The University of Waterloo Library is pleased to extol the accomplishments of our staff members.
Fall 2024
- Rebecca Hutchinson and various campus partners published Systematic Review of Social Robots for Health and Wellbeing: A Personal Healthcare Journey Lens which presents a systematic review of domains in which social robots have been evaluated specifically in health/wellbeing contexts, and includes 443 articles.
Spring/Summer 2024
-
Danielle Robichaud wrote a response about the state of Library and Archives Canada’s digital services for Active History: Contextualizing a Scandal: A Brief History of Library and Archives Canada.
- Nicole Marcogliese hosted two workshops for Integrated Communications and the marketing and communications team in the Faculty of Engineering. These workshops are intended to promote SC&A and the library as a research partner, and facilitate the use of archival material in outreach efforts on and off campus.
- Nicole Marcogliese worked closely with the alumni relations team for the coordinate a display of archival items at the Forever Black and Gold Luncheon during Reunion weekend.
-
Nicole Marcogliese worked closely with the Faculty of Engineering to coordinate a display of archival items at the faculty’s dinner. These displays, developing campus partnerships, and engaging with new audiences helps demonstrate how the library’s programs and resources play a vital role in communicating the continuing value of the Waterloo experience for the University community, alumni, and donors.
- Karina Arrambide has adapted a presentation into a chapter for User Experience in Libraries: Yearbook 2024. The chapter talks about Library spaces and how they can be improved based on user feedback.
- Michael Clark and Johanna Whitson presented on how good Knowledge Management practices benefit neurodivergent library staff at NeuroGLAM 2024, a conference centring on neurodivergent gallery, library, archive, and museum workers in Canada as they share their interests, experiences, research, and support.
- Kate Mercer, Ryan Ball, and Rachel Figueiredo published Rebranding the Library Through Engineering Outreach which presents three case studies about librarian collaborations within the Faculty of Engineering, including a brief examination of key takeaways, lessons learned, and future potential. This paper was recently featured in both the ARL and CARL news digests.
- Library IT has migrated all our server virtualization over to IST, while still maintaining administrative responsibilities to the virtual workloads. This has allowed the decommission of two physical server clusters and one data center rack in EC2. By March 2025, the Library will no longer be managing physical server infrastructure in EC2 and MC, relying solely on IST's hosted services to run virtual servers and access storage resources. This change has reduced our annual operational costs, and would not have been possible without the collaboration efforts between Digital Initiatives and Library IT.
-
Stefaniada Voichita and Mayuri Sivakumaran designed a poster for Israel de Silva to present at the Association of Research Libraries conference. It won the Best Poster Award for the event. The theme for ARL IDEAL 2024 was Sustainable Resistance and Restoration in Global Communities and the title of the poster was “Web Accessibility baby steps: anyone can conduct audits even with limited resources”, demonstrating that anyone in the library can perform an initial but comprehensive web accessibility audit.
Winter 2024
- Lauren Byl, Logan Imans, and Stefaniada Voichita are pleased to announce the completion of the Copyright Basics for Students learning module. This learning module will help undergraduate students understand the basics of copyright as it pertains to the materials they use and create during their studies at the University of Waterloo.
-
Love Data Week at the University of Waterloo was an overwhelming success! As one of 80 institutions hosting events globally, the Library hosted 6 data-related workshops (5 online, 1 in-person) and 1 boothing event (in-person, at both Dana Porter and Davis Centre Libraries) that focused on teaching practical data skills with theoretical digital scholarship and research data management underpinnings. While there are many highlights from the week, here are a few that capture the overall success and reach of Love Data Week at Waterloo:
-
Over 220 participants across 7 events
-
Over 40% of online workshop participants were external to the University of Waterloo spanning 5 countries and 2 continents
-
Overwhelmingly positive feedback from workshop participants including interest in re-watching recordings of workshops
-
- Kari Weaver recently served as a guest on the WCDSB’s Deep Learning Dialogues podcast discussing implications of Generative Artificial Intelligence for the education sector and considerations for educators who may wish to change their instructional practice in light of these tools.
- Sarah Brown and Kari Weaver have been invited to present at the ACRL IS Inclusive Pedagogy Spring Webinar: Inclusive pedagogical practices in library instruction on our recent article Drama queens: Applying dramaturgy as an inclusive pedagogy within the oneshot
- Mike Chee and Kari Weaver have recently published the book chapter “Universal Design for Learning for Accessible OER: Implications for Partnership, Workflow, and Licensing.” In R. McMullin, & D. Skaggs (Eds.) Universal Design for Learning in Academic Libraries: Theory into Practice (pp. 177-193). Association of College and Research Libraries. This is the first publication to consider UDL principles within the varied uses of OER across their lifecycles. A copy will be available in UWSpace soon.
- Kari Weaver had two presentations at the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy, which has a theme this year of information literacy in an age of artificial intelligence. These include Growing with Generative Artificial Intelligence: How Learning and Student Motivation Theory Can Inform Effective Pedagogies and Mitigate Academic Misconduct with a colleague at the University of Guelph and When It's Just Literacy: Intersections of Information, Data, and AI Literacy with Kate Mercer.
- Alexa Evans completed the Library Management Skills Institute 2 with DeEtta Jones and Associates.
- Caitlin Carter is the Wellington Waterloo Dufferin Health Library Network’s Continuing Education Coordinator for 2024-25.
- Caitlin Carter and Jackie Stapleton delivered a workshop entitled “Mastering the Art of Systematic and Scoping Reviews: A Workshop for Librarians” at both the OLA SuperConference and the Wellington Waterloo Dufferin Health Library Network.
Fall 2023
- Sarah Brown and Kari Weaver published the article Drama Queens: applying dramaturgy as an inclusive pedagogy within the one shot in the journal Reference Services Review.
- The Open Access Week planning committee hosted 4 presentations and a game in the lobbies along with some news articles to bring awareness to Open Access publishing.
- Jude Doble presented on "EDIA in Libraries" and "Library Leadership Coaching" at the annual Canadian Associate University Librarian conference in Winnipeg.
- Rachel Figueiredo presented virtually at the Entrepreneurship & Libraries Conference to highlight the library's current partnership with Velocity, called Foundations: The Happiness Project. it's a 10-week co-curricular program to teach students foundational entrepreneurship skills and connect them with key stakeholders across campus who could benefit from their ideas for new programming and practices. Rachel and Ben are particularly proud that Foundations attracted a majority of female Arts & Humanities students, which is a group that isn't always drawn to entrepreneurship programming.
-
Jackie Stapleton is collaborating as the information specialist on a CIHR Knowledge Synthesis and Mobilization Grant titled “Brain Health and Reduction of Risk for Age-related Cognitive Impairment”. The research team, led by Dr. Laura Middleton, Kinesiology and Health Sciences, will synthesize literature regarding physical activity and nutrition among people living with dementia.
- Eva Dodsworth worked with Cambridge author Paul Langan to help study historical railway maps to determine the site of a historical park in Cambridge. Using GIS Eva was able to overlay the map over a modern one to exactly pinpoint the geographic coordinates of the park boundaries. The maps created for Paul were published in his book, Idywild Park - The Forgotten Paradise.
- Eva Dodsworth worked with 3 artists from Inter Arts Matrix who needed help analyzing the geographic landscape of Kitchener, as well as understanding the history of certain buildings. Using a combination of maps and the Vernon Project, the artists included their findings in their artwork and art show. Eva was invited to collaborate with the team of 3 in future grant-related art projects.
- The Geospatial Centre participated in Library Week, offering a week-long project launch and exhibit highlighting historical GIS data created from the Historical City Directory initiative (Vernon Project). Staff worked all summer creating derivative maps of historical eateries, businesses, urbanization (and loss of structures), street network development and more.
- On November 15th, the Geospatial Centre, Environment Technology & Instructional Support (ETIS), and the Waterloo Association of Geography Students (WAGS) had partnered to host an afternoon of learning; GIS DAY! Students, faculty and staff were invited to 12 Lightning Talks, 2 GIS workshops, and a Geospatial Centre open house that highlighted GIS projects, offering a mix of old and new technology using stereoscopes and VR technology. Over 50 guests attended each of the two Lightning Talk sessions, and over 30 attended the workshops. Markus Wieland and Eva Dodsworth each gave a Lightning Talk, promoting the Library’s geospatial projects and collections. See photos of the event. Additionally, the Geospatial Centre worked with other OCUL institutes to co-host a week-long virtual GIS Day(s) event, with multiple speakers and workshops.
- Geospatial Centre has created 2 new digital projects for downloading digitized maps, and a pathfinder for locating aerial photography.
- Eva Dodsworth and Markus Wieland have published a peer-reviewed paper, Delving into the Archives: Studying geographic and cultural landscape changes using cartographic and textual data. "e-Perimetron: international web journal on sciences and technologies affined to history of cartography and maps". Vol. 18, No.3, 2023.
- Jenny Hirst presented "Oh The Places We Could Go! Our Journey towards an Analytics Roadmap" at the CARL Library Assessment Workshop.
- Kari Weaver was appointed to the American Library Association's Intellectual Freedom Committee as the liaison to the LEARN Roundtable. The appointment lasts through June 2025.
- Kari Weaver and Kate Mercer published “Navigating Multidisciplinary Research for Information Literacy in STEM.” in K. Bright, K. Matusiak, & D. Schachter (Eds.) Bridging Research and Library Practice: Global Perspectives on Education and Training, with International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions.
- Sarah Brown and Kari Weaver published Drama Queens: Applying Dramaturgy as an Inclusive Pedagogy within the One Shot, with Reference Services Review.
