Effective December 15, this measure has been taken out of an abundance of caution to ensure the health and safety of Dalhousie and King’s students, faculty, staff, and community members as COVID infection rates rise in Nova Scotia. If you have questions about library services at this time, please contact library@dal.ca.
Thank you for your cooperation and understanding.
Effective Tuesday, December 14, 2021 and until further notice, food and drink (except water) are prohibited in the Dalhousie Libraries. Library users are permitted to remove their masks only for the few seconds it takes to have a sip of water.
Eating and drinking are still permitted in the Killam Atrium (where Subway and the Second Cup are located). This change is in response to staff and student safety concerns in light of the recent cases of COVID on campus.
We invite all members of Dalhousie community to attend public presentations by the five short-listed candidates for the position of Research Data Management Librarian, to be appointed through the W. K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library. The 20-minute presentations will take place on Zoom with time for questions and answers. The times and links are provided below. Please join any of the sessions a few minutes before the start time.
Candidates will be asked to the present on the following topic:
“You have been invited to the monthly faculty meeting at the College of Pharmacy to present on your proposed training program regarding Research Data Management in the Health Sciences. Your contact in the College has asked for you to make the case for how the proposed curriculum (series of workshops or other educational interventions) will help pharmacy research students at various levels (undergrad, graduate, postgraduate) navigate funding requirements and learn best practices for RDM in pharmacy research. You have 20 minutes to make your case and get buy-in from faculty and other Pharmacy researchers so they will support implementation of the training for learners associated with the College.”
All the members of the Search Committee welcome your feedback and comments!
Search committee members are: Robin Parker (Chair), Shelley McKibbon, Jackie Phinney, Erin MacPherson, Julie Marcoux, and Dr. Jennifer Isenor.
Candidate #1
Tuesday December 14, 2021
9–9:45 a.m. (AST)
Contact robin.parker@dal.ca for link to attend.
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Candidate #2
Tuesday December 14, 2021
12–12:45 p.m. (AST)
Contact robin.parker@dal.ca for link to attend.
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Candidate #3
Wednesday December 15, 2021
9–9:45 a.m. (AST)
Contact robin.parker@dal.ca for link to attend.
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Candidate #4
Thursday December 16, 2021
2–2:45 p.m. (AST)
Contact robin.parker@dal.ca for link to attend.
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Candidate #5
Tuesday December 21, 2021
10–10:45 a.m. (AST)
Contact robin.parker@dal.ca for link to attend.
Nicole Carter
Lindsay McNiff
The Dal Libraries’ own Learning & Instruction Librarian Lindsay McNiff along with her colleague Nicole Carter, the Reference & Research Librarian at Saint Mary’s University, have been awarded $1,000 to help support their project, Investigating the experiences of academic librarians on temporary contracts in Canada before and during COVID-19. Congratulations!
From CAUL/CBUA:
In their proposal, Lindsay and Nicole propose to investigate the demographics of those academic librarians engaged in precarious work in Canada (including age, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, years since graduation), in what postsecondary environments they have been employed precariously (college, university, size of institution), the nature of these contracts (reason, duration), and some key questions about their experience in these positions, including those raised in prior literature around training, socialization, and supervision. This is the first Canada-wide survey to investigate these questions with a focus on academic librarians with temporary contracts. The study will also zero in on how COVID-19 has affected the working life of librarians holding temporary contracts in academic libraries.
The CAUL-CBUA Collaborative Research Grant is intended to encourage collaborative research by librarians and staff working in academic libraries in the region through projects which involve structured, evidence-based research. We are pleased to continue offering support to researchers in the region and look forward to the results of Lindsay and Nicole’s study.
RESOLVED: This issue was has been resolved. Updated November 9 at 3:46.
EBSCO eBooks is currently DOWN (not allowing access to full-text). We have reported the problem to EBSCO and are hoping for a quick resolution.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
with content from Creighton Barrett and Sarah Stevenson
The Dalhousie Libraries is delighted to share wonderful news that the Archives was recently the recipient of two awards from the Council of Nova Scotia Archives. The Archives serves as Dalhousie’s corporate memory by identifying, preserving, and making available institutional records of enduring value, including textural, photographic, audiovisual, and electronic materials. The Archives also acquires records of independent student, alumni and employee organizations, private papers from prominent faculty and alumni, and university publications. Together, these records document the work of the university, and tell the story of the Dalhousie community and its people over time.
Doug Kirby Award for outstanding achievement in archival preservation
The Dalhousie Archives won the Doug Kirby Award for their Digital Preservation System Project, which began in 2018. Led by Digital Archivist Creighton Barrett, the Archives’ need for a robust digital preservation solution became increasingly apparent as the Libraries began digitizing historic university records to celebrate Dalhousie’s 200th anniversary in 2018.
With support from the senior leadership team of the Dalhousie Libraries and colleagues in Procurement, Creighton outlined the functional requirements and wrote a request for proposals for a digital preservation system based on the Open Archival Information System (OAIS) and other international digital preservation standards.
