That's So Library! – Page 42 – Exceptional resources, services, spaces, technology and people…

Think Pink!

February 20, 2016 by dgrace Leave a Comment

Pink shirt day, which raises awareness about the anti-bullying campaign, is just around the corner – Wednesday,
February 24^th. To show your support wear some pink on that day, and if you are able drop by the new SA stairway in the Great Hall (SE2) at noon for a group photo. The message is clear “kindness makes a difference.”

Our library collection includes many titles, both print and electronic, on kindness, resilience and assertiveness – here is a small selection, and don’t be shy to stop by and check out more…

Leading with kindness : how good people consistently get superior results by William Baker and Michael O’Malley
 Call #: HD 57.7 B3475 2008 also available as an ebook

Capitalizing on kindness: why 21^st century professionals need to be nice by Kristin Tilquist      
  ebook

The wisdom of no escape and the path of loving kindness by Pema Chodron
 Call #: BQ 5625 C48 2001

Coaching for resilience: a practical guide to using positive psychology by Adrienne Greene and John Humphrey
  ebook

Lift: becoming a positive force in any situation by Ryan Quinn and Robert Quinn
  ebook

Raising resilient children by Robert Brooks and Sam Goldstein
  Call #: HQ 769 B68175 2001

Assertiveness: how to be strong in every situation by Conrad Potts and Suzanne Potts
 ebook

Giving voice to values: how to speak your mind when you know what’s right by Mary Gentile
 ebook

See you on the 24^th – I’ll be the one in pink!

Peer Tutor Tuesdays with Levi DeVries

February 9, 2016 by Sandra Matsuba 1 Comment

Levi DeVries

Name: Levi DeVries

Program: Mechanical Engineering

What attracted you to becoming a Peer tutor?

I enjoy teaching things to people. I find it very satisfying to be able to explain a difficult concept in such a way that someone who was having trouble is now able to understand it.

How has tutoring helped you?

Tutoring others has helped reinforce concepts that I had learned earlier on in my degree but I had begun to forget. Additionally, the act of teaching a concept to someone else helps me increase my own level of understanding in that subject.

If you could give one piece of advice to a BCIT student what would it be?

Be very intentional about writing neatly and clearly organizing your work (especially when you are learning something new!).

What would your dream job be when you leave BCIT?

I would like to design heavy machinery and mobile equipment.

If you had a free day, how would you spend it?

Fishing.

If you’re looking for help in Mechanical Engineering, stop by the Learning Commons and say hello to Levi!

New year’s resolutions? We can help….

January 8, 2016 by dgrace Leave a Comment

The jury seems to be out on whether making new year’s resolutions is a good idea or not, but if you’ve made them, and if you want to stick to them, these titles from our Popular Reading collection might keep you on track…

If you resolved to be more vigilant about your finances, save up for something big or pay down your debt, these books by Gail Vaz-Oxlade provide advice:

Money rules : rule your money or your money will rule you
Debt-free forever

Or for financial guidance that promises not to be boring and includes zombie and Star Trek references:

Wealthing like rabbits : an original introduction to personal finance, by Robert R. Brown

If you resolved to be more organized, check out The Life-changing magic of tidying up by Marie Kondo.

Maybe eating healthier, preparing more food at home more is on the menu? If so, we have:

At home in the whole food kitchen : celebrating the art of eating well, by Amy Chapin (A James Beard Foundation Award winner )
The Oh she glows cookbook, by Angela Liddon
Deliciously Ella by Ella Woodward

And if your resolution is simply to read more, browse through our Popular Reading guide – I’m sure you’ll find something that will suit you.

Merry Christmas from the BCIT Archives!

December 21, 2015 by Cindy McLellan

Yule Link from December 1965.

Happy Holidays and all the best for 2016 from the BCIT Archives! This is some fun original art created for the December issue of the Link from 1965 – a very different look from the slick BCIT Student Association publications that we are accustom to now. If you want to read the full issue from 1965 it can be found here. The BCIT Archives has put historical issues of the Link online.

What’s all this fuss about retirement? – by David Pepper, Director, Library Services

December 7, 2015 by Sandra Matsuba Leave a Comment

For over eight years David Pepper has been a part of our BCIT Library family. As David prepares to retire we know that we will miss not only his vision, leadership, and support, but also his infectious smile, sense of humour, and last but not least all of the homemade treats he shared with us.

