GISciences Centre Gets Special Achievement Award

May 18, 2012 Tina Usmiani 2 Comments

The Dalhousie University GISciences Centre is to be presented the 2012 ESRI Inc. Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) Award at the upcoming ESRI Inc. International Conference in San Diego. The award is given to user sites around the world to recognize outstanding work with GIS technology.

The Dal GISciences Centre is the only Canadian group awarded this year; they were also presented with the 2007 Award of Excellence, given by the President of ESRI Canada Alex Miller. The GISciences Centre is in select company as it was one of over 100,000 potential nominees. The Centre is being awarded the 2012 SAG based upon years of service and promotion of GIS, geography, and spatial analysis within the academic community at Dalhousie and beyond.

Founded in 2005, the GISciences Centre has provided access to data, software, training, courses, analysis, and field schools. The Director of the Centre, James Boxall, stated upon hearing the news of the award: “It really is about the staff and students who have made the Centre what it is. They are the basis for the recognition, and we are all honoured by this award.” Staff and students currently working with Boxall in the Centre are: Jennifer Strang, Ray Jahncke, Max Lapierre, Jennifer Charney and Jennifer Grek-Martin. Boxall also notes that the Centre has helped promote the growth of spatial learning at Dalhousie and collaboration amongst government, the private sector and other educational institutions. “The result of this has been that Dalhousie has created – in a very short time – the largest user community of GIS within higher education in Canada. This means more GIS-related work across faculties and disciplines, and more students and faculty exposed to using GIS in teaching and research. Yet we feel we have only begun!”

And this just in: Max Lapierre, GIS student intern, has just been awarded a $2500 prize from ESRI Canada for his continuing studies in the application of GIS for planning and facilities. Congratulations all around!

Libraries Green Team Wins ReThink Award—Again!

April 12, 2011 Tina Usmiani Leave a Comment

We’re crazy proud to announce that the Dalhousie Libraries Green Team (Sandy Dwyer, Michelle Paon, Jan Pelley, Janice Slauenwhite and Leigh Smith) has just won the Office of Sustainability’s ReThink Award—for the second time! Our 2009-2010 team won the inaugural award last year (see blog post).

The Libraries’ team has certainly done some award-winning things this year, to wit:

held a staff awareness presentation on “The Story of Stuff” video, narrated by Annie Leonard, founder of the Story of Stuff Project
participated in the bin exchange program for Killam Library staff. 23 people chose to participate, which represents approximately 1/3 of the staff
completed a sustainability assessment of the Killam Library, working with students from the ENVS 3502 class (Campus as Living Lab). The students did a waste audit of the PROG bins to determine compliance throughout the building and will present a final report to the Green Team by mid-April
promoted sustainable behavior on campus by:

removing garbage cans from almost all public areas in the Killam Library and replacing them with sets of PROG bins

running a poster campaign to make patrons aware of proper disposal of disposable coffee cups; also had posters educating patrons on what goes into each PROG bin

to reduce paper consumption, 2GB flash drives are now for sale ($5 each) at the Killam Circulation Desk. Posters are placed near photocopiers and printers, encouraging patrons to use the large scanner and save to a flashdrive
reusable cloth bookbags are now for sale ($1 each) at the Killam Circulation Desk

Not content to rest on their evergreen laurels, our Green Team is now investigating the automatic transfer of patron information directly from the University Banner system to the Libraries’ Circulation system. This will reduce the necessity for paper forms for library registration.

Did we say we’re proud yet?

Libraries Green Team Wins Sustainability Award

April 9, 2010 Tina Usmiani 2 Comments

Linda Bedwell, Leigh Smith, Michelle Paon, Sandy Dwyer with trophy

The Dalhousie Libraries are tickled green to announce that our Green Team–Linda Bedwell, Sandy Dwyer, Michelle Paon and Leigh Smith–have won the Office of Sustainability’s inaugural ReThink! Program Green Team Award. Michelle Paon accepted the award on behalf of the team at an official ceremony on April 7 in the Rowe Building.

The Libraries’ was the first sustainability team on campus to register in the ReThink! program. Their initiatives to date include a sustainability audit of the Killam Library, a Lunch ‘n Learn for staff, placement of sorting bins in staff areas and a successful pilot project to remove garbage cans from the 2nd floor Killam atrium and replace them with sorting bins.

Trophy created by Architecture student Shyronn Smardon

The award comes in the shape of a sculpture designed and created by Shyronn Smardon, a Masters student in the School of Architecture. This unique piece is made entirely of materials salvaged from around campus. For more photos see our Facebook album.

The Libraries are very proud of our Green Team and look forward to seeing what new projects they have up their green sleeves!

Funding for Virtual Health Library

February 16, 2010 Tim Ruggles Leave a Comment

Patrick Ellis, Head of the W.K. Kellogg Health Sciences Library and co-chair of a national task force of the Canadian Health Libraries Association (CHLA/ABSC), has received a large grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for the establishment of a Canadian Virtual Health Library.

It is the aim of a virtual health library to provide high quality medical information as well as training and assistance to health care practitioners across the country.

To learn more about this exciting initiative read the story in Dal News.

You can also read about the announcement at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) website.

Tim Ruggles Award Established

September 16, 2009 Tina Usmiani 17 Comments

Tim Ruggles, Reference & Research Librarian at the Kellogg Health Sciences Library, was recently honoured by Dalhousie’s Emergency Medicine Department by having an award named after him. Tim himself presented the inaugural “Tim Ruggles Critically Appraised Topic Award” at the Dept. of Emergency Medicine’s 14th Research Day held at the Holiday Inn (now the Atlantica Hotel) in Halifax on May 20, 2009.

For the past six years Tim has helped co-ordinate the Emergency Medicine Evidence-Based Care course offered annually to emergency medicine residents at Dalhousie University. As part of the course requirements, each resident must complete a “Critically Appraised Topic” or CAT, for which they pose a clinical question, do a thorough literature search, critically appraise the appropriate studies, and finally present a clinical conclusion about whether a particular intervention is effective or not. Critical appraisal involves assessing studies for their methodological validity, calculating whether the results are clinically significant, and deciding whether or not these results have implications for patient care.

The eponymous award will be presented annually to the resident who writes the best CAT.

Archives for awards