After years of testing and development, the Archives created its first standards-compliant Archival Information Packages (AIPs) in April 2021. While this research and development was under way, the Dal Libraries also took other initiatives to support its emerging digital preservation program:
The Dal Libraries continues to work with Artefactual Systems to configure and maintain the digital preservation system.
Dr. Phyllis R. Blakeley Award for outstanding accomplishment in archival work
The Dalhousie Archives won the Dr. Phyllis R. Blakeley Award for the Ronald St. John MacDonald fonds processing project. Paulo Matheus de Sousa Lima, Archives Assistant, was the primary staff person for this project, receiving support from the Digital Archivist, the University Records Manager, and staff Archives Assistants.
The project ran from September 2020–March 2021 and was funded through a grant from the Provincial Archival Development Program (PADP). This funding allowed the Dalhousie University Archives to hire Matheus to focus on the personal archives of Ronald St. John MacDonald, an international law professor and judge. The archival fonds includes 15.64 metres of textual records and other material.
Matheus conducted an archival appraisal and then created and carried out a detailed plan to arrange and describe the fonds. He also rehoused the material in archival quality file folders and boxes. In total, Matheus created 691 file-level descriptions, 25 sub-series level descriptions, four series-level descriptions, and one fonds-level description. He also drafted an archival authority record that describes the life and career of Ronald St. John MacDonald. The archival appraisal and processing project resulted in the deaccessioning of 1.5 metres of textual records.
The finding aid for the Ronald St. John MacDonald fonds is available here: https://findingaids.library.dal.ca/ronald-st-john-macdonalds-fonds
Congratulations to the entire Dalhousie Archives team on the completion of these extensive projects and for winning two well-deserved awards! With thanks to Creighton Barrett and Sarah Stevenson for providing much of the content for this message.
To celebrate LGBT History Month, join our group of panelists for a showcase of 2SLGBTQIA-focused collections, exhibitions, and history projects from across Atlantic Canada. Moderated by Nova Scotia LGBT Seniors’ Archive founder Jacqueline Gahagan, panelists will discuss how these projects enable members of the community to find, access, and interact with information about 2SLGBTQIA history in the region.
This event is presented by the Dalhousie Libraries, home of the NS LGBT Seniors’ Archive.
The Dalhousie Libraries is trialing the recently launched online version of the MLA handbook. You can access the trial here: https://dal.ca.libguides.com/mlahandbook
The trial ends on November 14, 2021.
Guidance on how to use the Handbook is available here: https://mlahandbookplus.org/pages/how-to-use
Feedback about the MLA Online Handbook can be sent to Library.Collections@Dal.ca
This year’s theme for Open Access Week is It Matters How We Open Knowledge: building structural equity. This theme really highlights that making your research open benefits not only our local community but the world — anywhere researchers, professionals, or decision-makers lack the subscriptions necessary to access the research they need.
To celebrate Open Access Week this year, we put together five tips to engage and introduce the Dalhousie University community to ways we can open our work using Dalhousie tools and resources. See below for more information on Open Access Week and quick links to the OA Week tips we featured all week on social media.
For more information on open access week, visit: http://www.openaccessweek.org/
Tip #1: Author’s Rights
https://dal.ca.libguides.com/open_access/2021_Tip1
Tip #2: Versions of a manuscript and Sherpa Romeo
https://dal.ca.libguides.com/open_access/2021_Tip2
Tip #3: DalSpace
https://dal.ca.libguides.com/open_access/2021_Tip3
Tip #4: Gold OA & APCs
https://dal.ca.libguides.com/open_access/2021_Tip4
Tip #5: Impact of Open Data
https://dal.ca.libguides.com/open_access/2021_Tip5
by Louise Gillis
If you are a faculty member, researcher, or graduate student who wants to know more about Research Data Management — this webinar series is for you! The CAUL-CBUA Research Data Management (RDM) Webinar Series will teach you everything you need to know about the Tri-Agency Research Data Management Policy and how you can be ready to meet the policy requirements.
Session 1 — RDM Basics – What You Need to Know
Date: Thursday, October 7, 2021
Session 2 — Help! I Need a Data Management Plan! Get Started Using the DMP Assistant and More
Date: Thursday, October 21, 2021
Session 3 — Where to Deposit Your Data: Dataverse? FRDR? Other?
Date: Thursday, November 4, 2021
Session 4 — Leveraging Advanced Digital Research Infrastructure to Support Research Data Management
Date: Thursday, November 18, 2021
More information and registration: https://caul-dpsc.github.io/
Sessions are also available in French:
Jeudi 14 octobre: Introduction à la GDR – Ce que vous devez savoir
Jeudi 28 octobre: À l’aide! J’ai besoin d’un plan de gestion de données! Utilisez l’assistant PGD et plus encore
Jeudi 11 novembre (changement de date possible à confirmer en raison d’un conflit d’horaire avec le Jour du souvenir): Où déposer vos données – Dataverse? DFDR? Autre?
Jeudi 25 novembre: Exploiter l’infrastructure de recherche numérique d’avant-garde pour soutenir la gestion des données de recherche
More information and registration: https://caul-dpsc.github.io/