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Beginning Monday, September 9, 2013, during our extended hours period, 2-hr reserve materials that are signed out overnight will be due 1-hour after opening the next day, allowing you a little extra time to sleep study in the morning.

Please note that one should not try to return reserves, or any other library materials, between 1 am and 7 am, as the building is closed.

One can sign 2-hr reserve items out overnight within 2 hours of closing. Here are the details of the hours:

Mondays-Thursdays (library hours: 8 am – 11 pm)

2-hr reserve material signed out after 9 pm are due at 9 am the next day.

Fridays (library hours: 8 am – 6 pm)

2-hr reserve material signed out after 4 pm are due at 10 am the next day.

Saturdays (library hours: 9 am – 6 pm)

2-hr reserve material signed out after 4 pm are due at 12 pm (noon) the next day.

Sundays (library hours: 11 am – 8 pm)

2-hr reserve material signed out after 6 pm are due at 9 am the next day.

Exceptions

Thanksgiving—We are closed on Monday, October 14^th, 2013.

2-hr reserve material signed out after 6 pm on Sunday, October 13^th, 2013, will be due Tuesday, October 15^th, 2013, at 9 am.

Winter Break—We close at 5 pm on Wednesday, December 23^rd, 2013.

2-hr reserve material signed out after 3 pm on Wednesday, December 23^rd, 2013, will be due Thursday, January 2^nd, 2014, at 9 am.

Family Day—We are closed on Monday, February 17th^th, 2014.

2-hr reserve material signed out after 6 pm on Sunday, February 16^th, 2014, will be due Tuesday, February 18^th, 2014, at 9 am.

Good Friday—We are closed on Friday, April 18th^th, 2014.

2-hr reserve material signed out after 9 pm on Thursday, April 17^th, 2014, will be due Saturday, April 19^th, 2014, at 10 am.

For further information on our hours please see our Hours of Operation page.

Sophie Bury, Business Librarian & Head, Bronfman Business Library
Published Wednesday August 28, 2013

So you talked and we listened! During the most recent academic year the Schulich student body and the Office of the Dean of Schulich communicated a strong interest in longer Bronfman Business Library opening hours to support study needs.

In the short-term we responded by extending our hours in the run-up to exams and during the exam period in Winter term 2013. We extended our hours for four solid weeks from Mar. 25^th to Apr. 21^st, and offered longer hours on six out of the seven days each week! At the time we both blogged and tweeted about this to spread the happy word. The fact that this was our most popular tweet of the year also made us pay attention!

The final outcome, we hope you’ll agree, is a pretty awesome one! Commencing Sept. 9^th 2013 (the first day of Fall classes) we will be offering longer opening hours at the Bronfman Business Library every day of the week (Monday to Sunday) for the length of the Fall term (until the exam period ends).

This marks the breaking of new ground for us. We hope you love our longer opening hours and that our usage statistics (and comments!) will tell a tale of a gap in your study needs unmet to date.

Here’s a summary of the new hours which will apply this Fall term totalling an additional eleven hours of opening time:

Mon.- Thurs.              8 am – 11 pm [we used to open at 9 am and close at 10 pm]

Fri.                              8 am – 6 pm   [we used to open at 9 am]

Sat.                             9 am – 6 pm [we used to open at 10 am and close at 6pm]
Sun.                           11 am – 8 pm [we used to open at 12 pm and close at 8 pm]

Published Wednesday July 17^th, 2013

We got some love the other day online (wahoo!), and I think that these two posts bring to light a really important issue about our space here at Bronfman: not only is it beautiful and well suited for study, but it’s open to all students, regardless of the program that you are enrolled in.

The first post on YU Awesome highlights that we are open to all business students, drawing your attention to all of our awesome business-related services: research help, materials, group study rooms, and our silent study room (when not even typing will do! – it’s completely silent in there, no laptops allowed).

The second post on Your Libraries at York blog is actually a student comment made in response to a first blog post by our University Librarian on the coolest place to study at York. In this post, Sobia notes the beautiful space and natural lighting of Bronfman that really help her to get the best out of her studying.

