inF A L L 2 0 0 7

LIBRARY EDITION

Finger on the Future:Taking Books from Shelf to Screen

I N F O R M A T I O N I I N N O V A T I O N I S E R V I C E

Focus

T H I S I S S U E

33 Exploring Treasured Texts

44 From Bound to Bytes: Theses Go Online

44 News at the Ready

55 Shakespeare and the Jews

66 Reaching Out: Library Ambassadors

77 What the Library Means to Me

Canada Post Corporation Publications Mail Agreement 40613662

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All over the world academic libraries arebeing challenged by the dramatic changestaking place in universities. These changes

include new approaches to teaching, learning andresearch, as well as the ongoing development ofinformation and communication technologies.These are global phenomena, but they are alsovery local – we at McGill are certainly experienc-ing them. So the big question facing us is: Howcan the McGill Library position itself to provideeffective services in these changing times?

Some people thought initially that the technological revolution would reduce theimportance of libraries to our students, but that clearly has not been the case. Instead, ourchallenges involve understanding the changes and planning the appropriate responses. Weseek to understand our young people and the lives they lead. The Library is the engine forstudent life and learning, resting at the very core of the University’s mission, yet I am oftensurprised that many people do not realize that students spend probably more time inlibraries than they do in their classes, right across the disciplines. Long after the Universityhas closed, we are still “on”. When I drive past the library at ten or eleven in the evening,the windows are lit and the building is abuzz. It is often busier on Saturday and Sundaythan it is during the week.

Some of our responses to student needs have been fairly direct. We installed auto-loanstations, and now sixty percent of our loans go through that system. This March, we start-ed a pilot project placing LCD screens at various locations to provide information aboutour services. On a more ambitious scale, we have redesigned our web site to improve acces-sibility, and have added hundreds of thousands of e-resources. We have also extended ourstaffing hours, to provide students with as much support as possible. But perhaps the sin-gle most difficult challenge remains communicating what the Library does. After all, acces-sibility begins with people knowing about the resources, materials and services we have tooffer. This edition of the Library In Focus talks about some of these issues, touching oneverything from online resources to our library ambassadors program, developed with thesupport of our very energetic undergraduate student partners at the Students Society ofMcGill University.

So please let me know what you think of our efforts by sharing your comments andimpressions with us. And let me stress how much gratitude we all feel for the very gener-ous support we have received from our friends and benefactors. Without your assistancewe would have a much more difficult time meeting the challenges before us.

Yours sincerely,

Janine SchmidtTrenholme Director of Libraries

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CCoooorrddiinnaattoorrSteven SpodekDevelopment OfficerLibraries

CCoonnssuullttiinngg EEddiittoorrHelen DyerCommunications OfficerDevelopment and AlumniRelations

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Tel.: 514-398-4677E-mail: doadmin.library@mcgill.caWebsite:www.mcgill.ca/library/

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Jennifer Carter BA’94, PhD

Candidate.

Photo taken in Colgate

Seminar Room, Rare Books

and Special Collections

Division

Your comments and inquiries are welcome.

Exploring Treasured Texts

“A French Canadian Lady in

her Winter Dress and a

Roman Catholic Priest”

Hand-coloured plate after the

drawing by John Lambert.

Travels through Canada

and the United States in the

Years 1806, 1807 & 1808.

John Lambert. Second ed.

corrected. London, 1813.

Richard Virr,

Curator of

Manuscripts and

Acting Head

Rare Books and

Special

Collections

McGill has been nurturing and developing its Canadiana collections since 1877, when itwas bequeathed the library of Montreal lawyerand McGill alumnus Frederick Griffin. Thatdonation included reports sent annually toFrance by Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenthcentury. “We have seventeen of these in origi-nal editions, and three of them came fromGriffin's collection, as did a lot of other earlyCanadian material,” says Richard Virr, Curatorof Manuscripts and Acting Head Rare Booksand Special Collections. At the time, many ofGriffin's books were relatively new and weresimply added to the University's collection.“But now they are relatively uniquely held inCanada and have become 'rare',” says Virr.“Much of his library, which had been dispersedthrough the stacks, has now been recovered andplaced in our collection; fortunately, Griffin'sname is written in all of them.” Separatebequests from diplomat Robert Mackay andlawyer and alderman David Ross McCord inthe 19th century were also central to the earlygrowth of McGill’s Canadiana collection.