-
Caitlin Carter, along with School of Pharmacy colleagues, completed two scoping reviews, which were recently presented at the following conferences:
- Baby B, McKinnon A, Patterson K, Patel H, Sharma R, Carter C, Griffin R, Burns C, Chang F, Guilcher S, Lee L, Abu Fadaleh S, Patel T. Tools to measure barriers to medication management capacity in older adults: A scoping review. American Geriatrics Society 2023 Annual Scientific Meeting, Long Beach, CA.
- Sharma R, Kaur Gill J, Carter C, Chhabra M, Alkabbani W, Vidyasagar K, Chang F, Lee L, Patel T. Use of potentially inappropriate medication among older adults with dementia or/and cognitive impairment attending memory clinics: A systematic review and meta-analysis. 11th Canadian Conference on Dementia, Toronto, ON.
- Jenny Hirst was invited to join the Association of Research Libraries' Research and Analytics Committee. This is a two year appointement.
- Information Technology completed renovations and technology upgrades to DC 1554. The meeting room now includes an Owl Labs Meeting Pro (camera/mic), Dell Optiplex 9020 computer with 75” TV, and alternative HDMI connection for laptop users.
-
Antonio Muñoz Gómez, Sarah Martin, Danielle Robichaud and Matt West lead a multi-year project co-ordinating volunteer submissions, editing, and design efforts from across the Library to publish the 2023 Recipe Collection. Featuring recipes from Library staff, the project was launched as a United Way Campaign and was inspired by a 1982 Recipe Collection created by Library staff in celebration of the University of Waterloo’s 25th anniversary.
- Sue Lout and Danielle Robichaud launched the Special Collections & Archives exhibit Gender Studies Isn’t New in response to the June 28, 2023 attacks on campus as a way to highlight the persistence of gender-based study, research, and activities over time.
- Special Collections & Archives, with help from Alison Hitchens and Sandra Keys, partnered with Classical Studies Professor Altay Coşkun to host an open-house and workshop. The event highlighted the Edgar William Pyke coin collection, donated in 2019 by Elizabeth Kerr, consisting of ancient coins ranging from the Persian Empire of the 6th century BCE to 19th century Britain.
- Nicole Marcogliese hosted two workshops for Alumni Relations and Advancement staff to facilitate the use of archival material in outreach efforts on- and off-campus, and two donor events highlighting curious items in Special Collections & Archives’ holdings.
Spring/Summer 2023
- Jude Doble joined the campus-wide Institutional Values committee.
- Jenny Hirst presented to the OCUL Assessment Community on the visualization of library data in MIcrosoft's Power BI.
-
Eva Dodsworth and Markus Wieland presented at the 17th International Cartographic Association Commission Conference on “Digital Approaches to Cartographic Heritage”. The paper presented and published in the conference proceedings is titled: Delving into the archives: studying geographic and cultural landscape changes using cartographic and textual data.
-
Caitlin Carter completed the Medical Library Association's Advanced Search Techniques and Resources for Systematic Reviews and Other Evidence Syntheses course.
-
Nirmal Prasad completed the “Professional Development Certificate in Data Science and Machine Learning” offered by McGill University. This program will help him apply advanced Data Analytics at the University of Waterloo Library.
-
The Circulation Services department added locker pickup locations.
-
Nadeem Lawji returned from his Staff Enhancement Experience (SEE) Canada Grant trip.
-
The Resource Sharing unit staff hosted Resource Sharing Week.
-
Sarah Martin, Agnes Kordiasz, Amy Lim, and Sue Martin completed the Mental Health Literacy program from Campus wellness.
- Nadeem Lawji and Sue Martin finished the Leadership Essentials program from Organizational & Human Development.
- Derek Scholar attended Fire Extinguisher Safety training.
- Jason Keta attended both Fire Warden training, and an Introduction to Project Management.
- Tim Ireland and Sarah Brown are attending the Librarians’ Research Institute hosted by CARL.
- Karina Arrambide presented at the UX Libs conference in Brighton, UK about Library spaces and how they can be improved based on user feedback.
- Caitlin Carter, along with her co-authors from the School of Pharmacy, have earned recognition from the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association for their publication “The role of pharmacy technicians in vaccination services: a scoping review.” The recognition was based on the fact that despite being published in 2022, the scoping review already has 5 citations in other research papers, as well as news media.
- Stefaniada Voichita completed WatSPEED’s Project Management Certificate Program.
Winter 2023
- Rachel Figueiredo completed the Fundamentals of OCAP course through the First Nations Information Governance Centre.
- Kate Mercer won the Pearl Sullivan Outstanding Staff Teaching Award.
- Kari Weaver, Karina Arrambide, and others presented “The Design, Development and Deployment of Academic Integrity Modules for Students in STEM: Initial Research Findings.” at the International Conference on Academic Integrity.
- Marian Davies joined the board of the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians for the term ending 2025.
- Kari Weaver, Mike Chee, Stephanie Mutch, and Kate Mercer presented “Both Sides Now: Growth Through Shared Learning in Mentoring Relationships.” at the Ontario Library Association SuperConference.
- Logan Imans completed the Mental Health Literacy Certificate course.
- Kate Mercer and Kari Weaver published Critical Evaluation of Information as a New Threshold Concept for Navigating STEM Information with Science & Technology Libraries, 42(1).
- Steve Hiebert joined the Library Davis Centre Space Group.
- Kari Weaver, Kate Mercer, and others authored a chapter on critical reading across the engineering disciplines in Teaching critical reading skills: Strategies for academic librarians Volume 1 available in UWSpace soon.
- Karina Arrambide completed the Know Your User: Research Methods Beyond Usability Testing course from Library Juice Academy.
- Library IT undertook a major and unexpected VDI migration, with over 100 staff moved to a new virtual desktop solution. The outcome of this migration also provided a major improvement to stability for staff VDI.
-
Tim Ireland and Agnes Zientarska-Kayko were invited to provide a library instruction session, and a hands-on Zotero training to the class of students taking the Wicked Problems of Climate Change course.
- Library IT achieved a major milestone by regularly updating over 90% of all Library desktop software centrally. The VDI migration has created a large increase in Library IT resources to centrally support the Library-specific desktop software utilized by staff computers.
- Karina Arrambide collaborated with students from SYDE 543 Cognitive Ergonomics to reimagine and improve physical spaces and digital services in the Library.
Fall 2022
- Jordan Hale gave the Dave Binkley Memorial Lecture keynote at the Access Conference, entitled “The library? What is it? It’s a big building where you access information, but that’s not important right now.”
- Stefaniada Voichita completed the Project Management Applied Tools and Techniques course, part of the Project Management Certificate series, through UW WHATSPEED.
- Kari Weaver began a term as the Vice Chair/Chair Elect of the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Women’s and Gender Studies Section.
- Sarah Brown, alongside Open Scholarship Committee members, planned articles for the Daily Bulletin in support of this year’s International Open Access Week.
- On behalf of the Accessibility Working Group and Library Accessibility Services, Ryan Ball presented as part of the OCUL Accessibility Community Development Series sharing the ongoing accessibility work our Library has been engaged in.
-
Agnes Zientarska-Kayko, Tim Ireland, and Megan Palmer were invited to provide a library instruction session and a hands-on Zotero training to a newly assembled Waterloo Institute for Social Innovation and Resilience research team.
- Alison Hitchens was appointed to the Hathi Trust Program Steering Committee for a 3-year term.
- Kari Weaver, in cooperation with various colleagues, has published multiple articles, presentations, and posters, including:
- Lightning Findings on Graduate Student Research Experience.
- The Great PDF Debate: Accessible or Impossible?
- Unpacking the Graduate Student Research Experience: Findings from a Drawing-Based Interview Study.
- Fostering Information Literacy Skills for Engineers: A Module-Based Approach to Engender Lifelong Learning.
- Oh ERIC! A Contemporary, Preliminary Analysis of Journal Coverage Across Core Education Databases and the Implications on Evidence Synthesis.
- If You Only Knew: Lessons, Limitations, and Learnings from 2.5 Years of an Online Learning Object Repository.
-
Ryan Ball, Sarah Brown, and Agnes Zientarska-Kayko completed the first Canadian Evidence Synthesis Institute, a 4-day intensive course sponsored by the University of Victoria Libraries and CAPAL’s Research and Scholarship Committee.
-
Nick Richbell was an invited speaker at the Region of Waterloo Museums and also at the Universities Arts Association of Canada’s Annual Conference. For both events, Nick gave talks about the séance collections that are held in Special Collections & Archives.
-
Laura Bredahl published a library technology report on “The Current and Evolving Landscape of Bibliometric Tools and Technologies” with ALA TechSource.
-
Kate Mercer published a paper "Automated digital technologies for supporting sepsis prediction in children: a scoping review protocol" with colleagues in SYDE.
Spring/Summer 2022
-
Kathy Szigeti and Sandra Keys participated as merit committee reviewers for the Data Champions Pilot Project funding call by the Digital Research Alliance of Canada.
-
Evan Schilling serves on the Advisory Board of the UW School of Architecture’s Racial Equity and Environmental Justice Task Force.
-
Alison Hitchens, Kathy Szigeti, and Sandra Keys are members of the campus-wide Research Data Management Institutional Strategy Working Group, which is co-chaired by Alison.
- Caitlin Carter, along with Pharmacy colleagues, published the following 3 scoping reviews:
- Ayahuasca and the traveller: A scoping review of risks and possible benefits. Travel Medicine and Infectious Disease. 2022;44:102206.