EDIT: I forgot to mention this from @wwoolrich that had us laughing out loud!!!

Note to library worked! Thanks @Bronfmanlibrary ! Went to re-borrow the book. They’re all “hey, it’s the tabs guy!” http://t.co/geX4yfsJlL

— William Woolrich (@wwoolrich) July 4, 2013

But, have you seen our little squeezy friends at the Reference Desk in Bronfman?

These were brought to us one evening secretly by some kind of magical elves, obviously, because one moment we were working away helping some students with research questions and borrowing books and they were suddenly there!

I’m kidding, but it’s true that we weren’t sure at first where they came from. It turns out they were brought to us by the folks over at Mental Health at York University. They have noted on their website that a recent study found that “64% of current York U students find academic work traumatic or stressful.”¹

We’ve found (anecdotally, of course) that these two little friends at the desk have been helpful friends to some of you! Some students have come and borrowed one for a squeeze during some study time, and then promptly returned it back to us when they were finished up! And, we… well, we just think this is excellent!

So, if it’s not just easy peasy, try these little ones at the desk. Or you can always try googling ‘basset hounds running’ – that’s always good for a light-hearted chuckle. After a few minutes there, you should be well prepped to get back to the books.

Take care! And remember, we’re here to help.

Wednesday Mar. 27, 2013

For the first time in 5 years, The Bronfman Business Library has extended its hours!

Back in 2007 we extended our hours for two weekends, once during the fall, and once during the spring, by extending our Friday, Saturday and Sunday hours. This year we have broken new ground, by extending hours for four solid weeks, and extending hours on six out of the seven days each week!

Mondays          9 am – 11 pm [we normally close at 10 pm]
Tuesdays         9 am – 11 pm [we normally close at 10 pm]
Wednesdays    9 am – 11 pm [we normally close at 10 pm]
Thursdays        9 am – 11 pm [we normally close at 10 pm]

Fridays             9 am – 6 pm   [no change]

Saturdays        10 am – 7 pm [we normally close at 6 pm]
Sundays          11 am – 8 pm [we normally open at noon]

The extended hours started on Monday, March 25.
The extended hours will end on Sunday, April 21.

Published Thursday Mar. 14, 2013

As assignment deadlines approach, remember the BBL (Bronfman Business Library) reference team is available to help you out!

Need help finding more articles on your assignment topic? Could you do with a hand identifying more sources of information on the industry you are researching for an assignment? Need help with gathering financial data on a company you need to investigate for a project you are working on? Need guidance on citing the information you’ve found correctly?

These are the types of queries that our qualified business information experts at the Bronfman Business Library can help you with. We are very happy to point you to a rich range of e-resources or print information available at the Bronfman Business Library (BBL) that can play a crucial role in notching your assignment up to a higher level! So if getting your hands on relevant information for an assignment is a source of stress, stress no more, our BBL reference team are at hand to help you out! We look forward to helping you!

Our reference team is here to guide and advise you in-person, by phone and virtually nearly the whole time the Bronfman Business Library (BBL) is open. That is: Monday to Thursday: 9 a.m.-7.30 p.m., Friday: 9 a.m.-6.00 p.m., Saturday: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. and Sunday: 12 p.m.-8 p.m. If you prefer to connect with us by chat you’ll see the option to chat with us on every web page of the BBL web site. Also you can e-mail us at bgref@yorku.ca and expect a response from us within 24 hours and finally you are welcome to contact us by phone at 416 736 5139.

Our team comprises seven people. We are:  Sophie Bury, Colin Deinhart, June Hill, Xuemei Li, Amy Menary, Kim Stymest, and Rebecca Segal. You can find more information about all of us at our BBL staff information page and we encourage you to feel comfortable approaching any of us at our reference desk at any time.

Rebecca Segal is the newest member of our team and we were delighted to welcome her aboard in February of this year. Carey Toane who posted to this blog in Fall Term 2012 has now left us for a full-time term position as a Business Librarian at the Bud Johnston Library at the University of Western Ontario. We wish her every success and were lucky to have her with us in the earlier half of this year. We also extend our thanks to Bill Denton who also worked as a member of our reference team part-time during this academic year but now works full-time at the Steacie Science & Engineering Library.

