Whether you’re looking to design or refine an app, link hardware to software or create a program prototype, Steacie Library’s first Dungeon Hackfest will be the perfect place for computer programmers, coders and computer aficionados to collaborate.

Steacie Science and Engineering Library will be hosting the Dungeon Hackfest on Feb. 21, from 9 to 5:30pm in the library’s basement computer lab. The event is open to all York community members.

Hackfests have become increasingly popular in computer science and engineering circles and Steacie Library’s Dungeon Hackfest will follow a typical model of collaborative coding and computer programming in the spirit of open source innovations. Participants will be encouraged to discuss their “hack” ideas, consult with each other and draw upon differing areas of expertise.

Lunch and refreshments will be provided to all registered participants. For more information, contact Science Librarian Sarah Shujah, at sshujah@yorku.ca.

January 16, 2013

York University Libraries, in conjunction with the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation, are sponsoring the University’s first annual Undergraduate Research Fair, to take place on Feb. 27 in the Scott Library Collaboratory (second floor).

The Undergraduate Research Fair’s Steering Committee requests instructors consider worthy research projects that have recently been graded and encourage qualified students to participate. Student applications are due by Jan. 25.

Students view the poster outlining the Undergraduate Research Fair, which will take place in the Scott Library Collaboratory at York’s Keele campus on Feb. 27

As York’s first multidisciplinary Undergraduate Research Fair, participation in 2012-2013 is extended to students in the Faculties of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, Environmental Sciences, Fine Arts and Glendon. There is an intent to expand the fair campus-wide in future years.

Undergraduate students in any year of study are encouraged to submit a graded, research-based paper, project or honours thesis prepared between March 2012 and Jan. 2013, along with a 250-word abstract. Projects may be submitted in languages other than English, but the application abstract must be in English.  Fair participants will be selected by the steering committee, comprised of faculty members and librarians.

“I’m excited to see this (Undergraduate Research Fair) developing and expect it will attract a lot of student attention,” says Lisa Philipps, associate vice president of Research & Innovation and fair adviser.

The fair – poster sessions presented in a friendly ‘market place’ environment – is intended to showcase undergraduate student researchers and their work. In addition to gaining valuable presentation experience and earning a chance to win an award of $500 or $600, student participants will receive a signed certificate honouring their contribution to the University’s refereed Undergraduate Research Fair to add to their resumés. Award winners may have their papers published in a journal sponsored by the Libraries and all participants will be celebrated at a reception during the Fair, which faculty, friends and family are welcome to attend.

“We hope that this new fair will support York’s goals to build an engaged university, enhance the local research culture and improve student retention by offering a forum for undergraduates to share their research outside the classroom in a cross-curricular environment,”  explains Associate University Librarian and Fair Steering Committee member, Catherine Davidson.

Visit the Undergraduate Research Fair website for information on eligibility, awards, submission requirements and an application form.

On Nov. 5, more than 2000 students taking courses at Glendon Campus received a special gift in the form of a new study area in Frost Library. Glendon Principal Kenneth McRoberts, University Librarian Cynthia Archer, York student ambassador Jaclyn Volkhammer and Acting Department Head of Frost Library Sarah Coysh, jointly unveiled the Frost Library’s first major renovation in almost 50 years.

From left, University Librarian, Cynthia Archer,  student ambassador, Jaclyn Volkhammer, and Glendon Principal, Kenneth McRoberts, cut the ceremonial ribbon and unveil Frost Library’s new Fireside Reading Room

Faculty, staff, students and donors attending the unveiling were the first to see the former “Reserves Room” transformed into a multi-modular, student-centred space. The aptly named “Fireside Reading Room” boasts a comfortable seating area nestled around a fireplace, four large collaborative study spaces and a bank of eight additional computer carrels.

In an effort to make the space more conducive to the evolving needs of York’s 21st-century students, open dialogues and student focus groups were conducted. Under the leadership of Architect Michael Guido and Project Manager Sean Thibeault, work on renovating the space began in last spring.

The Leslie Frost Library was York’s first library and has been an integral part of both the Glendon and York communities for the past five decades.

McRoberts welcomed guests to the reception with his opening remarks. “I’ve known many libraries over my life. I’ve spent a great deal of time in them and have developed a real love for libraries,” McRoberts explained. “But there’s no library that is more loveable than this one. This is a library that has really contributed to the community, which is appreciated by the community, and has a very special place at Glendon.”

Volkhammer spoke about what the renovated space will mean to Glendon’s students. “My favourite part of the renovation is the fireplace and the seats around it. Frost [Library] already seems like my home on campus – I think I probably spend more time in the library than in residence! It’s fitting that there’s a room like this. It wouldn’t seem out of place in your home.”