- The role of pharmacy technicians in vaccination services: a scoping review. Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. 2022;62(1):15-26.e11.
- Characteristics, predictors, and reasons for regulatory body disciplinary action in health care: a scoping review. Journal of Medical Regulation. 2022;107(4):17-31.
-
Jackie Stapleton, along with colleagues in the Kinesiology and Health Sciences, has published the following 3 systematic reviews:
-
The effects of Pilates on health-related outcomes in individuals with increased risk of fracture: a systematic review. Applied physiology, nutrition, and metabolism. 2022;47(4):369-378.
-
Effect of yoga on health-related outcomes in people at risk of fractures: a systematic review. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. 2022; 47(3):215-226. *Editors Choice article
-
- Melanie Hannaford completed a Mental Health Literacy Certificate.
-
Eva Dodsworth, Markus Wieland, and Aidan de Villa-Choi presented “Creating a Searchable Digital Atlas from 100 Years of Digital Vernon City Directories (1900-2000)” at the 8th International Conference on Cartography. This paper was also published in the conference’s peer-reviewed proceedings.
-
Sarah Brown, as co-Chair for the Planning committee for the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians, cohosted the 2 day free virtual conference.
Winter 2022
- During Black History Month, Musagetes Library purchased a selection of 50 books that focus on Black architects, designers and history, the BIPOC lived experience, and the intersection of race and space. This strategic acquisition is the first step in an ongoing collaboration between the library and the School of Architecture’s Racial Equity and Environmental Justice task force to increase representation in our research resources and work towards a new global architecture.
-
Kate Mercer, Kari Weaver, and others presented their poster “Transcending academic power structures: Navigating STEM misinformation for undergraduate learning” at the Ontario Library Association Super Conference.
-
Mike Chee and Kari Weaver presented “The pedagogical limits of asynchronous learning objects: An analysis of an interactive citation module using Bloom’s Taxonomy” to the Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy.
-
Eva Dodsworth and Markus Wieland presented their paper “Data Transformation and Geocoding of Historical City Directories” at the Geographical Information Science Research UK conference.
-
Kate Mercer presented “How to navigate online health information & misinformation” for a University of Waterloo Donor Talk.
-
Mike Chee, Kari Weaver, and others published “More to do than can ever be done: Reconciling library online learning objects with WCAG 2.1 standards for accessibility” in the Journal of Web Librarianship.
-
Eva Dodsworth was invited to be a guest lecturer at the University of Tennessee’s Library Science program. The topic was “The Use of GIS in Library Projects”.
-
Kari Weaver was appointed as a Member Representative on the HathiTrust Member Meeting Planning Committee.
-
Kate Mercer presented “Training students on the Critical Evaluation of Information at the University of Waterloo” for an OCLC Workshop
-
Mike Chee, Lauren Byl, and Kari Weaver published “White paper on OER: Seven recommendations to improve OER uptake in higher education institutions” in the UWSpace.
-
Nick Richbell and others from the Department of Germanic and Slavic Studies presented “Experiential Learning Partnerships: Working with Letters from the Archives” at Waterloo’s Teaching and Learning Conference.
-
Tim Ireland, Nick Richbell, and Agnes Zientarksa-Kayko presented “The Library: What’s in it for me?” at the Waterloo’s 2022 Staff Conference.
-
Kari Weaver, Kate Mercer, and others presented their paper “Do Something, Say Something, Be Something: Harnessing the Power of Critique to Advance Information Literacy” at the LOEX 2022 Conference.
Fall 2021
-
Mike Chee and Kari Weaver spoke about “Insights from implementing WCAG 2.0 best practices” to the virtual meeting of the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians WCAG Community of Practice.
-
Eva Dodsworth joined the OCUL Air Photo Workshop Group, and became the Webmaster for the Association of Canadian Map Libraries & Archives.
-
Jordan Hale and Kari Weaver published “The proof is in the pudding: Building a local repository for online learning objects” in Association of College and Research Libraries Scholarly Communications Cookbook.
- Kate Mercer, and others were invited as workshop speakers on “Developing Ethical Engineers with Empathy” and also “Engineering, Patriarchy, and the Pluriverse: What World of Many Worlds Do We Design? What Worlds Do We Teach?” at the Canadian Engineering Education Association EDI conference.
- Kate Mercer, Kari Weaver, and others presented their poster “Academic Power Structures & Scientific Misinformation” at the Librarian’s Association of the University of California, Berkeley conference.
- Kate Mercer taught BME 101 “Communications in Biomedical Engineering-Written and Oral” and SYDE 101 “Communications in Systems Design Engineering-Written and Oral”.
- Kari Weaver and others published “Developing Universal Design for Learning Asynchronous Training in an Academic Library” in Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library and Information Practice and Research.
Spring/Summer 2021
-
Nicole Marcogliese and Danielle Robichaud successfully advanced to the ranks of Librarian III and Librarian V respectively. (Spring 2021)
-
Kari D. Weaver completed her work as part of the Library Instruction Roundtable's (LIRT) Strategic Working Group researching and making recommendations to the ALA to advance issues of equity, diversity, and inclusion. With that work finished, Kari was appointed to a two-year term to the Association of College and Research Libraries Women’s and Gender Studies Section Publications & Communications Committee, and a two-year term as a member of LIRT's Teaching, Learning, and Technology Committee. (Spring 2021)
-
Collaborating with a Kinesiology research team, Jackie Stapleton co-authored the following systematic reviews: Progressive Resistance Training for Improving Health-related Outcomes in People at Risk of Fracture: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials and The Effects of Walking or Nordic Walking in Adults 50 Years and Older at Elevated Risk of Fractures: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. (Spring 2021)
- Nick Richbell became a member of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network’s Conference Planning Committee, and also their National Heritage Digitization Strategy Advisory Committee. (Spring 2021)
- Farzaneh Keramati completed the MLIS program and graduated.
-
Nick Richbell presented “Séances in the Stacks” at the University of North Texas Folklore in the Archives conference.
Winter 2021
- Mike Chee and Kari D Weaver presented “Beyond the Checklist: New 2021 Accessibility Compliance Requirements for Elearning Resources and Research Guides in Libraries” at the OLA Super Conference. (Winter 2021)
- Agnes Zientarska-Kayko and Tim Ireland delivered a hands-on Zotero workshop to the International V2V Global Partnership. This partnership SSHRC project is led by the University of Waterloo and includes scientists from around the globe. The aim of participants is to create a shared online portal of their research and a method of collaborating on literature reviews. (Winter2021)
- Christine Moffatt coached a team for the first Climate Innovation Discovery Stream, a research-intensive competition hosted by Concept by Velocity, the Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, and Problem Lab. Her team placed first and was awarded $5,000 to continue developing their idea. (Winter 2021).
- Kathy Szigeti successfully completed the requirements of the Scopus Certification Program for Librarians. (Winter 2021)
- Laura Bredahl will serve as Deputy Editor for the international blog “the Bibliomagician” for a 2 year term. (Winter 2021)
- As Entrepreneurship Librarian, Christine Moffatt, participated as a research expert on two panels hosted by Concept by Velocity at UWaterloo; The Entrepreneurial Ecosystem and Starting small: Best practices for starting a small business. (Winter 2021).
- Jordan Hale was named to the University’s Equity Data Advisory Group. (Winter 2021)
- Christine Moffatt joined both the Canadian Association of Professional Academic Librarians (CAPAL) Education and Professional Development Committee, and the Graduate Professional Skills Committee, a group supporting graduate students at the UWaterloo, where she joins Lauren Byl as representatives from the Library. (Winter 2021).
- Laura Bredahl was elected to the ORCID-CA, ORCID Consortium in Canada, Governing Committee for a 2 year term. (Winter 2021)
- Sandra Keys, along with colleagues from Western, Wilfrid Laurier, and Queen’s, presented "Supporting researchers during COVID – how Canada’s data community pulled together" at the OLA Super Conference. (Winter 2021)
- Laura Bredahl and a colleague from the University of Alberta, in collaboration with CARL and the Bibliometric and Research Impact Community, hosted the “First Community Call of the Research Impact Canadian Community of Practice” with over 130 attendees from across Canada. (Winter 2021)
- Christine Moffatt, along with colleagues from various institutions, published an article in Open Shelf titled “Open to discovery: Refining metadata standards & creating a controlled vocabulary for Open Shelf”. The article details their six-month volunteer project to clean-up Open Shelf’s metadata and to improve content discoverability on the website. (Winter 2021)
- Kate Mercer and a colleague presented “Introducing Critique to Enhance Traditional Evaluation in Your Large Classroom” at the Canadian Design Workshop. (Winter 2021)
- Kathy Szigeti helped helped author "Data Management Plan for Ecohydrology Research Group (Exemplar)". This exemplar Data Management Plan (DMP) was created by UWaterloo's Ecohydrology Research Group for the purpose of providing a standardized DMP model for its multi- and cross-disciplinary research projects. (Winter 2021)
- Laura Bredahl and a colleague from the Northern Illinois University published the article “ORCID Education: a departmental approach” in Library Hi Tech News, Feb 8th 2021. (Winter 2021)
- Kate Mercer, Kari Weaver, Rachel Figueiredo, and their colleague from UWaterloo's Arts faculty presented “Online in a hurry: Lessons learned from moving STEM library instruction from in-person to online” at the OLA Super Conference. (Winter 2021)
- Laura Bredahl completed the course “Visualizing Science Using VOSviewer” a 4-day intensive course provided virtually by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS). (Winter 2021)
- Kate Mercer, and her colleagues from UWaterloo's faculties of Engineering and Applied Health Sciences, published “Technologies for fostering intergenerational connectivity and relationships: Scoping review and emergent concepts” in Technology in Society, Volume 64. (Winter 2021)
-
The Student Engagement Committee in collaboration with McMaster Libraries, created Birds of Encouragement, allowing students from both universities to share words of encouragement and original artwork with their fellow students. Mimicking a sticky note on a campus photo, the Birds of Encouragement Instagram account already has 115 followers and has received 26 submissions of words of encouragement. (Winter 2021)
-
Through the Green Office Committee, the Library has been awarded a second Sustainable Action Fund grant. The award will be added to library funds to complete the switchover to the new waste receptacle system in our public areas; this is the system that has already been deployed in the Davis library and on the main floor of Porter, which we know will encourage more recycling and reduce the amount going to landfill. (Winter 2021)
-
Jackie Stapleton and her collaborators in the Department of Kinesiology and Health Sciences, published “Effect of yoga on health-related outcomes in people at risk of fractures: a systematic review” in Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism. This article was chosen as the Editor’s Choice paper for the issue.