In the early 20th century McGill purchaseda collection of fur trade documents from theestate of the Honourable Louis-RodrigueMasson (1833-1903), a member of Parliamentand a senator and Lieutenant-Governor ofQuebec from 1884-1887. As well as journalskept by fur traders attached to the North WestCompany, a major Montreal-based fur-tradeenterprise, the collection included some of thedocuments that Roderick Mackenzie (1761-1844), a partner in the Company and Masson’sgrandfather-in-law, assembled in the early 19thcentury containing information and observa-tions about geography, flora and fauna, andFirst Nations in the North-West. “Masson published some of this material in the 1880sbut edited it heavily without telling anyone,and scholars have relied upon these publica-tions ever since, unless they actually visited our archives,” says Virr. “But recently, thanksto grant funding, we were able to prepare adigital copy of the collection, which is nowavailable online at http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/nwc. Interestingly, librarians had also made‘white on black’ copies of some of Masson'sdocuments in the 1920s, and because the

originals are fragile, in some cases these earliercopies provide more text than exists in the originals now.”

This site is one of a number of digitizedCanadiana sites created by the Library. Othersinclude a site reproducing part of the University'scollection of 1880s county atlases showingproperty holdings, primarily in Ontario(http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/CountyAtlas).“The site is very popular with genealogists, andreceives about a quarter of the hits to our digitalcollections,” says Virr. “It's extraordinary.”

Online accessibility is critical for contempo-rary libraries. Unfortunately, when the Library'sonline catalogue was first created in the 1980s,the University's various rare book collectionswere not included in the process. Thus, whilenew acquisitions have been entered in onlinecatalogues, most of the earlier material – Virrestimates that as many as 150,000 titles, abouthalf of his section's holdings – remains search-able only in ancient card catalogues. “This is a major challenge. The reality today is that if something is not in your online catalogue,people think that you don't have it.” TheLibrary is addressing this issue, and aims to have Lande Collection records in the onlinecatalogue by the end of the year.

Over the past year Virr's team has trans-ferred online close to 4000 entries for playscripts, 1500 scripts purchased in the 1920sdating from 1680 to 1820, and a recent gift of 2500 dating from 1850 to 1950. 'Some are major plays,' explains Virr, 'but the minorones may be more interesting from a researchperspective because they were the shows beingperformed by local groups or travelling compa-nies, and formed the soap operas and sit-comsfrom their era.” Currently, the Library is con-verting to online the cataloguing records of itsextensive philosophy collection, which includesone of the world's most comprehensive collec-tions of the writings of Scottish philosopherDavid Hume (http://digital. library.mcgill.ca/hume/). “This is an ongoing and growingcollection,” Virr stresses. “I believe our holdingsnow are just as good as they have in Edinburgh.So we need to make all of our philosophy hold-ings accessible. We're a working library, after all,not a museum.”

McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections has one of the country’smost important collections of Canadiana, centred around the compre-hensive Lawrence Lande collection of largely pre-confederation works,donated by McGill graduate Lande in the 1960s. M

L I B R A R I E S 3

4 L I B R A R I E S

The recent addition of PressDisplay tothe McGill Library’s suite of onlinenewspapers strengthens the Library’s

excellent newspaper collections and bringsinstant access to 500 newspapers from 70countries in 37 languages (http://library.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx).

