Congratulations to our own Cassandra Larose for being named the seventh recipient of the Dalhousie-Horrocks National Leadership Fund, presented by Dalhousie’s School of Information Management. Cassandra is both a student in the School of Information Management and the evening and weekend supervisor at the Sexton Design & Technology Library. The award will be presented in January.
(This story originally appeared in Today @ Dal on October 31, 2019.)
by Marlo MacKay
Zombie video game helps students with search skillsFrom 1968’s Night of the Living Dead by George Romero to each week’s episode of The Walking Dead, zombies are a perennial pop culture favourite. And with the Halloween season upon us, you’re probably seeing even more references to zombies — even in the Dal Libraries.
No, you can’t blame zombies in the library for why you didn’t turn in last week’s paper on time — but you could have zombies in the library to thank for your superior researching skills when your next assignment comes in ahead of schedule.
Enter ZomBool, a video game in which you try to survive the zombie apocalypse by successfully applying search strategies. A passion project created by data librarian Julie Marcoux, the game combines a zombie-themed, chose-your-own adventure storyline using Boolean search strategies to play the game.
Play the game: Download Zombool
Players start out learning that zombies have reached their city and are asked to help a character named Évangeline build a creature made of body parts of the dead to use in the fight against the zombies. The creature can’t be reanimated without a defibrillator, so the player has to make a decision — will they go to a pharmacy to find a defibrillator, find a weapon to defend themselves, or find Évangeline’s friend who may have a defibrillator in their dorm room?
“The choices you make will have an impact on the overall story,” says Julie. “The number of survivors and the endings change depending on how well the player does with the search strategies.”
Scarily effective Boo-lean strategiesJulie has been an academic librarian since 2011. After about a year in the role, she noticed a pattern — many students had difficulty when it came to searching for information.
In particular, they were struggling with Boolean searches — combining keywords with AND, OR and NOT to produce more relevant results.
(For example, if you search museum AND Halifax, the results would be limited to documents that contain both of the keywords. Searching for museum OR Halifax would include documents that contained either of those terms, while a search for museum NOT Halifax gets results about museums with no reference to Halifax.)
“[It] works like math,” explains Julie. “In math, you use operators to put numbers in relation to one another. In Boolean searching, you instead use operators that work with words. It’s a phenomenon that’s been recorded in librarian literature – digital natives [people who’ve grown up with the Internet in their lives] don’t always have the strongest searching skills.”
And so, in her free time, Julie developed a game to teach students how to become better library researchers. She started working on the game in 2012, before she started working at Dal. As time allowed, she’d work on the game, eventually putting in hundreds of hours before completing it in 2018.
“I’ve always liked doing little bits of light programming, but I’d never made a game before so I had to learn how to do that. Then I had to put together a story, different paths, different endings, as well as finding the art and the music. It was my idea but I had help.”
This included assistance from her family and her partner, who created the original artwork in the game. Some of the characters are even based on a few of her Dalhousie librarian colleagues, who gamely posed for photos that were then sketched into digital art. (Her colleagues helped test the game, too.)
Julie introduces many students to the game during her classroom visits, but she hopes students will also find the game fun enough to play outside of the classroom.
“I would really like for Dal students to start playing the game and I’d love to see universities across Canada and even the world try out the game — I have made it open access so that kind of sharing is possible,” says Julie.
Zombool can be played in English or French and is accessible for the visually impaired. With three possible paths and four possible endings, it can also be played multiple times, and for repeat players, there’s a little humour to go along with the gory theme. “If the player decides to replay the game, they get the same story options, but are given the opportunity to add more kittens,” says Julie.
The game is available for download from the Dal Libraries website or you can access the game on the computers at the Halifax locations of the Dal Libraries (except for the “express” computers).
Julie is proud of the game, which is a product of both her love for video games and helping students become better researchers.
“It’s really nice when a student can do a search and suddenly they get relevant results. They’re no longer trying random searches just hoping to find what they need,” says Julie.
October is Canadian Library Month & today, the third Friday in October, is Canadian Library Workers Day. Our colleagues at the Dal Libraries are talented, hard-working, and attentive to the needs of those we serve. Cheers to them and all Canadian Library Workers today!
Congratulations to our brilliant Dal Libraries’ colleague Robin Parker, one of 128 Pre- and Post-doctoral researchers receiving The Killam Trusts Scholarships, Dalhousie University’s most celebrated award!
(l-r) Susan Hagen, Andre Richard and Darlene Hazel at a staff Christmas party in 2013.
by Michelle Paon
On September 1, Resources staff member Darlene Hazel retired from the Dal Libraries after a 37-year career. Darlene began work at Dalhousie in 1982 as a Clerk in the Killam Library’s Order Department. Over the years, she progressed to the position of Invoicing Assistant for the Dal Libraries. In 2017, she was one of several Libraries’ staff members to be honoured with a 35-year milestone certificate by then President Richard Florizone.
Darlene’s colleagues valued her frankness and sense of humour. They also appreciated the festive cheer that Darlene’s colourful decorations added to the workplace during seasonal holidays!
Please join us in wishing Darlene a happy retirement. Congratulations, Darlene!
SIM director Sandra Toze, Lindsay McNiff and interim dean Vivian Howard.
by Nicole Maunsell, Faculty of Management
This year, the Faculty of Management created a new award to celebrate part-time instructors who exhibit educational leadership, innovation and sustained commitment to excellence in teaching and learning. The inaugural recipient is Lindsay McNiff.