We wish David a retirement filled with health, adventures, and happiness!

David recently shared this speech at his retirement celebration and we thought it was worth sharing:

Ever since I announced my retirement, conversations have swirled around the following:

Anticipation … Expectation … Uncertainty … Apprehension … Excitement … “Do you have a well-planned strategy, or are you going to just wing it”?

None of these feelings are new – to me or to you. Sounds like how I felt the night before I was married … the day I started grad school … my first position at UBC … day 1 at BCIT … the birthing rooms when both daughters were being born.

So, why all the fuss about retirement? What is the differentiator that makes this experience unlike anything else? I’ve come to the conclusion – are you ready – it’s really all about not being the boss of anyone, or not having a boss! Effective January 1, 2016, I won’t have to take or give direction, balance someone else’s budget, stress or dream about unfinished projects, deadlines, selection committees … I will be a free agent! Right?! Hmmm …

I started working (for pay) when I was around 12. My first boss was my father who paid me for ridding the garden of cabbage moths (1 cent/moth) – slam dunk, you say? No way! I had to develop a strategy: had to get to know the moth’s takeoff and landing habits, had to plan for uncertainty (rainy days when the moths didn’t appear), there was apprehension that dad would say he’d exhausted his budget on pest control & I would be out of work – or that my brother would decide he had a better control method and I would be forced out by the competition.

My teen years would be marked by a number of ventures – and each one would teach me the values of persistence, creative thinking, how to deal with a difficult boss etc., highlighted perhaps by a summer spent in an underground copper mine on Vancouver Island. That was my coming-of-age-summer!

Anticipation … Expectation … Uncertainty … Apprehension … Excitement … they all still accompanied me.

I’ve been really fortunate in my professional career to spend time in private, government and academic settings covering disciplines as diverse as mining, engineering, chemical processes, forestry, biomedical sciences, trade development … post-secondary education at the college, university and institutional levels. It might seem contradictory but it’s been a great experience being part of the library profession where we keep trying to assert our value to our client base. The result – we’ve never been complacent because we’re always trying to reinvent ourselves.

I’ve had opportunities to speak at conferences in the South Pacific, New York City, San Francisco … to teach college and university students – to shatter a few paradigms and create new ones with some of the most intelligent and wonderful human beings on the planet! I’ve also had dysfunctional bosses and employees – fortunately they have been few in number. My favourite boss lived in Atlanta, GA while I was based in Vancouver! Every experience helped to mould me in some important way that informed the drama played out in my life.

So, yes, I’m going to be a free agent come January – NO BOSSES ??? Hmmm …

“In the privacy of the heart take out the album of your own life and search it for the people and places you have loved and learned from yourself, and for those moments in the past -many of them half forgotten-through which you glimpsed, however dimly and fleetingly, the sacredness of your own journey.” Sacred Journey by Frederick Buechner

I am still accountable – to my family – Diane, Dana/Nolan, Deborah/Kevin – and my granddaughters – all of whom have blessed me in more ways that I will ever know. I’m accountable to all of you my colleagues – to be true to the things I’ve learned from you. I am also accountable to the many others that I have yet to interact with and be further shaped by. Of course, I am accountable to myself – to be true to the principles learned way back when catching those cabbage moths!

Anticipation … Expectation … Uncertainty … Apprehension … Excitement … “Do you have a well-planned strategy, or are you going to just wing it”? These have all been with me since early teen years … and will continue to walk with me on the journey ahead.

“All who wander are not lost” (Tolkien) I expect – and hope for plenty of wandering ahead … and if I get lost, there’s plenty I’ve learned … and plenty of love and faith to get me back on track.

Palm Desert
October 28, 2015

Digital Library Federation Forum 2015 – Some things that Matter

November 24, 2015 by Cindy McLellan

A word cloud of #DLFforum hashtag. Using R to see the top 200 words used under the #DLFforum hashtag.

The first time the Digital Library Federation (DLF) held it’s DLF Forum outside the USA they decided to come to Vancouver. I was lucky enough to be on the Planning Committee for this wonderful event, present at, and attend DLF2015. The weather was glorious. The venue lovely, and the people amazing. Being surrounded by American accents all day gave the conference an out-of-town flavour for me! DLF forum is a conference that has a loyal following and the first conference I have encountered that sold out before the conference program was even announced!

