Trip to Seattle (part 4)

Posted on February 24, 2014 by matthewmurray

Earlier this year we went down to Seattle to visit the student ALA group there. We had a great time! Here are photos of some of the things we saw.

Here’s part one, part two, and part three.

So in between hanging out with library students, and checking out lots of libraries, we also had time to do some other stuff while we were down in Seattle!

We rode buses!

We checkde out the Seattle Public Market (comics and books and pastries!)

And fish I guess. I tried to ignore those.

And this thing! The gum wall! How on earth does this thing have a Wikipedia article?

Vancouver is clearly missing out by not having a tourist attraction this gross.

Plus: Mysterious robots!

And cephalopods! They led us to a store that sold sexy librarian embroidery patterns.

Even when we’re not being library nerds, we’re being library nerds.

Trip to Seattle (part 3)

Posted on February 17, 2014 by matthewmurray

Earlier this year we went down to Seattle to visit the student ALA group there. We had a great time! Here are photos of some of the things we saw.

Here’s part one, and part two.

Next up was our visit to Suzzalo and Allen Libraries!

To be honest, I’m a little surprised nobody has broken this. Maybe it’s just really solid?

Once inside we had some time to kill before our tour started. Our intrepid leader/ALA Chair managed to find a jigsaw puzzle to pass the time.

Even better! One with no bumpy edge bits to help.

Up the stairs.

Gotta love science themed stained glass windows.

You can’t really read this but the library claims to have the world’s largest book.

It doesn’t actually look that big to me. I feel like I could just go out and bind some posters or something. I guess there’s some “official” guidelines as to what a book is.

Really cool looking, but also empty. Apparently it is really cold and there are no electrical outlets.

On the left of our group is our rad tour guide Caitlan!

Fancy globe.

The University of Washington Media ~~Centre~~ Center!

Hilariously I had asked only minutes before if they had laser discs.

I think this was one of the places where the tables were also whiteboards.

Super huge (28 foot, 8.5 metre) pre-historic crocodile!

They have a recurring theme of birds throughout the library.

A lot of them are carrying stuff, signifying various types of knowledge I think.

I really liked the pun-ny name of this collection. For those that don’t get it the Puget Sound is the body of water that Seattle is built on.

February 4th, 2014 meeting minutes!

Posted on February 16, 2014 by matthewmurray

PDF of February 4th, 2014 ALA Meeting minutes

ALA @ UBC Student Chapter Meeting
February 4, 2014
Trail Room, 1:00pm

Attendees: Anna Ferri, Carolyn Heine, Matthew Murray, Mark Christensen, Hedda Monaghan, Chelsea Shriver, Matthew Root, Sadie Tucker, Lauren Washok, Krista Paham, and Rebecca Lahr

Agenda:

1. Seattle Recap

Purpose of the trip: to forge ties with the University of Washington ALA Student Chapter. They are the closest viable student chapter
Trip went well.
Tours: included the Law Library, Odegaard (undergrad) Library, Suzzallo Library, Allen Library, and Seattle Public Library
tours conducted by student workers
Resulted in several invitations to present/attend conferences, including the iYouth Conference in early February and the Washington Library Association Conference.
Matthew M. is publishing weekly blog posts about the trip
Need to coordinate for a possible reciprocal trip
- Mid-late April
- Volunteers needed to host students and plan tours and a pub night

2. Freedom to Read Week

BCLA/CLA has spearheaded the event
- They will send a google doc around so people can sign up for reading times and/or proctoring times
  - Update: Chelsea will send Kaja (our liaison) last year’s google doc as a template
- Posters will be created by the end of the week
- Bookmarks will be distributed

3. Publishing Panel

Doodle Poll: Students want to focus on Academic Libraries (how do libraries and publishers interact?)
Chelsea is in contact with Morgan G. to secure panelists
Each panelist: 5-10 min. introduction about themselves and what they do
Open Q+A at the end
Possible Google Doc for students to submit Q’s?
March 25th: tentative date
- Carolyn will attempt to book the Dodson or Lilloet Room from 12:00-2:00