Fall 2020
- Laura Bredahl and Alison Hitchens presented “Case study—Supporting bibliometric and research impact analysis at the University of Waterloo” at the OCLC Works in Progress Webinar Series. (Fall 2020)
- Jordan Hale chaired a panel entitled “Logistics: the people and technologies that manage our stuff” at the 2020 Access Conference. (Fall 2020)
- Laura Bredahl and Alison Hitchens presented “An Evolution of Bibliometrics and Research Impact Services” at the CNI Fall 2020 Virtual Membership Meeting. (Fall 2020)
- Eva Dodsworth attended the Western Association of Map Libraries (WAML) virtual conference and participated in a panel discussion on GIS librarianship. (Fall 2020)
-
Laura Bredahl completed the course “Bibliometrics and Scientometrics for Research Evaluation”, a 4-day intensive course provided virtually by Leiden University’s Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS). (Fall 2020)
- Carmen Peters and Emily Christofides asynchronously presented the poster The Use of Iterative Design to Improve the Collection of User Feedback at the 2020 Library Assessment Conference. (Fall 2020)
- Carmen Peters presented the poster Developing an Online Learning Object for Asynchronous Learning at the 2020 ArLiSNAP / VREPS Virtual Conference. (Fall 2020)
- Jackie Stapleton, Caitlin Carter, and Laura Bredahl published the following paper providing evidence based guidance on searching Library and Information Science literature: “Developing systematic search methods for the library literature: Methods and analysis” in the Journal of Academic Librarianship. (Fall 2020)
- Sharon Lamont recently completed the Indigenous Canada course, via the Faculty of Native Studies at the University of Alberta. This course explores Canadian Indigenous histories and contemporary issues facing Indigenous peoples today from a historical and critical perspective highlighting national and local Indigenous-settler relations. (Fall 2020)
-
Thanks to the hard work of Cataloguing in charge of receiving, holdings maintenance, and cataloguing, an approximate of 1,500 new print items have been made discoverable and available to patrons. The department resumed print cataloguing in mid-September, starting with an inventory of around 1,900 items which was down to 556 as of November 27. The department has also continued work with electronic resources, as well as various metadata enhancement and remediation projects resulting from the migration to Alma. (Fall 2020)
-
The Library’s Green Office is proud to announce that the Library was recently certified as a Gold member of the Green Office program. The Green Office certification program encourages campus departments to find ways to reduce their environmental impact on campus, as well as to raise awareness of issues and of ways of reducing environmental impact at home. The Library is one of only 5 departments on campus to have achieved Gold. (Fall 2020)
-
In collaboration with other OCUL institutions, the Geospatial Centre took part in planning and executing the very first OCUL-wide online GIS Day (week) symposium. For four days, GIS Day consisted of presentations, demonstrations, and lightning talks by students, staff and researchers across Ontario. Eva Dodsworth and Markus Wieland presented on their city directory project (“Vernon”). (Fall 2020)
Spring/Summer 2020
- Kate Mercer and Kari D. Weaver published the paper "Evaluative Frameworks and Scientific Knowledge for Undergraduate STEM Students: An Illustrative Case Study Perspective". (Summer 2020)
- Jackie Stapleton, Caitlin Carter, and Laura Bredahl published their scoping review article: “Research consultations in the academic library: A scoping review on current themes in instruction, assessment and technology” in the Journal of Academic Librarianship. (Spring 2020)
- Laura Bredahl along with the AVSL Whitelist of Vision Science Journals Working Group/Advisory Group and Reviewers won the 2020 Louise Darling Medal for Distinguished Achievement in Collection Development in the Health Sciences from the Medical Library Association. (Spring 2020)
- Kathy Szigeti, as a member of a Federated Research Data Repository working group, helped create several instructional videos. These short introductory training videos are intended for researchers, data professionals, librarians, and anyone else who is getting started with FRDR and would like to learn the basics of using the service, setting up an account, and uploading and downloading datasets. They are available on the Canadian Association of Research Libraries' YouTube channel. (Spring 2020)
- Jenny Hirst, as part of the Data Visualization Project Group of the CARL Assessment Committee Continuing Education Working Group, released their Data Visualization Toolkit. The purpose of this resource is to provide guidance for academic libraries seeking to incorporate dashboards and other data visualization tools into their assessment practice. It includes tools, best practices, examples, data sources and collection methods, professional development opportunities, and other resources. (Spring 2020)
-
Kate Mercer and Rachel Figueiredo, along with others, published the paper "Embedding librarians in Engineering Programs: Three case studies with engineering students." Published for CEEA 2020. This was a collaborative project between the Library, SYDE, and a Librarian at the University of Saskatchewan. (Spring 2020)
- Mary Lynne Bartlett published a four part series of essays, entitled The Virtual Library Bunch, exploring how University of Waterloo library staff are embracing innovation and change in our new virtual environment. The series was further distributed via the university's Daily Bulletin. (Spring 2020)
-
Kari D. Weaver, Kate Mercer, and Rachel Figueiredo, along with various faculty, co-authored a paper entitled "Information-seeking behavior among first-year engineering students and the impacts of pedagogical intervention", which was selected by ASEE 2020 as among the top five of this year’s First-Year Programs Division Papers. The paper focuses on the importance and impact that librarian intervention can have on student learning, a topic the co-authors are happy to have widely associated with the University of Waterloo and our library. (Spring 2020)
- Jennifer Haas and Rachel Figueiredo, along with many others, co-authored a publication that was unanimously awarded the ASEE ELD 2020 Best Publication Award. The publication, entitled “Supporting the Changing Research Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars.” is based on the outcomes of the research undertaken into research practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering scholars. The University of Waterloo Library was a participant in this multi-site, international research project. (Spring 2020)
- Kate Mercer is co-supervising a Masters student, with Catherine Burns in SYDE. Kate is also now an adjunct at the University of New Brunswick, and is on the Thesis Committee for a student there in the Interdisciplinary Studies program. (Spring 2020)
- Kate Mercer, along with others, presented "Addressing Human Factors Challenges in Pediatric Home Care: Development and Evaluation of a Mobile Home Care Communication App" at the 2020 International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care. (Spring 2020)
-
Circulation and Cataloguing departments advanced the Item Description project; assessing bibliographic records and updating data in item records for approximately 168,000 titles. This work will fix a problem that interferes with the ability for patrons to place requests on these items. There is no way to automate a solution to this, so this work has a significant impact on our patrons’ ability to do their research. Staff have been working on this project in conjunction with their other responsibilities and to date approximately 49,000 records have been corrected! (Summer 2020)
-
The Geospatial Centre participated in advising OCUL-Geo on specifications for the use of an exceptionally large Canadian Satellite dataset the RADARSAT Constellation Mission which keenly awaited by many of our faculty and researchers. Also the Vernon Directories project is moving along nicely with all hands-on deck and with the much appreciated help of several Circulation staff members participating with data compilation. (Summer 2020)
-
A revision of the Library's Librarian and Archivist Employment Handbook was completed. (Summer 2020)
-
The Library created a Black Lives Matter — Canadian reading list and an Indigenous peoples in Canada reading list. (Summer 2020)
-
Special Collections & Archives expanded their statement regarding language in archival descriptions. (Summer 2020)
-
Student Engagement released its first virtual escape room. The escape room taught students to access library services and resources, along with familiarizing them with policies and staff. It was very well received by students with a high engagement rate for the contest and sharing on social media. (Spring 2020)
-
The Library's Twitter account was celebrated by Heritage Canada's twitter account for our Asian Heritage Month initiatives. (Spring 2020)
-
All of the Library staff have completed the new AODA accessibility training. (Spring 2020)
Winter 2020
- Kate Mercer, Kari Weaver, Rachel Figueiredo, and Caitlin Carter published the article “Critical appraisal: The key to unlocking information literacy in the STEM disciplines” in C&RL News. (Winter 2020)
- Kate Mercer is, for the second time, supervising a Systems Design Engineering Capstone Group. Kate is now an adjunct with the Systems Design Engineering progam at UWaterloo. (Winter 2020)
- Stefaniada Voichita completed all four of Organizational & Human Development's Mindful Employer sessions, as well as a online course Instructional Design: Digital Media, New Tools and Technology from the University of Maryland. Stef also attended the eLearning in Libraries symposium, a conference hosted at Ryerson University. (Winter 2020)
- Kari D Weaver joined the planning committee of the Learning Design & Libraries Virtual UnConference 2020. This newly founded online unconference is meant to provide connection and professional development opportunities for instructional design librarians, and others engaged in learning design work within libraries, worldwide. (Winter 2020)
- Sarah Murray wrote an article “Accessibility for All” for the Library’s website, as part of a comprehensive approach to student usage of Library Accessibility Services/Adaptive Technology Centre services and amenities that have already yielded a 14% increase in study room usage. (Winter 2020)
- Jenny Hirst joined the OCUL Collaborative Futures Analytics Working Group. They will work on a variety of analytics-based consortial projects including: Alma analytics, practices, policies, processes, and potential resourcing within the context of Collaborative Futures. Their identification of common shared reporting requirements (ie. CARL, ARL), and the development of standard reports to be used by CF institutions, will work closely with the Standing Committees, Expert Advisory Network, and other relevant OCUL communities. (Winter 2020)
- Sandra Keys begun a 2 year term as co-moderator of the OCUL Data Community. (Winter 2020)
- Adam Savage completed the Leadership Foundations program. (Winter 2020)
- The Library, in collaboration with Communication Arts, English, and Civil Engineering were accepted by the American Society for Engineering Education for a research paper, "Information-seeking behavior among first-year engineering students and the impacts of pedagogical intervention". (Winter 2020)
Fall 2019
- Caitlin Carter, along with Pharmacy colleagues Tom McFarlane, Noor Rehman, Katie Wang, and Jenny Lee, published a literature review “Cutaneous toxicities of new targeted cancer therapies: must know for diagnosis, management, and patient-proxy empowerment,” in Annals of Palliative Medicine. (Fall 2019).