DLF celebrated its 20th Anniversary while in Vancouver. The party included a French fry bar with cheese curds and gravy for poutine as well as a delicious curry sauce for the more adventurous.

DLF Forum (#DLFforum) was a packed event with up to five steams to choose from and often three presentations happening during ‘lunch break,’ one of which was an improv class where improv techniques were used to raise issues within digital scholarship – silly me went to an intense open source software workshop. The program as a whole included a mix of practical workshops, presentations and snapshot sessions, where presenters had seven minutes to present and two minutes for questions.

I would like to share just a few highlights from my conference experience with you.

“Science can tell you how to clone a tyrannosaurus rex and humanities can tell you why this might be a bad idea.” And the scientists at MIT assure their Library Director that cloning a tyrannosaurus rex is not actually possible.

I met Chris Bourg, Director of MIT Libraries. If you are the sort of twitter-user who follows intelligent and witty librarians who also describe themselves as: Sociologist. Feminist. Butch. Lesbian. Queer. Then do follow @mchris4duke. She is currently in charge of an exciting project at MIT planning the future of the libraries at MIT. This project relies heavily on student input. Check out Bourg’s blog, Feral Librarian, she’s much funnier than I am.

Bourg agreed to do a keynote for the DLF preconference only if the keynote would be collaborative and participatory and if she could invite her twitter friend Cecily Walker. Cecily is Vancouver Public Library’s Assistant Manager for Community Digital Initiatives & eLearning. She spoke to us about a project she was involved in that she ended up getting emotionally involved in; a project to preserve the Women’s Memorial March Quilt and make accessible the stories of the women who are missing or dead. The final project will be launching January 2016. Together Bourg and Walker reminded us that what we librarians do matters. They completely succeeded in getting the room to participate and set the tone for an exciting day.

@safiyanoble keynote should be required listening for all undergraduates! Power, Privilege and the Imperative to Act #DLFforum

— shannon m robinson (@shannonmtherese) October 26, 2015

Safia U. Noble @safiyanoble continued the trend and blew everyone’s minds with her keynote, “Power, Privilege, and the Imperative to Act.” Dr. Noble shared some of her research on search engines and the power wielded by the few who write the algorithms of what is seen and not seen by the public. She argues that Librarians play an important role in teaching and empowering other researchers to acknowledge that search results are never neutral.

https://twitter.com/paigecmorgan/status/658707096469266432

Lesson learned! Now I will always start presentations with my twitter handle!

Along with Mahria Lebow I gave a 7 minute Snapshot presentation called “Meaningless Metadata: Maintain the Trust of our Academic Communities.” We are both metadata geeks; ’nough said.

The Snapshot sessions were fun and very popular. In a seven minute presentation there is no time to be boring. The most interesting and relevant things people have to say is all that there is time for. My favourite Snapshots included:

BigDIVA , a new way for Digital Humanities researchers to discover and curate digital artifacts. Presented by Timothy Duguid, Texas A&M University.
Also out of Texas, Elizabeth Gushee, Harry Ransom Center, talked about their new fantastic open access policy. Project REVEAL, makes available 22,000 pages of manuscript content of some of the best-known names from American and English literature to be used for any purpose without restriction.
The Provenance Online Project (POP) is a crowdsourcing initiative out of the University of Pennsylvania that is turning out to be very popular and actually answer some exciting research questions. Check out the POP flickr feed. Presented by Laura Aydelotte, University of Pennsylvania.
And for you math-lovers, from our neighbours at UBC, YouTube for Mathematics (almost, but digitally preserved) – BIRS and UBC Collaborate to Create a Digitally Preserved Mathematical Video Archive, Presenter: Eugene Barsky, University of British Columbia. Lectures from the world’s best mathematical minds are turning out to be far more popular than initially anticipated when the team started to preserve these videos for the long term and make them available on YouTube.

The view from the generously provided quiet room on the 19th floor. One of the few photos I took over the course of my whirlwind DLF experience. Too busy schmoozing, learning and note-taking to take photos for the blog post I was planning to write! Sorry about that.