McNiff is the Learning & Instruction Librarian at Dalhousie Libraries and has been a part-time instructor in the School of Information Management since 2015, where she teaches courses on information retrieval and information literacy instruction. She programs and delivers an academic support workshop series for MI students, which includes topics such as citation management, conference posters and strategies for group work.
McNiff is known for providing practical opportunities for students to learn through role playing, simulations and deep learning exercises in groups. Students appreciate the way her assignments build off each other and include reflective elements.
“Lindsay is an empathetic and engaging teacher,” says Nicole Marcoux, a student in the MI program who nominated McNiff. “Her friendliness and earnest desire to support her students set her apart.”
Sandra Toze, SIM director, notes that “Lindsay exceeds the expectations of her role. She is an incredibly valuable part of the SIM family and has a significant impact on our student experience. She is highly deserving of this award.”
The Faculty of Management Part-time Teaching Award is awarded to a part-time, CUPE or sessional member of the Faculty of Management teaching staff. The award is chosen by a committee comprising the associate dean academic, faculty members and a student representative. The award was created as part of priority 2.3 of the Faculty’s strategic plan, which aims to provide initiatives that recognize the multiple contributions of students, staff and faculty.
We are pleased to announce Charles Tourner is the new Stack Supervisor in the Killam Library.
Charles has worked with the Dalhousie Libraries since 2009, demonstrating his technical expertise by working on both the Help Desk and the Access Services Desk.
Charles holds diplomas in Library Information Technology and Electronics Engineering from the Nova Scotia Community College. He is skilled in the area organization, which will serve him well in his new role.
Congratulations, Charles!
Below is an invitation from Dal Librarians Erin MacPherson and Melissa Rothfus to participate in a survey on the topic of research data management practices at Dal. Your participation will be of great assistance as we finalize our Institutional RDM Strategy for Dalhousie. We want to help our researchers to follow the FAIR principles for research data – ensuring their data is Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable.
Researchers can find more information about current RDM services in the Dal Libraries at https://dal.ca.libguides.com/rdm or contact data.management@dal.ca
*****************************************************************
To: Dalhousie University research community, including all current faculty (non-tenured, tenured, limited term appointments), postdoctoral fellows, instructors, staff and graduate students at Dalhousie University
Subject: Invitation to Participate: Understanding Research Data Management Practices at Dalhousie University
Researchers from the Dalhousie Libraries are conducting an anonymous, online survey focusing on the research community at Dalhousie University, including faculty at all ranks (tenure, non-tenure and limited term appointments), instructors, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students at all departments, institutes and schools at Dalhousie University.
The purpose of this survey is to contribute to a national growing body of knowledge on research data management in universities and versions of this survey have been conducted at several other Canadian universities. Additionally, results of this survey may help the Libraries develop infrastructure and educational programmes to meet the research data management needs at Dalhousie University. The combined results may also assist in developing national initiatives for research data management.
We will be sharing our aggregate and anonymized data with the participating schools and the wider community in a data repository such as Dataverse. The researchers also aim to publish and/or present the research results openly within the academic community through academic journals and/or conference presentation and in an institutional repository such as DalSpace.
This research is being conducted by Erin MacPherson (Research Data Management Librarian – MacRae Library, 902-893-3296) and Melissa Rothfus (Scholarly Communications Librarian, Kellogg Library, 902-494-1649) and has been approved by the Research Ethics Board at Dalhousie (REB #2019-4738)
The survey deadline has been extended and is now open until midnight, August 16th, 2019. It can be accessed here: https://surveys.dal.ca/opinio/s?s=48047
We are pleased to announce that Carl Harvey is the new Academic Technology Services (ATS) Help Desk Technician for the Dal Libraries, based at the Help Desk located in the Chanie Wenjack Legacy Space in the Killam Library.
Carl will be a familiar face to many as he has been working as an intern and in term positions in the Dalhousie Libraries since 2017, spending time at the Sexton and Killam Libraries. Carl has worked both as a Library Services Technician with Access Services and as a Help Desk Technician with the ATS team.
Carl is a graduate of Saint Mary’s University and the Nova Scotia Community College’s Library & Information Technology program, from which he graduated with honours. While in school, he was awarded the Student Recognition Award for first-year students and the Atlantic Provinces Library Association Award for High Standing & Commitment to Professional Advancement Beyond the Program Requirements.
In his spare time, Carl enjoys board games, designing posters for local gaming clubs, and assembling and painting miniature figures. We are very pleased to have Carl as a permanent employee of the Dalhousie Libraries.
Where are you interning?
I am interning at the Dalhousie University Archives.
What brought you to the MLIS program at Dal?
What brought me to the MLIS program was in interest in learning and developing a broad range of skills to add to what I already have. My goal is to learn many flexible skills that make me a great fit for working in the field of archives.
What drew you to the internship at the Dal Libraries?
I was interested in gaining more experience working in an archive and the summer intern job at Dalhousie’s archives was the perfect opportunity.
What’s your educational background?
Previously I have completed an undergraduate degree with honours in history at Cape Breton University.
What have you been doing during your internship?
So far during my time at the Dalhousie Archives, I have been processing records and creating archival descriptions for the materials of Canadian writer and poet Charles Bruce that get uploaded to the archives’ online catalog, helping with the preparations for the renovations to the archives collections space and assisting in daily operations and tasks alongside other small tasks here and there.