Archer spoke of the continued commitment by the York University Libraries to refreshing the student experience at Frost Library. “We are committed to revitalizing Frost Library’s welcoming atmosphere as funds become available,” Archer said. “The creation of the Fireside Reading Room is just a start. Our vision for Frost Library is to completely renovate the first floor so we can continue to serve a student population with diverse learning styles and technological needs.”

The first phase of the renovation was made possible because of York University Libraries’ donors.

To conclude the reception a video titled “Rediscover Frost Library” was screened. The video features Glendon alumni and Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies Professors Emeriti John Lennox ’67, J. Paul Grayson ’67, Bob Drummond ’67, and current Glendon students, Emma Price, Drew Pinkerton and Alexandra Tangorra. The six reminisce about their first impressions of Frost Library, with memories that span five decades. They discuss how the renovated space will affect a new generation of learners.

York University Libraries partnered with Learning Technology Services (LTS) to create the three-minute video that celebrates Frost Library’s past while focusing on its future. “Many of Glendon’s alumni and donors are spread across the country and the world. We knew many of them wouldn’t have the opportunity to see, first hand, the renovation that resulted from their generosity,” says Coysh. “The ‘Rediscover Frost Library’ video allows us to show our appreciation through a medium that can be easily disseminated and shared among our Frost Library supporters – on websites and through social media.”

View Frost Library’s newly renovated Fireside Reading Room. Watch the Rediscover Frost Library video or view the FlickR gallery.

Associate Librarian of Humanities and Religion, Scott McLaren, has been awarded a prestigious Botein Fellowship by the American Antiquarian Society (AAS). McLaren will spend the month of November at the AAS in Worcester Massachusetts extending research he began in his dissertation on early Upper Canadian religious print culture. Specifically, McLaren wants to deepen his understanding of the role Upper Canadian Sunday schools played in spreading literacy across the colony.

Receiving the Botein Fellowship for research in the history of the book in American culture will grant McLaren access to the AAS library that houses approximately two-thirds of all American publications produced between 1640 and 1876.

Access to America’s earliest publications may seem counterintuitive to a study of Upper Canadian Sunday schools, but McLaren knows this literature will have a profound influence on his research. “Sunday school libraries in Upper Canada started to take shape in the 1820s and in many ways they functioned as the colony’s first ‘public’ libraries, especially for those living outside of urban regions,” McLaren explains. “However, many of these schools followed American models and imported all their books from New York.” For these reasons, Sunday school libraries functioned as transnational centres for literacy across the Upper Canadian backwoods.

Following the American Revolutionary War and the War of 1812 it became especially problematic for Upper Canadian Sunday Schools to form libraries around American texts. These books presented a version of history that Canadian political elites were not comfortable with. In the 1840s the colony’s chief superintendent of education, Egerton Ryerson, banned the use of American textbooks and teachers in Canadian schools entirely.

What McLaren is most excited about is the opportunity to pore over literature that was deemed insidious enough to be prohibited by Canadian politicians. “I want to use my time at AAS to read through these ‘subversive’ books and see what people were reading in 1822-1840 – particularly because these texts helped to shape the landscape of early Canadian print culture,” McLaren explains.

These publications will inform a number of scholarly articles as well as McLaren’s book tentatively titled A Reading People: Print Culture and the Methodist Struggle for Social Respectability in Upper Canada, 1800-1850.

“Scott is a great scholar who captures our imagination and certainly demonstrates book history is not boring,” says Cynthia Archer, University Librarian. “How many of us knew Sunday Schools and public libraries in Canada are related and that Ryerson banned American textbooks for use in the classroom?”

The AAS was established in 1812 when the United States was at war with Britain. The founder, Isaac Thomas, wanted to preserve all records that served to inform the American identity outside of Britain’s governance. The AAS also boasts one of the world’s largest collections of early Canadian publications.

A panel of four experts from various post-secondary educational institutions are set to argue the topic “The Great Debate: Should the blog replace the book?” They will discuss the value of emerging forms of scholarly communications in a public forum.

The two panellists arguing for the blog will be Ian Milligan (pictured left) and Melonie Fullick.  Milligan is professor of history at the University of Waterloo and co-editor of the blog ActiveHistory.ca. Fullick is completing her PhD in Education with a focus on post-secondary governance, policy, and organizational change and holds a BA in Communication Studies from McMaster University and an MA in Linguistics from York University.