Purdom Linblad presented her work on Take Back the Archive, an inspiring and challenging project out of the University of Virginia (UVa). The aim is to preserve, visualize, and contextualize the history of rape and sexual violence at UVa. Much like the Women’s Memorial March Quilt the project Take Back the Archive honors the individual stories of survivors. These will be preserved along with official documents of the university and newspaper articles. The biggest challenge is in sharing stories in a safe way, presenting the final website with all of the gathered materials in a manner that respects the survivors and challenges those complacent in the violence to examine their attitudes.

An interesting presentation on collaborating to bring the history of women in higher education together in one searchable portal, College Women, ended up generating a small amount of controversy. The project includes seven American women’s-only colleges. Known as the “Seven Sisters” they include: Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Mount Holyoke, Smith, Vassar, and Wellesley Colleges, and the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard. Even with their history of collaboration dating back to the late nineteenth century aligning metadata and approving design in a pilot project with only one-year’s worth of funding was challenging. Future steps will hopefully include reaching out to other women’s colleges. The audience at DLF immediately wondered why Spelman College, and other traditionally black women’s colleges were not invited to participate. Inclusion is an issue that the project team would like have the opportunity to address. A blog post about Vassar’s first black students shows the historic tensions that still reverberate today.

That just made my day: "whiteboard" listed as the most useful tool / tech to help with metadata management. #DLFforum

— Corey Harper (@chrpr) October 28, 2015

https://twitter.com/bembrarian/status/659076929614557184

Talking about digital preservation and metadata was what made me the happiest!

Of the workshops that I attended, my favourite was the one on Fedora 4; an open source software project that is a repository platform for the management and dissemination of digital content.

The four days that I attended DLF Forum 2015 to be inspiring and a little overwhelming. Major themes that emerged for me included enthusiasm for collaborations, open source, open access, supporting diversity and the importance of good and thoughtful communication.

If you need a break from end of semester stress check out the Cornell Hip Hop Collection! More than 500 party and event flyers from 1977-1984 will cheer you up. I promise.

Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow – Albert Einstein

November 20, 2015 by dgrace Leave a Comment

TAKE 5 – five featured titles available from BCIT Library:

Check out some new books from the BCIT Library that might inspire a little hope…

The Optimistic Environmentalist : Progressing Towards a Greener Future / by David R. Boyd
Call #: GE 170 B69 2015
It is easy to find statistics, news stories and books that make you despair about the state of the environment. In contrast, this book, described by Publishers Weekly as solidly researched and informative, focusses on environmental success stories of the past fifty years. More than just happy talk, the last chapter is titled “From Optimism to Action” suggesting concrete ways to take action. Bonus: the author is a local lawyer, professor and co-chair of Vancouver’s Greenest City initiative.

Change Everything : Creating an Economy for the Common Good / by Christian Felber
Call #: HD 87 F45 2015
This Austrian economist has created a “blueprint for change” – an economic model where the balance sheet values human dignity, cooperation and solidarity, ecological sustainability, social justice, democratic co-determination and transparency.
https://www.econgood.org/

Engineering for Sustainable Human Development : A Guide to Successful Small-Scale Community Projects / by Bernard Amadei
Call #: TH 880 A44 2014
By the co-founder of Engineers Without Borders International Network, this book addresses the role of engineering in poverty reduction and human development and discusses how to deliver successful projects in circumstances very different from the developed world.

Peacemakers : How People Around the World are Building a World Free of War /by Douglas Roche
Call #: JZ 5540 R63 2014
Believe it or not “today’s world may be the most peaceful ever. That is the real news, the biggest unreported story.” That is the message from Douglas Roche, lifelong activist, retired politician and author of Peacemakers. To support his position he has interviewed leading peacemakers and profiled their work.

Seeds of Hope : Wisdom and Wonder from the World of Plants / by Jane Goodall and Gail Hudson
Call #: QK 46.5 H85 G66 2015
“SEEDS OF HOPE takes us from England to Goodall’s home-away-from-home in Africa, deep inside the Gombe forest, where she and the chimpanzees are enchanted by the fig and plum trees they encounter. She introduces us to botanists around the world, as well as places where hope for plants can be found, such as The Millennium Seed Bank, where one billion seeds are preserved.” – publisher description

Leadership @ BCIT Library

November 5, 2015 by Jeff Verbeem Leave a Comment

With the swearing in of Canada’s 23rd prime minister this week, there is much discussion about the qualities and style of leadership he will bring to office. But how does one define effective leadership in government? Or in business? In education? And how have ideas of what it means to lead changed over time? Are there people who should (or should not) take on a leadership role?