- Qian Zhang was awarded two micro-grants from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) for the projects "Improving Reproducibility with Gamification in Whole Tale" and "Use Cases of Computational Reproducibility in High Performance Computing (HPC)". Qian is pursuing this research as part of her CLIR Postdoctoral Fellowship in Software Curation. (Fall 2019)
- Mike Chee and Kari D Weaver presented Preparing for 2021: Current & Forthcoming Accessibility Compliance Requirements for eLearning in Academic Libraries at a Ryerson University ELearning in Libraries Symposium. The session was well-received by attendees, with many reporting its usefulness in helping them tackle accessibility at their own institutions. (Fall 2019)
- Emily Christofides, along with several others, published Improving dissemination of study results: perspectives of individuals with cystic fibrosis in the journal "Research Ethics". (Fall 2019)
- Emily Christofides presented Assessing the evening/weekend library UX and Choosing your assessment method at the Canadian Library Assessment Workshop. (Fall 2019)
- Laura Bredahl and Kari D. Weaver were awarded a 2019 Practicing Librarian category of the Research in Librarianship Grant from CARL’s Strengthening Capacity Committee for their work, Exploring Students’ Information Use through Learner Needs Analysis, in a Canadian STEM context: Towards a collaborative approach to integrated instructional design. (Fall 2019)
-
In preparation for Alma, the Circulation department accomplished:
- 10 Circulation-related workshops delivered in the Computer Lab
- Over 160 total attendees
- Attendees were from several library departments, as well as from almost all other libraries and delivery locations on campus (Musagetes, Pharmacy, Optometry, SJU, CGC, Renison, Centre for Career Action, Centre for Teaching Excellence, Stratford)
-
6 trainers (Sarah Martin, Ryan Ball, Laurie Strome, Danielle Farr, Leah Haisoch, and Sue Arruda)
-
Feedback on all of these sessions has been uniformly positive. Staff who were not delivering sessions have been working hard to learn the material, and we’re mostly feeling ready to go! (Fall 2019)
-
The Library collected 22 large bags of groceries and $144 in cash for the Feds “Stock the Bank” challenge. (Fall 2019)
-
Sharon Lamont, Nancy Collins, and Rebecca Hutchinson were part of the UW Excellence Canada team that received the Gold certification in the Excellence, Innovation and Wellness program, which recognizes the University for its exceptional organizational and workplace practices. While other Canadian universities have achieved department certification, we are the first university to achieve certification across our entire institution. (Fall 2019)
-
Special Collections & Archives collaborated with Anthroscope Media on the creation of an audio-documentary and exhibit at THE MUSEUM based on one of our Spiritualism collections. Special Collections & Archives holds the Thomas Lacey séance collection which contains 154 audio-reel recordings of séances held in Kitchener during the 1960s. The Ghost of Thomas Lacey podcast features some of séances, details about the medium, Thomas Lacey, as well as information about the religion of Spiritualism. (Fall 2019)
-
Special Collections & Archives participated at Kitchener Public Library’s 7th Annual Genealogy Fair in November. (Fall 2019)
-
Special Collections & Archives held an event, Knitting from the Past, at Kitchener Public Library in September. Over 20 knitters from the Region were treated to a talk about some of our women’s studies collections whilst they knitted items selected from some of our 900 knitting and crochet magazines. (Fall 2019)
Spring/Summer 2019
- Kate Mercer and Rachel Figueiredo initiated the Canadian Engineering Education Association (CEEA) Librarians’ Special Interest Group (SIG), and Rachel is chairing the group. Our mandate involves Promoting the effective and ethical exchange, use, and management of information in engineering education through collaboration between librarians, information specialists, educators, students, publishers, and content creators. To date, there are 15 members. (Summer 2019)
- Kathy Szigeti has been working with the Ecohydrology Research Group and the Polar Data Catalogue to digitize meteorological observations taken from stations around the world. The observations were taken during the 1950s to the 1990s and published by the former USSR. Once scanned, the data will be cleaned, go through quality assurance, and prepared in a manner that allows for downloading in a format ready for manipulation, as opposed to an image of the data. (Summer 2019)
- Mike Chee was the recipient of the H.W. Wilson Graduate Scholarship; awarded annually, when merited, to a student entering a school offering an accredited masters degree in library and information studies. Consideration is given to academic achievement, leadership potential and demonstrated interest in the profession. (Sumer 2019)
- Kari D Weaver has been appointed as the Chair of the Outreach, Marketing, and User Education Subcommittee of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy Sandbox Committee. (Summer 2019)
- Jordan Hale completed the GTA Gran Fondo, cycling 137km in five hours and fifty-nine minutes. (Summer 2019)
- Kari D Weaver published the article A Mixed-Methods Analysis of Community Service Trends in Academic Librarianship with Braegan Abernethy in the journal Collaborative Librarianship. (Summer 2019)
- Kari D Weaver presented the workshop Developing Outside the Lines: Collaborating to Cultivate a Tool for Assignment Planning with Amy Greene and Valerie Walker of the University of Waterloo Writing and Communication Centre at the 2019 Digital Pedagogy Institute conference. (Summer 2019)
- Shannon Gordon spoke at the Fall Web of Science Group InCites Forum, at the National Science Foundation. (Summer 2019)
- Courtney Bremer was appointed to the Chair of the Serials Management Sub-Committee, of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network. (Summer 2019)
- Caitlin Carter authored an encyclopedia chapter entitled “Evidence-based Medicine: An Overview for Pharmacists” in the Encyclopedia of Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Pharmacy. (Spring 2019)
- Courtney Bremer gave a presentation on the library process mapping electronic resource troubleshooting workflow at a UWaterloo continuous improvement workshop, hosted by Lean at Waterloo. (Spring 2019)
-
Hilary Hung presented at the Staff Conference this year. Her session, entitled "Empower Students & Learn Through The Arts", explored how staff can better empower students in their day-to-day encounters. Attendees participated in arts-based learning activities to: recognize the authority that accompanies their position on campus; identify ways to empower students in their role; practice reframing their interactions and discourse to promote empowering moments. (Spring 2019)
- Carmen Peters completed her Masters of Information, concentration in Library and Information Science from the University of Toronto. (Spring 2019)
-
Caitlin Carter collaborated with a UWaterloo Pharmacy faculty member, Dr. Tejal Patel, as well as Sadaf Faisal (graduate student) and Catherine Lee (undergraduate student) on the following two scoping reviews, presented as posters at the OPEN 2019 Summit:
-
Pharmacist activities for persons with intellectual disabilities: a scoping review
-
The usability, acceptability and functionality of smart oral multidose dispensing systems for medication adherence: a scoping review (Spring 2019)
-
- Kathy Szigeti, along with her colleagues Melissa Cheung, Dylanne Dearborn, Lyne Da Sylva, and Shahira Khair, presented a poster at the 2019 Summit of the Research Data Access & Preservation Association (RDAP), entitled "From the ground up: Building a roadmap of research priorities for a national research data management community". (Spring 2019)
- Shannon Gordon attended the Canadian Bibliometrics & Research Impact Community (BRIC) Conference in Quebec City and co-presented these sessions:
- Duimovich, G. & Gordon, S. (May 2019). Research assessment frameworks around the world. Presented at the Canadian Bibliometric & Research Impact Community Conference, Laval University, Quebec City, QC.