Whether assessing public opinion inJerusalem, comparing the headlines of UKdailies, or dreamily scanning Parisian realestate, PressDisplay users gain thorough

access to a vast range of the latest globalnews and information, all at the click of a mouse.

The online collection provides same-dayaccess to hundreds of newspapers inlanguages ranging from Portuguese toPapiamento. The comprehensive holdingsinclude multiple national dailies fromCanada, the USA and England, and majorbroadsheet newspapers from countries and regions throughout the world. The

New Zealand Herald, The Tampa Tribune,The Irish Independent, The WashingtonPost, and The Gazette are some of thetitles available.

Newspapers have long been an impor-tant research and teaching tool, able toprovide valuable insights into societiesthrough their chronicling of daily events.They chart the development of policy indemocratic nations, and, as a primary armof the mass media, are often the focus of

critical analysis. Used globally foreducational purposes, newspapersare sometimes considered theonly text students will continuereading throughout their lives.

Students are able to discoverand compare leading news stories,and how nations choose to reportthe latest political, environmental,health and social issues. On or offcampus, newspapers can be readcover-to-cover in their full-pagenews-stand image – including allthe articles, colour photos, edito-rials, letters, cartoons, advertise-ments, classifieds and obituaries.It is possible to search and printwithin a single newspaper, aselection of papers or the entirecollection. And it’s even ok to bea little behind on the news, as

News at the Ready

From Bound to Bytes: Theses Go Online

Most students have for some yearscomposed theses on their com-puters but continued to submit

the documents in printed form. Followinga pilot project in April 2007, McGillUniversity began accepting graduate thesissubmission in electronic form. Electronicsubmission, storage and distribution of the-ses will provide benefits both to students atMcGill and researchers elsewhere as theydiscover more easily the results of researchundertaken by graduate students at McGill.

For researchers, theses have long been avaluable information resource but their

storage in physical formats in individuallibraries has limited their effectiveness asresearch tools. Microform versions obtainedthrough interlibrary loan or purchased havebeen difficult to obtain. Projects through-out the world have been developing thetechnology and procedures for digital the-ses and the growing availability of electron-ic formats has been matched by a signifi-cant increase in use.

A working e-thesis repository brings thefollowing benefits to McGill faculty andstudents:

Immediate and full access to content

Easy resource discovery

Increased visibility and impact of McGillresearch throughout the world

Greater use and citation of research work

Greater competitiveness

Creative and flexible expression ofresearch results

“Born digital" theses may include audioand visual material which can be viewed or

eZone, Humanities and Social Sciences Library

Shylock, the Jewish money-lender from The Merchant ofVenice, is one of Shakespeare’s most challenging, compli-

cated characters, a stereotype whochallenges the process of creatingstereotypes. On March 29, over 300 people gathered in Moyse Hallto learn more about him at“Shakespeare and the Jews,” theannual Shakespeare Lecture spon-sored by the Friends of the Libraryand moderated by Paul Yachnin,the English Department Chair andTomlinson Professor of ShakespeareStudies.

The expert panel featured anuncommon pairing: renownedShakespearean actor GarethArmstrong and literary criticKenneth Gross. More than 10 yearsago, Armstrong played the role ofShylock in a British production ofThe Merchant of Venice. “He was themost difficult character I’ve everplayed,” Armstrong recalled. “So Iended up wanting to get into himmore fully, to understand him bet-

ter.” Charged by this desire, Armstrong wrote a one-man play, Shylock,told from the perspective of Shakespeare’s only other Jewish character,Tubal, from the same play. “I still find Shylock troublesome but now canhold him to my heart without agreeing with what he wants to do.”Armstrong has been touring the role of Shylock since 1997, between otherroles. “I have become Shylock,” he joked.