BCIT Library has an extensive collection of material, both in print and online, on this fascinating topic. For a sample, check out our SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS LEADERSHIP subject guide: http://libguides.bcit.ca/sbl Our current book display in the Learning Commons (3rd floor) also features some great recent titles:

Title	Author
The clarity principle : how great leaders make the most important decision in business (and what happens when they don’t) / Chatham Sullivan.	Sullivan, Chatham
Cultureship : the ACB’s of business leadership / Jason E. Bingham.	Bingham, Jason E.
Eleven rings : the soul of success / Phil Jackson and Hugh Delehanty.	Jackson, Phil
Executive presence : the missing link between merit and success / Sylvia Ann Hewlett.	Hewlett, Sylvia Ann
The first 90 days : proven strategies for getting up to speed faster and smarter / Michael D. Watkins.	Watkins, Michael
Flat army : creating a connected and engaged organization / Dan Pontefract.	Pontefract, Dan
Good leaders ask great questions : your foundation for successful leadership / John C. Maxwell.	Maxwell, John C.
How to be exceptional : drive leadership success by magnifying your strengths / John Zenger … [et al.].	Zengler, John
Lead yourself first! : breakthrough strategies to live the life you want / Michelle Ray.	Ray, Michelle
Leaders eat last : why some teams pull together and others don’t / Simon Sinek.	Sinek, Simon
Leadership BS : fixing workplaces and careers one truth at a time / Jeffrey Pfeffer.	Pfeffer, Jeffrey, author.

Open Access Week – October 19 – 25, 2015

October 19, 2015 by dgrace Leave a Comment

This is the 8^th annual worldwide Open Access Week. Advocates of Open Access want to make scholarly output – research data, articles, textbooks, educational resources – easily available to everyone by removing barriers such as restrictive rights and costly fees.

By art designer at PLoS CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

Why not celebrate Open Access Week by finding out more about it? We have three Research Guides that will help you get started on your Open journey, start with our Open Primer.

You can also check out some BCCampus open textbooks created by local instructors.

Meet Adena Brons, a UBC iSchool Work Experience Student.

October 13, 2015 by Sandra Matsuba Leave a Comment

Adena Brons is a UBC student in her third year at the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, completing a Master’s in Archival Studies and a Master’s in Library. She has had some experience with metadata working at New Westminster Archives. Adena currently works part time with AskAway through UBC. Other than libraries and archives, she’s interested in creative writing, cycling and craft beer.

Adena Brons

This past summer, Adena helped to normalize the metadata in our digital collections so that we can move to open access systems to support both archival and scholarly collections. Here’s what Adena had to say about the institutional repository project:

Students write essays. Professors create lesson plans. Student associations write newsletters. The people involved in post-secondary education produce essays, reports, lesson plans, photographs, newsletters, theses, and more. Most of this material is never formally published, yet it remains a significant amount of valuable information about the institution’s scholarship, research, activities, history, and community.

Many post-secondary institutions are creating digital repositories (or institutional repositories) where this information can be stored and made openly accessible to the public. BCIT has its own Digital Collections, available through the library.

While the community of BCIT has created the content you can see in the Digital Collections, the library works on making that content available and open to the public. An important part of that is metadata. Metadata is often called “data about data” and is all of the information about the resource: the title, date, file format, author or creator, description etc. It’s pretty important because if it wasn’t there, you would not be able to tell what files existed, what their contents were or how to access them.

As part of my Masters in Library and Information Studies degree, I worked on an institutional repository project with BCIT librarians to make sure that the existing metadata transfers smoothly when BCIT moves from its current software to a new open source institutional repository (Islandora) platform. Islandora is more robust and will also be used by a large consortia of post secondary libraries in B.C.

So if you’re interested in the research being done by the Environmental Health program, check out their Journal. Or maybe you’re researching the construction and renovation of a BCIT building for a sustainability project: there are aerial photographs and construction images from throughout BCIT’s history.