The two panellists arguing for the book will be John Fink and Scott McLaren (pictured right). Fink is the digital scholarship librarian at McMaster University. His specific research interests include copyright, open source software, physical community and digital humanities. McLaren completed his PhD in book history and print culture and is the humanities librarian and a faculty member in the Graduate Program in Humanities at York University.

Audience members will take an active role in the debate by tweeting questions and rebuttals using the hashtag #blogvsbook to the live Twitter feed that will be projected on screen at the event.

“Open Access Question of the Day”
Oct. 22 to 26 

Each morning, a question pertaining to scholarly communications will appear on the York University Libraries’ homepage. The question will be tweeted via the York University Libraries Twitter account. Participants can send an answer the day’s question on Twitter using the hashtag #yulqod for a chance to win a $20 YU card credit. Each day, a different question will be posed and award winner announced.

The winning tweet for the Oct. 22 question of the day will be announced during “The Great Debate: Should the book replace the blog?”

“Open is Sweeter
“Oct. 24, 2012 at 12pm (noon)

During “Open is Sweeter”, York students, faculty, and staff are invited to join the University librarians in the Scott Library Atrium for cupcakes. The librarians will be available to answer questions about open access or scholarly communications.

For more information about scholarly communications, open access, or Open Access Week events at York University visit the Scholarly Communications website.

It “is not so much about books as about bringing together all the student supports on campus – and giving a place for students to work together,” says James, who led the design team.

“Generation Y” has been dubbed the most tech-savvy generation on record, but despite being submersed in Internet and web-based culture from an early age, researchers from the Ethnographic Research in Illinois Academic Libraries (ERIAL) project suggest that many GenY students have yet to develop adequate information literacy skills. York University Libraries (YUL) is collaborating with faculty members to integrate more Information Literacy (IL) programming into course curriculums.

YUL’s Information Literacy program focuses on assisting students in cultivating the finding, retrieving, and analysis skillsets. Partnering with faculty members, YUL offers three IL instruction approaches to assist students with critical research processes. They offer Supplemental Drop-In Workshops that students can enrol in, Integrated Course Instruction that is delivered within the context of a specific course, and Embedded Instruction in which librarians and faculty members collaborate to develop specific assignments and learning tools to support a course curriculum.

Richard Leblanc (left), a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, found that his students were challenged by filtering search results and narrowing down pertinent research information when writing their Masters of Law and Masters of Financial Accountability research papers.

In 2011, Leblanc collaborated with business librarian Sophie Bury and law librarian Yemisi Dina to integrate IL tutorials and laboratory sessions into three of his courses. “I wanted to foster a collaborative approach to information literacy by developing IL sessions with YUL’s librarians because I realized their specialized and interdisciplinary knowledge would be of great benefit to my students,” Leblanc explains. “Sophie, Yemisi and I worked together to hone in on information literacy teachings that specifically related to my students and their research papers. We developed sessions that informed students on such topics as: proper searches and citation methods of business and professional databases; academic integrity practices; and case law and legislation.”

After his students participated in the IL sessions Leblanc noticed their papers were far better researched and prepared. “One of the best outcomes of the IL sessions was that the students felt comfortable engaging in the research process because they knew whom to turn to for consult and advice.”

Each year York librarians collaborate with faculty members and students, developing course-specific library research sessions for an average of 700 classes and assisting approximately 25,000 students.

“YUL’s Information Literacy program has grown dramatically since its inception,” says University Librarian Cynthia Archer, “and I believe that’s because faculty members have recognized that students need to develop this skillset in order to be successful in their research – both in the context of the university environment and once they enter the workforce.”

For more information about YUL’s Information Literacy programming or how to integrate research related skills into curriculum please contact your designated subject librarian.

Anna St. Onge, York University’s Archivist in charge of digital projects and outreach, says librarians and archivists are acutely aware of the challenges — and the opportunities — the Internet presents to their respective fields.

However, St. Onge cautions that Caron cannot allow the goal of devising a way to preserve the present to overshadow the work still to be done in archiving the country’s past.

To be useful in a digital format, St. Onge says archival documents must first be correctly identified, organized and labelled so that “in five years, 20 years, or a 100 years, people can benefit from the information in well-kept records.”
“It’s expensive. It’s tedious. And, it’s necessary,” she said.

July 5, 2012
Courtesy of YFile

Maps have a fascination that brings people together in a common admiration of their technical and artistic quality, and for the information that can be revealed by them through careful analysis, says geography Professor Emeritus William Found, a Fellow of York’s Centre for Research on Latin America & the Caribbean (CERLAC).

Found, of the Faculty of Environmental Studies and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, would know. He has been collecting maps for years. In fact, he donated a valuable collection of 141 historical maps and prints to the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections of York University, making them available to an even larger audience.