- Pokrajac, P., Mitra, S. K., Demaine, J., Gordon, S. M., & Droog, A. (May 2019). Bibliometrics driving research clusters at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology. Presented at the Canadian Bibliometric & Research Impact Community Conference, Laval University, Quebec City, QC. (Spring 2019)
- Shannon Gordon hase also worked as part of the BRIC Organizing Committee to organize the BRIC2019 conference; this committee includes Deirdre Moore (Natural Resources Canada), Eve Richard (Université Laval), George Duimovich (Carleton University), Jeffrey Demaine, and myself representing Waterloo. (Spring 2019)
- Kari D. Weaver successfully defended her Ed.D. in Curriculum & Instruction at the University of South Carolina School of Education. Her dissertation was entitled An Exploration of Academic Librarian Self-Efficacy in the Teaching Role: A Canadian Perspective. (Spring 2019)
-
Rachael Lewitzky and Kari D. Weaver presented the lightning talk, “You've Been Accepted! Creating an Instructional Design Intake Process at the University of Waterloo Library” at the 2019 Ontario Library Association Digital Odyssey Conference. (Spring 2019)
- Kate Mercer successfully defended her PhD (Communicating health information in primary care: a multidisciplinary exploration of patient, pharmacist, and physician decision-making) at UWaterloo’s School of Pharmacy. (Spring 2019)
- Kate Mercer, Kari D. Weaver, and Ariel Jocelyn Stables-Kennedy of Western University presented their paper "Understanding Undergraduate Engineering Student Information Access and Needs: Results from a Scoping Review" at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 2019 conference. (Spring 2019)
- Kari D. Weaver, Kate Mercer, and Ariel Jocelyn Stables-Kennedy of Western University presented their paper "Minding the Gaps: Conducting and Using Scoping Reviews in the Library Context" at the American Library Association (ALA) 2019 Annual Conference. (Spring 2019)
- Rachel Figueiredo presented “Building Support: Findings and Recommendations from Conversations with Civil and Environmental Engineering Researchers at Two Canadian Universities” in collaboration with engineering librarians from the University of Toronto at the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) 2019 conference. (Spring 2019)
-
Alison Hitchens presented with Sharon Murphy (University of Alberta) and Karina McInnis (University of Guelph) on “Research impact: libraries and research administrators working together” at the Canadian Association of Research Administrators (CARA) conference in Montreal, May 2019. (Spring 2019)
-
Alison Hitchens was elected to the Ex Libris Users of North America (ELUNA) Steering Committee for a three-year term beginning May 3, 2019.
-
Mary Lynne Bartlett presented at BCLA on May 10th about Serious Fun. (Spring 2019)
-
Caitlyn Sageman is the new co-chair for Student Engagement.
-
Mary Lynne Bartlett joined the Waterloo Wellness Collaborative Community of Practice.
-
Melanie Hannaford completed the Leadership Essentials course. (Spring 2019)
-
Special Collections & Archives, with the assistance of Digital Initiatives, launched a new online research platform; Archives Database. Available descriptive records can be browsed by thematic area, academic disciplines or via keyword search (basic and advanced options are available), and the hierarchical nature of those descriptions can be viewed using the navigation tree at the top of each fonds or collection page. (Summer 2019)
-
Eva Dodsworth and Markus Wieland attended the GIS-Pro 2019 Conference as hosted by the Urban and Regional Information Systems Association (URISA), where they presented on the Geospatial Centre’s Urbanizing Kitchener-Waterloo: A Historical Geospatial Perspective project. (Summer 2019)
-
The sixth annual Digital Pedagogy Institute conference was held at the University of Waterloo, in partnership with Brock University, the University of Guelph, Ryerson University, and the University of Toronto Scarborough Library. Its organizing committee was chaired by Tim Ireland, and supported by Laura Bredahl, Kathy MacDonald, Agnes Zientarska-Kayko, and many other volunteers. The conference featured presentations from over 20 institutions, and 163 attendees from over 30 institutions. (Summer 2019)
-
The Geospatial Centre has received a SSHRC grant to fund the project, Urbanizing Kitchener Waterloo: A Historical Geospatial Perspective. This initiative promotes quantitative historical research and facilitates visualization by 1) providing researchers with an online map and database listing one-hundred years’ worth of city directory entries, and advertisements and 2) providing users with a historical narrative related to local residential and commercial urbanization. The grant will cover the costs of hiring undergraduate and graduate students to assist the Geospatial team in geocoding, analyzing and developing an interactive web map. (Spring 2019)
-
The Instructional Design team completed 11 projects spanning various disciplines in the humanities, arts, and sciences; meeting the needs of undergraduate and graduate students and fostering relationships with campus partners, including the Writing and Communications Centre, the Centre for Extended Learning, the Office of Academic Integrity, Graduate Studies and Postdoctoral Affairs, and the Student Success Office. (Spring 2019)
-
Student Engagement collaborated with the University of Guelph to broadcast the “Representation in the Queer Community” talk by Pamela Dedman, PhD candidate in Feminist Philosophy at University of Waterloo, on June 14. (Spring 2019)
Winter 2019
-
Eva Dodsworth was invited by the Heritage Planner at the MHBC Planning Urban Design and Landscape Architecture company to present a workshop on using Google Earth for historical cartographic research. This group regularly uses the Geospatial Centre's online air photos for heritage planning. (Winter 2019)
-
Sam Gibbon has been accepted as one of two OCUL Resource Sharing representatives on the COPPUL-OCUL-CAUL-BCI Resource Sharing Agreement Working Group. These are the consortia of academic libraries that cover all the Canadian provinces. The group has been created to consider questions and make decisions on changes to the Canada-wide Resource Sharing Agreement. (Winter 2019)
-
Ryan Ball, Mary Lynne Bartlett, and Sara Perkins presented the poster Serious Fun: Student engagement = student success at the 2019 OLA Super Conference in Toronto, ON. (Winter 2019)
-
Ben Colussi completed the Leadership Essentials course. (Winter 2019)
-
Ben Colussi and Sarah Martin became co-chairs of the Library's Health, Safety and Wellness Committee. (Winter 2019)
-
Courtney Bremer gave three live presentations while attending the annual Electronic Resources & Libraries conference in Auston, Texas:
- Process mapping: How it helped one university streamline their eresources troubleshooting workflow and create efficiencies
- Standards in a ticket based system: How to provide effective customer service for access issues
- The Librarian, in the link resolver, with Excel: Using VLOOKUP to solve discoverability mysteries (Winter 2019)
- Jackie Stapleton, Laura Bredahl, and Caitlin Carter presented “Prove It! Developing Systematic Search Methods for Evidence-Based Librarianship” at the 2019 OLA Super Conference in Toronto, ON. (Winter 2019)
-
Caitlin Carter is serving a second term as Continuing Education Coordinator for the Ontario Health Libraries Association (OHLA). (Winter 2019)
-
Rachel Figueiredo collaborated with the University of Toronto’s Entrepreneurship Librarians to host the second annual in-person meeting for the National Entrepreneurship Librarians (NEL) group in January. (Winter 2019)
- Kate Mercer published the following papers in collaboration with SYDE and Pharmacy faculty members:
-
Rachel Figueiredo presented a poster at OLA 2019 to highlight research from the paper she and Carey Toane (University of Toronto) published in 2018, Toward Core Competencies for Entrepreneurship Librarians. (Winter 2019)
-
Larisa Smyk presented at Michigan Academic Library Association's Cataloging/Metadata IG Pop-Up Conference on Batch Editing Tools conference where she earned an XML and RDF-Based Systems certificate from Library Juice Academy. (Winter 2019)
- Kate Mercer, Kari D. Weaver, and Ariel Stables-Kennedy collaborated on a poster that was presented at OLA 2019 entitled Understanding Undergraduate Engineering Student Information Access and Needs: Results from a Scoping Review. (Winter 2019)
-
The Davis Reno Sub Team updated the furnishings in Davis! Designed to specifications identified by the students themselves, the 178 new carrels offer optimal individual study options. There are also new, height adjustable chairs for these carrels and the RBC Research Commons, and eight stand up carrels. (Winter 2019)
-
Geospatial Centre staff have worked closely with faculty member Kelley McClinchey this term to provide her Recreation 373 students with new GIS skills so they can incorporate geospatial technology into their term assignment. The students were offered four GIS-related workshops, allowing over 100 students in that course better access and guidance. (Winter 2019)
-
Donations for the Feds Student Food Bank were collected. Our generous staff members contributed their time and five very large bags of food and toiletries to the Federation of Students for which they were extremely grateful. The support was ongoing during the collections, and it was great to be able to help our campus community! (Winter 2019)
Fall 2018
- Sam Gibbon, Karen Davidson, Ted Harms, Nadeem Lawji, Carmen Peters, Steph Voichita and other Resource Sharing staff from Waterloo and Wilfrid Laurier University, planned and ran OCUL’s annual RACER Day at the Balsillie School, for resource sharing staff from all OCUL libraries. (Fall 2018)
- Sue Arruda, Margaret Uhde, Eva Ma and other collections maintenance staff concluded several projects, including spacing the Government Publication collection into the newly renovated section of the 3rd floor and integrating sections of the collection that had been stored in different locations during the renovation. (Fall 2018)
- Eva Ma delivered a talk on the subject of learning some basic SQL to query large amounts of Excel data, on behalf of the Library Data and Analytics Community of Practice. (Fall 2018)
- Nadeem Lawji, with Heather Bunnet-Jones, Hilary Hung and Caitlyn Sageman concluded the digitization of French Studies major research papers for inclusion in UWSpace. (Fall 2018)
- Steph Voichita and Karen Davidson completed the Leadership Essentials program, and Sarah Martin completed the Leadership Foundations program. (Fall 2018)
- Steph Voichita and Sandra Keys of the Library Knitting Club organized a Fundraising event for the United Way in November, making connections with several staff from the broader university community. (Fall 2018)
- Carmen Peters, Sarah Martin and Courtney Bremer delivered two iterations of the Social Art Luncheon to raise funds for the United Way. In addition to raising $140, the luncheon program served a dual purpose of creating a wellness break and team-building opportunity for staff. (Fall 2018)
- Carmen Peters with the support of numerous individuals, the Communications Team, and the Student Engagement Committee, developed and executed the start of the ‘Art in the Library’ special project. A biannual rotating exhibition of artworks from the University of Waterloo community will be exhibited in the Davis Centre Library until Winter 2020. (Fall 2018)
