraternity (TEP) one of the fraternities affiliated with the University. This was a unique achievement in the history of both Canadian and American college fraternities.

After their father Irving Medjuck passed away in 1985, the Medjuck brothers chose to sell their family home of 50 years to Dalhousie. With the sale proceeds, the Medjuck brothers established the Medjuck Judaica Collection at the Killam Library in memory of their parents, Irving and Blanche (Pascal) Medjuck. In addition, Ralph Medjuck, the eldest Medjuck brother, has been a generous donor to Dalhousie for several decades. In recognition of his support for Dalhousie and his noteworthy accomplishments in the business community, Dalhousie awarded him an Honorary Doctor of Laws.

Several of Ralph Medjuck’s children have also graduated from Dalhousie and two of his grandchildren are currently attending. This culminates four generations of Medjuck Dalhousians, beginning with Abraham Medjuck in 1918.

In memory, honor, and appreciation of the Medjuck family’s time and place in Dalhousie history, Harold Medjuck has established the Medjuck Centenary Collection at the Dalhousie Killam Memorial Library.

Michelle Paon – New Interim AUL Resources & Head of Sexton Library

August 14, 2018 Marlo MacKay Leave a Comment

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Michelle Paon as Interim Associate University Librarian and Head of the Sexton Design & Technology Library. As Associate University Librarian – Resources, she oversees the Libraries’ acquisitions budget, and works closely with the Resources Management Librarian and library staff across the system who select, acquire and provide access to relevant scholarly resources in a variety of formats. As Interim Head of the Sexton Library, she oversees the provision of library resources and services to faculty and students in the Faculty of Engineering and the Faculty of Architecture and Planning.

Michelle Paon has been a science librarian at the Dalhousie Libraries since 2002, supporting faculty and students in the study of biology, the environment, oceanography, and marine management, and for shorter periods, psychology and neuroscience, sustainability, and Indigenous issues.

Michelle was actively involved in the establishment of the DalSpace online research repository and the Killam Library Learning Commons – at the time, both ground-breaking projects for a Canadian research library. She has served on the Curriculum Committees of the Dalhousie Faculty of Science and College of Sustainability. In recent years, she has partnered with colleagues at the Dalhousie Writing Centre to provide integrated research-writing services for students and to conduct related research. Michelle has also provided mentorship and inspiration in the Dal Libraries as a leader in the delivery of effective liaison librarian services.

Michelle holds a Master of Library and Information Studies from Dalhousie University and a Bachelor of Science (Biology) from St. Francis Xavier University. She is a member of the Atlantic Provinces Library Association and is a past President and life member of the Nova Scotian Institute of Science. Her research interests include collaborative service initiatives, open access, information literacy, and environmental history.

The LibVine

What's going on at the Dalhousie Libraries

Category: Agriculture

Celebrating the Donation of the Oberlander Collection

An extraordinary acquisition

Preparing the collection

New! GIS & Spatial Data Services on Sexton Campus

The Medjucks of Dalhousie