4. T-shirt Design Contest

Members are interested in doing something besides t-shirts
Suggestions include buttons, patches, stickers, mugs, and tote bags
Chelsea will create and distribute a doodle poll to decide what type of paraphernalia will be used

5. Next Meeting?

LASSA has asked us if we can move our meeting so we are not in conflict with their event
Wednesday, March 5th @ 12:00pm (Sadie will book the room)

Freedom to Read, February 25th, 2014

Posted on February 11, 2014 by matthewmurray

Freedom to Read Week, February 23rd – March 1st, 2014, is “an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms” (http://www.freedomtoread.ca/).

ALA at UBC is proud to be partnering with BCLA/CLA at UBC in order to promote greater awareness about censorship and intellectual freedom! In order to do so we’re having an awesome event on Tuesday, February 25th from 10:00am-3:30pm in the Lillooet Room.

10:00am-12:00pm
Read-A-Thon! As in past years we’re inviting you (yes you!) to read an excerpt (up to ten minutes) from your favourite banned or challenged book. Not sure what to read? That’s no problem! There’s a huge list here on the Freedom to Read website. Plus we’ll have a number of books available for people to read from.

12:00pm-1:30pm
Author Panel! We’ve invited a number of local authors to come and talk about their personal experiences with censorship. It’s sure to be interesting!

Susin Nielsen: Author of “Word Nerd”
Kathryn Shoemaker: UBC Professor & Illustrator of “A Telling Time”
Judi Saltman: UBC iSchool Professor

1:30pm-3:30pm
Read-A-Thon! Couldn’t make it in the morning? Suddenly inspired by the author panel? There’s still plenty of time to read something scandalous to a room full of your peers.

We’ll also have a table in the foyer of IKBLC from 10:00am-12:00pm to let students know about Freedom to Read week and the Read-A-Thon!

PLUS! Koerner Library will be participating in Freedom to Read Week with displays on their third floor and information posters throughout the library. They’ll also be at our event with a Freedom-to-Read themed game (and prizes!).

If you want to participate in the marathon read, either as a reader or as a room monitor, please sign up here!

There will be snacks!

Trip to Seattle (part 2)

Posted on February 10, 2014 by matthewmurray

A few weeks ago we went on a trip to visit the student ALA group at the University of Washington! Here’s the first set of photos.

The second library we visited was the Odegaard Library, which was apparently the undergraduate library.

We didn’t get an official tour of this one, but we had a good time wandering around and looking at stuff.

It had only recently finished being remodelled, so even our hosts hadn’t seen it all!

There were hundreds of giant Apple computers. I can’t imagine how much they cost.

There were also some computers set up for video editing. Check out that beast of a monitor on the right!

I checked to make sure they had the important books available.

I found this sign hilarious.

What do you put directly below a sign saying “PRINT”? Why DVDs of course!

Trip to Seattle (part 1)

Posted on February 3, 2014 by matthewmurray

Recently a number of us at UBC went down to meet up with the student ALA group at the University of Wasington iSchool! It was a super great time, we met lots of awesome people, and got to check out some neat libraries. (Oh, and by the way border guards think it’s kind of weird when you say you went to Seattle to meet up with a student group and go on tours of libraries…)

Here’s a sign at the entrance to their iSchool (and they actually call it that!).

Here we are walking towards the first library we visited: the Gallagher Law Library!

Jonathan, a student in UW’s Law Librarian program, gave us a great tour!

Lots of study space!

You can see the compact shelving in the background.

Here you can just about see everyone on the trip (excluding me)! From left: David, Sarah, Jonathan (all UW students), Kelsey, Eka (at the very back), Anna, and Daisy.

This popsicle wasn’t at UW, but it was the first thing I took a photo of during this trip.