Kenneth Gross, professor of English at the University of Rochesterand, most recently, author of Shylock Is Shakespeare, was also intrigued bythe character’s dramatic appeal as a survivor, an interest that led him to further inquiries into the psychological relation between Shakespeareand his creation. “What fascinated Shakespeare about this character whois repellent, repugnant, jubilant, intelligent and very perceptive about politics?” he asked, suggesting that Shylock’s strategy of manipulatingscenes to ensure his survival might reflect the playwright’s own concerns.“Somehow Shakespeare found a way, through Shylock, to voice aspects of himself as a maker of scenes. Shylock shows Shakespeare as a man of the theatre, an actor and courtier of audiences.” Gross’s theories onShylock’s genesis within Shakespeare’s dramatic imagination were especially compelling in exchange with Armstrong’s musings on the challenges of becoming Shylock on a regular basis in performance. AsGross noted in conclusion, “In The Merchant of Venice, the idea of the‘human’ is very volatile.”

The Shakespeare Lecture is one of three annual lectures organized bythe Friends of the Library (www.mcgill.ca/library-friends/).

L I B R A R I E S 5

Shakespeare and the Jews

From Shakespeare's

The Merchant of Venice

Hodder & Stoughton, 1909.

Frontispiece by Sir James D Linton.

many newspapers have a searchable 60 dayarchive.

PressDisplay sits alongside other elec-tronic news information resources availablefrom the Library such as CanadianNewsstand, Factiva and Virtual NewsLibrary and rounds out the Library’s suiteof online news collections. In addition tothe online newspapers, the McGill Librarysubscribes to NewspaperDirect, a comple-mentary service to PressDisplay which per-mits daily printing of newspapers.NewspaperDirect delivers same-day qualitycopies of selected national and foreignnewspapers, some of which, such asHa’aretz, Le Monde, El Pais, are notincluded online through PressDisplay. It is now possible to relax in a quiet and spacious corner of the Humanities andSocial Sciences Library on the main floorof the McLennan Library Building and leafthrough a foreign newspaper on the sameday of issue.

The McGill Library’s newspaper collec-tion is increasing in quantity, quality, andinclusiveness of content, as well as ease ofaccess. And this is only part of the Library’scommitment to building excellent teachingand research collections in line with theneeds and expectations of McGill facultyand students.

listened to. Multimedia content can beincorporated as integral components of thework. The content can be submitted,validated and assessed electronically anddescriptive tags can be added.

Making theses available in onlineformats facilitates browsing and full-textsearching and provides researchers aroundthe world with unprecedented access tothe fruits of vital scholarship undertakenat McGill. McGill's position at the leading-edge of scholarly creation and communica-tion will be secured.

6 L I B R A R I E S

New students – and even some whohave been at McGill for a year ormore – can find the University

libraries bewildering. So last summer theLibrary and the Students Society of McGillUniversity (SSMU) teamed up to createLibrary Ambassadors: a group of a dozenundergraduate students on a mission tomake the complex familiar. The SSMU hasfor many years provided funding to theLibrary for various projects, ranging fromsupport for 24-hour opening during exami-nation periods to the purchase of library

materials. During 2005-2006, TrenholmeDirector of Libraries Janine Schmidt andmembers of the SSMU came up with theidea for a library ambassador program.The Ambassadors are full-time undergradu-ate students who serve as a point of contactfor students, participate in orientation andother outreach activities, represent theLibrary at various campus events, refer stu-dents to professional library staff or providebasic help, and liaise with student groupson library needs (http://www.mcgill.ca/library-about/jobs/ambassadors/).

The program was initially coordinatedby Cynthia Leive, Head Librarian in theMarvin Duchow Music Library and KarenNicholson from the Humanities and SocialSciences Library.

Enlisting students as library envoys isnot unprecedented. For “Discover McGill”week at the start of the fall 2005 term, theLibrary hired students to act as tour guidesof the major branches, and in fall 2006 thefreshly appointed Library Ambassadorsreprised this mission. Student navigatorshave also helped with computer use.“Being introduced to the Library by otherstudents is a great initial point of contactfor those new students arriving at McGill,”says Leive. As the term progressed, theAmbassadors fanned out to the differentbranches, where they worked with localcoordinators on projects that would mostbenefit students using those libraries. Forthe ambassadorial crew, this involved com-ing up with ways to help students, toinform them about the Library’s resourcesand to collect feedback from studentgroups.