-
Caitlin Carter, along with UWaterloo Pharmacy faculty Sherilyn Houle, Kelly Grindrod, and Ross Tsuyuki, published a systematic review “Remunerated patient care services and injections by pharmacists: An international update” in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association. (Fall 2018)
-
Agnes Zientarska-Kayko gave a presentation entitled “Is a 50% Reduction of Government Doc’s Space Possible? - The Curation Weeding Dance” at the 2018 Government Information Day in Toronto. (Fall 2018)
-
An article written by Mary Lynne Bartlett and Sara Perkins was published by the British Columbia Library Association's online, open access, quarterly publication Perspectives. Entitled "Student Engagement is Serious Fun: Finding our Voice on Campus", the article illustrates our recent efforts toward "student-focused communications and outreach." (Fall 2018)
-
Jordan Hale, in cooperation with colleagues from the University of Toronto Libraries’ Media Commons, launched the Toronto Film Map; showcasing out every film and TV show set (not just filmed) in Toronto, this digital scholarship project utilizes GIS technologies, a number of licensed and open datasets, plenty of historic maps, air photos, and city directories. (Fall 2018)
-
Jackie Stapleton has participated as the information specialist for several research teams within the School of Public Health and Health Systems. As a result of these collaborations, she is a co-author on “Heart failure management in nursing homes: A scoping literature review”, in the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, and “Gaps in the evidence on population interventions to reduce consumption of sugars: A review of reviews “ in Nutrients. (Fall 2018)
-
Rachel Figueiredo, Jennifer Haas, and Siu Yu completed Waterloo’s report on Research Practices of Civil and Environmental Engineering Scholars at the University of Waterloo, as part of a larger project with Ithaka S+R. The report has been published in UWSpace and shared with the CEE department. (Fall 2018)
-
The United Way team of Courtney Bremer, Carmen Peters, Cornelia Tiba, Danielle Farr, Laurie Strome, Mary Lynne Bartlett, Mark Spencer, Sue Martin, Sandra Keys, Sara Perkins, Steph Voichita, and Sarah Martin organized 9 events over the year. We raised a total of $3,393.60 for the United Way, which is the highest amount of any department on campus! (Fall 2018)
-
The Geospatial Centre proudly shared the Kitchener Historical Street Project (1853 - 1992), an ArcGIS Online project showing the City of Kitchener's road network for various decades ranging from 1853 to 1992. This data was derived from digitized copies of old street maps of the city. It is intended to showcase the change in Kitchener's road network over the course of this time frame. (Fall 2018)
- The Library and History Department combined their efforts to present a lecture entitled Understanding the archived Web as a historical source, by Niels Brügger of Aarhus University, Denmark. (Fall 2018)
Spring/Summer 2018
- Mary Lynne Bartlett and Preethi Rao's article about mental health and the Library Ambassadors, "Promoting Mental Health through Student Engagement: Students Helping Students", was published in Voices: Topics in Canadian Librarianship a publication of Librarianship.ca (Summer 2018)
- Laura Bredahl and Peter Stirling from the Witer Learning Resource Centre (WLRC) have collaborated with the editor of the “Canadian Journal of Optometry” a publication of the Canadian Association of Optometrists to transfer hosting of the journal to the Open Journal System managed at the UWaterloo Library. This will significantly increase the discoverability of this preeminent Canadian journal. (Summer 2018)
- Alissa Droog (Library Coop Student from Western’s MLIS program), in collaboration with Laura Bredahl, Peter Stirling and the Graduate Officers at the School of Optometry and Vision Science, implemented a successful ORCID campaign that resulted in 81% of faculty within the school having an ORCID (orcid.org). (Summer 2018)
- Laura Bredahl, Alissa Droog and Peter Stirling from the Witer Learning Resource Centre (WLRC) were committee members advising a School of Optometry and Vision Science Special Topics Graduate Course that focused on bibliometric analysis of the School’s authors and publications, as well as institutional comparisons. (Summer 2018)
- Eva Dodsworth began teaching a course though the online provider Library Juice Academy, entitled Introduction to GIS and GeoWeb Technologies (Summer 2018)
- Jeffery Demaine published an article entitled “Re-discovering Forgotten Research: Sleeping Beauties at the University of Waterloo” in the Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice. (Summer 2018)
- The Library’s Copyright Librarian, Lauren Byl, and Academic Integrity Specialist, Caitlin Carter, collaborated with other campus departments on an eCampus Ontario mobile phone application that aims to “enhance student academic integrity knowledge and understanding by employing open access mobile technology with an innovative pedagogical approach.” (Summer 2018)
- The Entrepreneurship Librarian, Rachel Figueiredo, collaborated with Carey Toane from University of Toronto on research surrounding core competencies for entrepreneurship librarians. The paper, Toward core competencies for entrepreneurship librarians, was published in The Journal of Business and Finance Librarianship. (Summer 2018)
- The Digital Archivist, Danielle Robichaud, received the Talman Award from the Archives Association of Ontario, specifically for her work in implementing Calls to Action from the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. (Summer 2018)
- The Geospatial Data Librarian, Eva Dodsworth, published the book A Research Guide to Cartographic Resources, navigating the cartographic resources available to researchers, and how to locate and access them. (Summer 2018)
- The Director of Organization Services, Sharon Lamont, volunteered to serve coffee and collect donations for participating in a Timbit Toss game on Tim Horton’s Camp Day. (Summer 2018)
- Librarians Jackie Stapleton, Agnes Zientarska-Kayko and Jane Forgay, utilized their subject expertise in public health, government publications and political science information resources to support a request from Dr. David Hammond, faculty member in the School of Public Health and Health Systems. Dr. Hammond is acting as an expert witness in a court case, worth tens of billions of dollars, in which the provinces are seeking to recover health care costs from tobacco companies in Canada. Jackie, Agnes and Jane were able to link Dr. Hammond to the Library resources and services needed to ensure his access to archival documents including Canadian government publications, House of Commons debates, CTV National News transcripts, Canadian newspaper articles and more. (Spring 2018)
- Alissa Droog represented the University of Waterloo during the CRKN ORCID.ca Update Webinar in June, 2018. (Spring 2018)
- Eva Dodsworth presented her paper, The Transformation of Library Cartographic Collections to GIS Centers and Online Data Repositories, at the seventh International Conference on Cartography and GIS, in Sozopol, Bulgaria. (Spring 2018)
- Nick Richbell, with colleagues at Wilfrid Laurier University, organised the Archives Association of Ontario’s 2018 Conference along the theme of “Celebrations. The good, the bad, the ugly”. Held over 3 days at Waterloo and Laurier, over 120 attendees were welcomed to the Region in May. The conference would not have been a success without the help of Jessica Blackwell and Danielle Robichaud who both volunteered on the local host committee. (Spring 2018)
- The Library established two working groups to develop a framework for research and digital scholarship services at the library. The groups will use an evidence-based approach to examine existing models, identify researcher needs, and recommend updates to the Library’s research and digital scholarship support services. (Summer 2018)
- The Witer Learning Resource Centre (WLRC) staff have collaborated with the Canadian Association of Optometrists (CAO) to secure a new source of funding and an ongoing commitment from the association to support the Alumni Resources made available from the WLRC for all practicing optometrists who are either UWaterloo Doctor of Optometry Alumni or CAO members. (Summer 2018)
- At the closing ceremonies of the fifth Digital Pedagogy Institute Conference, at Brock Universtiy, it was announced that the University of Waterloo would host DPI 2019 . (Summer 2018)
- Bridge to 2020 strategic planning issue papers were supported by 14 Library staff members, who helped by shaping research questions, providing literature review and synthesis for each theme, and sharing expertise in bibliometrics and user experience. (Summer 2018)
- Using Open Journal Systems provided by the Library, along advice Digital Initiatives staff, the Journal of Integrative Research & Reflection launched in the spring. (Summer 2018)
- The Geospatial Centre’s historical military mapping project has been released via Scholars GeoPortal, making them available for viewing and downloading by the general public. (Summer 2018)
- Student Library Ambassadors interacted with 3500 first-year students during orientation, participating in all faculty events, WaterWho, and the campus life fair. (Summer 2018)
- Construction has finished at Dana Porter Library. The new user spaces on the third floor include a flexible learning lab, lounge space and more bookable study rooms. (Summer 2018)
- Regular student feedback sessions have been guiding and refining planned updates to the library space, furniture and signage. Sessions will continue on a bi-weekly basis, expanding our scope to include other aspects of the library user experience. (Summer 2018)
- The Student Success Office has joined the drop-in services provided by the Writing & Communication Center and the Centre for Career Action, reaching students who may not otherwise access these services. (Summer 2018)
- Goose Week (July 16 to 20), was a week of passive and active programming, engaging students with Library staff, resources, and promoting wellness. The event was supported by partnerships with Retail Services, Athletics and Recreation and Food Services. (Summer 2018)
- The Library hosted two staff sessions on staff compensation and performance reviews, ahead of implementing the performance calibration tool in the upcoming performance appraisal process. A working group of managers and staff are drafting documents to clearly outline expected behaviours and provide consistency across departments, in support of this transition. (Summer 2018)
- Library Data and Analytics Community of Practice has been hosting regular lunch and learn sessions for all staff on the topics of data, analytics and the software and tools that can support our work in these areas. (Summer 2018)
- Library staff joined others from across campus in the United Way’s March of 1000 Umbrellas to kick-off the annual fundraising campaign in the region. (Summer 2018)
- The Library partnered with the Registrar’s Office to raise enough money to have a white pine planted between Needles Hall and Dana Porter Library. (Summer 2018)
Winter 2018