Image Source: http://www.librarian-image.net

Sophie Bury, Business Librarian & Head Bronfman Business Library

Published Friday Nov. 23, 2012

My name is Sophie Bury and I’ve been at York University since May 2003 and boy has time flown since then! My role at York during the past nine years or so has primarily been one of business librarian. I love being a librarian, even though I was not impressed when my late mother suggested to me, as a final-year undergraduate in 1992, that I might think of becoming one in my future career! I think I suffered from the influence of stereotypical images a bit like this one shown here. Ah, but didn’t she know me so well!  And heck, if one of my favourite vocal artists, Tori Amos, can title a whole album “Tales of a Librarian” and classify the songs in it with Dewey Decimal call numbers, there must be something cool going on with this profession! And so my current image of what it is to be a librarian has changed dramatically and I now like to think we’re really “A Hipper Crowd of Shushers”, as a quite recent New York Times article explains.  Check it out!

The role of business librarian at York is quite varied and my favourite part of the job is undoubtedly the public service element including helping students with their research, as well as teaching sessions about how to find, use, evaluate and cite business information sources as part of workshops and classes. Librarians like to describe this as “information literacy” – often non-librarians don’t know what we are talking about which is, admittedly, an issue – but it’s an important life-long learning skill and if you’ve got it there’s research to show it translates in to academic success, while being a transferable skill that employers often value.

In early July 2012 my role at the Bronfman Business Library changed when I assumed the role of Head of the library for a five-year term. I feel lucky to have learned so much from senior colleagues, especially Elizabeth Watson (founding Head of the Bronfman Business Library) and Toni Olshen (former business librarian and Associate University Librarian). I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity to take on this new role and every day is varied and stimulating and brings new opportunities and challenges. In academic librarianship we experience an information world that is rapidly changing and where technology is constantly evolving and so we are always kept on our toes and never bored! Indeed, in my experience, it’s very rare to find an academic librarian who doesn’t love their job. So, not surprisingly, a big part of the joy of this position is that I work alongside very talented and motivated librarians and staff, some of whom have already introduced themselves to you on this blog. More introductions will follow, so stay tuned…

In terms of other things to share with you, I’ll just mention that I have a number of research and professional interests and if you are interested you can read more about them on my professional web site (http://sophiebury.ca). A bonus of being an academic librarian at many universities in Canada is that you are basically expected to attend and present at professional conferences and to engage in some research.

Let me conclude by expressing my sincere hope that you’ll feel comfortable approaching me if you have any suggestions or concerns about library services or resources at the Bronfman Business Library. We want students and other patrons to feel welcome in our space and comfortable approaching us for help at our reference desk or circulation/reserve desk and through other means including our online reference chat service. If you see a librarian’s office door open and you have a library-related or research question, please feel free to approach us. My office is the second door on the left when you enter the Bronfman Business Library.

We’re aware assignment deadlines are looming, so remember we are here to help and we hope you enjoy our quiet study atmosphere as you prepare for assignment deadlines and get ready for end-of term exams. Remember the holiday season will be upon us before long and then we all get to take a well-earned break!

Published Friday, Nov. 16, 2012

My name is Carey, and I have database envy. Or rather, I did, before I started working as a reference librarian at Bronfman.

I haven’t always been a librarian, you know. In my past life, I was a journalist. Aside from the occasional freelance newspaper piece and one very fun gig as a web columnist on business etiquette (think “How to shake hands in 10 different languages”), I worked at magazines. Magazines are ideal for chatty people like me: why say in 500 words what you can say in 1,500?

More specifically, I worked in trade magazines, covering the Canadian marketing industry. I like to think of it as “business lite.” The typical story contained a few numbers and a LOT of pictures.