One of the maps in the collection

“I’ve introduced copies of the maps to hundreds of York undergraduates and graduates over many years, and it’s been exciting to see them gradually learn how to interpret what they see, and to reach new understandings about the history and development of different Caribbean locations,” he says.

“Their interests have included the natural environment and its management, slavery during the colonial period, resource extraction, early developments in tourism and the technical aspects of map creation. The maps present new kinds of evidence for these and many other research problems, and it’s very satisfying to see students combine this evidence with other sources to better understand the region and its people.”

The collection that now resides at the Clara Thomas Archives & Special Collections includes facsimiles, photographic copies and photocopies of original maps and prints. Accompanying the collection are detailed descriptions of each map or print, a thumbnail image and sources where researchers can obtain their own personal copies. The original maps and prints date as far back as the 16th century.

William Found

“I first became aware of the potential importance of historical Caribbean maps when, as a young PhD student, I lived and conducted research in Jamaica,” says Found. At that time, he was investigating land-reform projects.

“I’d often see old property maps in the ministry office, maps dating back to the 18th century. My interest was really piqued in 1980, when Professor Jane Couchman of York gave me my first personal copy of an historical map – a map of Jamaica dating from about 1700. I was amazed at the variety and detail of the items depicted on the map, and realized that this and similar documents could be research tools of great importance. I’ve been collecting such maps ever since.”

Collecting the maps has taken Found to dozens of libraries and research centres all over the world, some in different Caribbean islands and many in Europe and North America. “My predominant memory of collecting maps in all of these locations is the helpful enthusiasm of local experts and interested amateurs who can recognize the immense value of the documents they care for,” he says.

The collection contains information on the British, Danish, Dutch, French, Spanish and Swedish Caribbean colonies. The collection largely comprises single maps and charts of one island – for example, Antigua, Cuba or Martinique – but also includes several surveys undertaken in the slavery period, such as “A Plan of Redberry Plantation” (1803) located in the parish of Clarendon in Jamaica. Several maps and prints depict more than one island. For example, “Hispaniolae, Cubae, Aliarumque Insularum Circumiacientium, Delineatio” (1598) is considered to be one of the earliest maps depicting the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Hispaniola, Jamaica, and Puerto Rico). The collection also boasts engravings that capture marine life, port towns and the unique topography of the Caribbean world. The historical collection could prove an invaluable resource for the York University community and visiting researchers.

Most rewarding for Found in his cartographic life has been watching students of Caribbean background make new discoveries about their homelands through exposure to maps. He cites as an example his recent experience with a guest scholar at York, a young doctor from Belize, of Garifuna ancestry (of native Carib and African background, perhaps the only remaining descendants of the original inhabitants of islands in the Eastern Caribbean). The Garifuna were banished to Central America by the British in the 1790s, but some Garifuna have remembered aspects of their original culture, including their language.

“The woman visiting York found out about the collection of historical Caribbean maps, and I introduced her to a detailed map of St. Vincent (homeland of the Garifuna), made in 1775,” said Found. “She almost burst into tears as she saw the map place names – Anglicized versions of names from the original Carib language. These were names immortalized in Garifuna songs and poems, still popular in Belize. Imagine how she felt seeing, for the first time, direct evidence of the places that her ancestors were forced to leave over two centuries ago.”

It has also been very rewarding for Found to take copies of the historical maps to the Caribbean to show them to local people unfamiliar with them, and to see if one can still find features depicted on early maps. “I remember taking an early map to Antigua, and asking a local taxi driver to see if we could find the remnants of a particular plantation complex. We spent hours travelling back roads that are seldom used, left the car to walk through scrub land, and eventually came over a hill to find the crumbling remains of what used to be a major sugarcane plantation – complete with several buildings, two ruined windmills, and a huge underground cistern for storing rainwater. The driver had never seen the site, and was so inspired that he subsequently started a ‘heritage tour’ for people who wanted to see remnants of early life in Antigua.”

Found is particularly grateful for the enthusiasm and professionalism of York’s map librarians (particularly Trudy Bodak and Dana Craig), who helped him to put together and document the collection. “I feel that I’ve just revealed the tip of an iceberg, as collecting and studying the maps has been such a highly rewarding effort – for research, for teaching and for collaborative work with Caribbean communities. I still have many more maps to add in a second part of the York Library collection, but that must await further documentation”.

For more information on the Clara Thomas Archives and Special Collections, click here.

For more information, check out Found’s report on “A Research Collection of Historical Maps and Prints of the Caribbean Islands“, available on York University’s digital library of research outputs, YorkSpace.