- Kathy Szigeti, along with Ian D. Gordon, Patricia Meindl, and Michael White published a research article “Information Seeking Behaviors, Attitudes, and Choices of Academic Chemists” in Science & Technology Libraries. (Winter 2018)
- Kari D. Weaver presented the paper "Sociology In Action: A Comparative Study of Embedded Interventions for Improved Research and Writing in the Introduction of Sociological Research Methods", along with her former colleague, Dr. Michelle Petrie, at the Librarian’s Information Literacy Annual Conference (LILAC) in Liverpool, UK. (Winter 2018)
- William Roy became a member of the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) Open Repositories Working Group, which includes my assignment within this group as leader of the task-group on Standards for IR Usage Data to the list of accomplishments. (Winter 2018)
- Laura Bredahl presented a poster with American colleague Dede Rios at the 2018 Medical Libraries Association annual meeting “Transforming Clinicians to Published Authors: How Librarians Lead Students in Research and Scholarly Communication” which described the success of the Witer Learning Resource Centre’s series of workshops for graduate students and researchers within the School of Optometry and Vision Science. (Winter 2018)
-
The Library Data and Analytics Community of Practice hosted a viewing of Wrangling Library Data, a live all-day conference that allowed the opportunity to learn from a variety of peers and experts on how to discover more about ourselves and our patrons through our library data. Throughout the day, we had at least 18 library staff attend, and had several interesting conversations in-between the sessions. (Winter 2018)
-
The Library’s representative on the campus' Teaching and Learning Spaces Committee, organized large student events in Davis Centre with participants from around campus to gain insights on student and faculty perspectives on furnishings for flexible classroom spaces. These events are informing ongoing renovation efforts throughout campus and have provided additional valuable insights for furnishing options in our own active learning space as part of the 3rd floor renovation currently underway. (Winter 2018)
- Various Library staff were quoted in an article, "Library staff recommend books on your tattoos" by The Waterloo Region Record. (Winter 2018)
Fall 2017
- Jenny Hirst in collaboration with the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (ICCA) has created new Canadian standards for developing flood-resilient communities, a study of the role of wetlands in mitigating rural flood damage; this study wa used at a UN Disaster Risk Reduction conference in China. (Fall 2017)
- Members of the Collections Development department and LibExec participated in an initial assessment of several factors that have impacted the Library's Collections budget over the past decade, in order to produce a budget program briefing document with key data visualizations for the Deputy Provost. (Fall 2017)
- Official launch and first meeting of the Library Data and Analytics Community of Practice; the CoP currently has a membership of 18 internal staff. (Fall 2017)
- The Geospatial Centre, along with the Faculty of Environment hosted the annual GIS Day event on November 15th in the Geospatial Centre and the Flex Lab. This event included a Geospatial Centre Open House, Lightning Talks, and a Mapathon, where participants mapped and placed 200 buildings in Stratford on the OpenStreetMap online platform. The ‘traditional GIS Day cake’ was served and door prizes, courtesy of Simply Analytics, were given. Approximately 100 visitors attended. (Fall 2017)
- The Digital Initiatives department began the Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal (RAMP) for UW's Institutional Repository, UWSpace. RAMP is a web service that improves the accuracy of IR analytics by integrating with Google Search Console and Google Analytics to improve the count of file downloads. (Fall 2017)
Spring/Summer 2017
- Siu Hong Yu and Jennifer Haas each completed the Ithaka S+R training in the semi-structured interview methodology being used in the multi-site study of research practices of civil and environmental engineering scholars. (Summer 2017)
- Jackie Stapleton collaborated with School of Public Health and Health Systems researchers on a journal article publication, "Applying systematic review search methods to the grey literature: a case study examining guidelines for school-based breakfast programs in Canada" that describes novel methods for conducting a grey literature systematic search. The article has been accessed over 5500 times and is in the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric, a tool which measures online attention and activity including Twitter, Facebook, and other social media tools. (Summer 2017)
- Sarah Brown and Jackie Stapleton offered a new workshop, “Systematic Reviews for Social Science Researchers”, to students. Drawing on their experience as collaborators on systematic review research teams, this workshop outlines systematic review methodology with a focus on social science research questions and information sources. Registration quickly exceeded capacity and a second workshop is being held this winter. (Summer 2017)
- Mary Lynne Bartlett is consulting on a fourth year Knowledge Integration thesis for one of the Library Ambassadors. The thesis is exploring how students engage with the Library and will include a recommendation report that will be able to be incorporated into our training, activities, and promotion. (Summer 2017)
- Kate Mercer published two papers and wrapped up a project where she co-supervised a co-op student. She has been invited to be a mentor & judge for a most recent Hack4Health event. Kate's two papers are:
-
Caitlin Carter co-authored three chapters in the Association of Faculties of Pharmacy of Canada (AFPC) and Canada Health Infoway’s e-Resource called “Informatics for Pharmacy Students.” This e-Resource is used by the 10 Canadian pharmacy faculties across Canada and it is incorporated into various pharmacy courses, as the content is competency-based. The e-Resource prepares pharmacy students for providing effective patient care using drug information resources and various communication technologies (e.g. electronic health records). The content is very interactive and is presented in the form of virtual patients, quizzes, polls, etc., and students are able to download and save certificates of completion after working through each chapter. In addition, Caitlin is the Continuing Education Coordinator for the Ontario Health Libraries Association (OHLA). This role involves recruiting and scheduling CE presenters for the members of OHLA. Caitlin also co-authored an encyclopedia chapter which will be published in Spring 2018 by Elsevier. The chapter is called “Evidence-based medicine: an overview for pharmacists” and it will be published in the “Encyclopedia of Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Pharmacy” and is in the process of being reviewed. (Summer 2017)
- Sharon Lamont has been named to the Accessibility Advisory Committee, and will be co-chairing the Excellence Canada People driver working group. (Summer 2017)
- Eva Dodsworth, as the editor of the journal “Bulletin” for the Association of Canadian Map Libraries and Archives (ACMLA), published the journal's final print issue in November, 2017; as they move on to a digital version using University of Waterloo’s Open Journal Systems (OJS). Eva spent some time working with William Roy in setting up the online OJS platform. This journal focuses on cartographic and geographic information systems (GIS) content, often contributed by Map and GIS Librarians in Canada, but more recently from the U.S. as well. Eva also was invited to present a four hour workshop on GIS and GeoWeb technologies to the Rochester Regional Library Counsel (RRLC) in November, 2017. (Summer 2017)
- Markus Wieland is participating in an ongoing collaboration with the Intact Centre on Climate Adaptation (ICCA), which has created new Canadian standards for developing flood-resilient communities; the study of the role of wetlands in mitigating rural flood damage for the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry, which their director, Natalia Moudrak, recently used at a UN Disaster Risk Reduction conference in China. Markus also recently became a member of the Waterloo Institute for Sustainable Energy (WISE). (Summer 2017)
- Jenny Hirst became a member of the Continuing Education Working Group's Dashboards and Data Visualization Project for Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL). In addition, Jenny, along with Collections Development and LibExec, conducted an initial assessment of factors that impacted the Library's Collections budget over the past decade. This was in order to produce a budget program briefing document with key data visualizations for the Deputy Provost. (Summer 2017)
- Collaboration between the Library, the Institute for Computer Research, and faculty members from the School of Computer Science and the Department of History led to the University of Waterloo agreeing to host a Council on Library and Information Resources Postdoctoral Fellow in software curation. (Summer 2017)
- The Student Engagement Committee put on Library Day to celebrate our patrons. In the past we have celebrated Library Day on Halloween, but this year we decided to shake things up a bit by hosting a fall fair. The fair was very well received by students, faculty, and staff. We had carnival games, prizes, popcorn, apples, and tiddlywinks. (Summer 2017)
- The Library Ambassadors were invited to be part of the Mascot Parade in October as part of the Mental Health and Wellness walk around campus. Two Ambassadors, Mary Lynne Bartlett, and Scholar the goose walked around Ring Road with our campus community. The Library Ambassadors are also now part of the EDGE certificate program. (Summer 2017).
-
The Student Engagement Committee worked with Campus Police, the Secretariat, Custodial Services, and St. John’s Ambulance to bring therapy dogs into Dana Porter Library for students around mid-terms. 90 students participated over the course of the two day event. (Summer 2017)
-
The Student Engagement Committee recently implemented our newest mascot, Roget Thesaurus, a dinosaur which brings stress relief and humour to students. On his first day Roget sat at the Assignment and Research Help Desk, students were giving it high-fives, taking selfies, and smiling. Staff also got in on the fun and stopped by to take pics and see what Roget was doing. Roget is being shared between Dana Porter, Davis Centre, and Musagetes Library. (Summer 2017)
- The Geospatial Centre staff worked with Instructional Technologies and Media Services for a few months over the summer and early Fall term to create a promotional video for the Geospatial Centre. This video is currently being played during our instruction sessions as it summarizes our services very efficiently. (Summer 2017)
- Official launch and first meeting of the Library Data and Analytics Community of Practice; the CoP currently has a membership of 18 internal staff. (Summer 2017)
- The Digital Initiatives department on-boarded RAMP (Repository Analytics and Metrics Portal) for UW's Institutional Repository UWSpace. RAMP is a web service that improves the accuracy of IR analytics by integrating with Google Search Console and Google Analytics to improve the count of file downloads. (Summer 2017)