I didn’t choose the field as much as it chose me. My first job out of j-school (that’s journalism school to you) was as a staff writer at Marketing Magazine, where I wrote about homegrown advertising campaigns, interviewed bombastic creative directors, and tried to wrap my head around media buys. This thing called the internet was just taking off then, and there were loft parties featuring DJs and trampolines and rooms carpeted with real live grass thrown by dot-com companies whose names I can’t remember, which is okay because none of them exist anymore, anyway. This was called “research.” But I digress.

After an extended stint as a web copywriter and a pause for a master’s degree, I came back to journalism and got a job as an editor at strategy magazine, the direct competitor to Marketing. At strategy I interviewed dozens of VPs marketing and CEOs of major Canadian brands, from LG to Ford to Lululemon to McDonald’s. To prepare for an interview, I would trawl the company website for annual reports and press releases, and read every profile and article I could find online. I was Facebook friends with more corporations than I care to admit. Depending on the company, there was either a rushing river of information or, in many cases, a trickle.

If only I’d had access then to the kind of databases we have at Bronfman. Sometimes I walk into the library and resist the urge to skip and frolic like Veruca Salt in Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Room. Market share? Child’s play! Industry forecasts? Sustainability reports? Supply chain? Check, check, check. The research tools we have are so tantalizing, I’m surprised that more business journalists don’t pose as Schulich students at the reference desk. (Be warned: I will spot you if you try.)

I can honestly say that my motivation to become a librarian had much to do with finding a cure for this database envy. There’s nothing more satisfying than finding the answer to your question. I’m the kind of person who likes to have it all at her fingertips. And now, relatively speaking, I do.

Handshake by Aidan Jones, via Flickr

It’s a very ancient saying,
But a true and honest thought,
That if you become a teacher,
By your pupils you’ll be taught.

Anyone? Anyone? No? Le sigh. Okay, well that was from The King and I. Wait… how about this?

♪ ♫Getting to know you,
Getting to know all about you.
Getting to like you,
Getting to hope you like me.♫ ♪

Any better? You’re supposed to be singing this in your head… Maybe? I thought so.

So, yes, I am a giant geek. But I am also a new librarian here at the Bronfman Library. And yes, I would like to get to know you.

But why would you like to get to know me??? An excellent question; thank you for asking.

I come to you from positions with the federal and provincial governments, where I had been working as a Research Specialist. I like to think myself pretty good with company, industry and economic information and generally, a creative researcher. Before all that, I worked as the Business Librarian at UOIT and worked primarily with students in Accounting and Finance (but we have a Finance Librarian here, Xuemei – she’s pretty awesome and I suggest you try working with her!). Now that I’m at Bronfman, I will be working in the areas of Accounting & Audit, Taxation, Corporate Governance and a few others. I’m also responsible for Bronfman’s social media presence, like this here blog, our tweetertweeter and Facebook.

Hmmm…. Let me think. What else can I tell you… My educational background is not in business, but Women’s Studies and Social & Political Thought here at York. I did my Master’s in Information Studies (what we need to become full-fledged librarians) at the University of Toronto. What else, what else, what else? I’m learning to knit, enjoy cooking, recently got married, and I grew up on a farm. It’s true. We even still have a donkey.

Stop by my office or while I’m at the Reference Desk and we can chat some more if
you like. And I’d be really happy to help you out with any of the research that you’ll be working on or hear any comments or ideas that you might have for our social media endeavours!

I can always feel the shift in the atmosphere as March ends and we move to April.  Students are tense and over-tired from finishing assignments and preparing for exams, not to mention worrying about employment!

This year has been particularly cruel as we enjoyed a few days of summer temperatures and warming sunlight only to be thrust back to dull skies and chilly temperatures.  The Schulich School of Business courtyard, which just last week was full of energy and socializing is empty now.  Well just as well I guess, as it’s crunch time and as much as it’s great to have some diversions, is it wise to be tempted at this time of year?

Hang in there!   Only a few more weeks and this term will be over.

If the library staff can help in any way with your research needs we are here for you.  You can come to the reference desk, email us bgref@yorku.ca, phone us 416-736-5139 or chat with us via our chat reference service http://www.library.yorku.ca/cms/bbl/peter-f-bronfman-business-library/im/

Good luck on your exams and finishing your assignments.