“We met regularly with library staff andcame up with the idea of placing a LibraryAmbassadors table in the stacks, where stu-dents who needed help could find us,” saysMargaret Gales, a third-year Arts studentand Library Ambassador. So Novemberand March evenings, when many students

are writing assignments, the Ambassadorsfilled their post on the third floor of theHumanities and Social Sciences Library,offering aid to the baffled. “We helped peo-ple with fairly basic things – like requestinga book or putting one on hold, or simplyreading call numbers,” says Gales. Whileno formal studies have tracked the resultsof these efforts, the informal feedback hasbeen positive. “Students have told us theywere happy to have somebody around tosteer them in the right direction,” saysLeive. “And I believe the Ambassadors feltthey made a difference in helping theirpeers.”

The Ambassadors also took the messagebeyond the Library buildings in their dis-tinctive red t-shirts carrying messages aboutlibrary services. In Gales’s case, this entailedvisiting classes in political science and eco-nomics, her fields of study, to present shortannouncements about the Library’sresources and services. “We encourage stu-dents to use the Library more,” sheexplains. The experience has made hersomething of a public figure. “Now thereare quite a few students who recognize me;people will come up at parties, at 2 a.m.,and say ‘You’re the girl who made thatannouncement to my class’ and thenthey”ll ask me a question. It’s a good con-versation starter,” she laughs. “And I’veheard that people have gone to the librari-ans and asked for help, saying that some-one had visited their class. So it seems to beworking.”

This promising inaugural year for theLibrary Ambassadors has established a solidfoundation for future efforts. “TheAmbassadors have offered us some reallygood ideas, and it’s tremendously rewardingto get feedback from them. So from theLibrary’s point of view, we hope the pro-gram will be continued and even expand-ed,” says Leive. “Now that we have runthrough this once, we could hire more stu-dents, have clearer mechanisms for collect-ing feedback, work with the SSMU to pro-mote the project, and ultimately have abigger impact.”

Reaching Out: Library Ambassadors

Margaret Gales

Library Ambasador

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“I’m almost embarrassed by how often I’m in theHumanities and Social Sciences Library,” says AlexanderDeguise. “Seven days a week, between four and ten hours aday: I know every person who works on staff, many by name,and pretty much all the security staff.” Most of those hours arespent at his third-floor carrel, where he keeps books related tohis graduate studies. “The space has a quiet, pleasant atmos-phere that is conducive to work,” he explains. But while theMcLennan Library Building is his home away from home,Deguise stresses that he uses many different branches, includingthe Howard Ross Management Library and the SchulichLibrary of Science and Engineering. “After all, we’re very math-ematical in economics.” And when not camped at his carrel orvisiting other branches, he logs onto the growing electronic col-lection from home. “We’re starting to have a good breadth ofeconomics and business texts available online,” he says. “And ingraduate school, we need to have the latest material, so we cancite contemporary and ground-breaking research.”

Deguise is more than simply a student user, though: he alsorepresents the Post-Gradudate Students Society on a number oflibrary committees, including the Humanities and SocialSciences Library Advisory Committee. “Our responsibilitiesinvolve discussing what direction we think the library shouldbe taking,” he explains. “This usually entails focusing onwhether we are acquiring the necessary electronic resources,using the budget effectively, or carrying out necessary renova-tions.” During a recent session of the Principal’s Task Force onStudent Life and Learning, on which he also serves, Deguisestressed that, because of the University’s space demands, theMcLennan-Redpath complex has become the de facto laborato-ry for arts and humanities students. “Most economics studentsrun modeling software in the Electronic Data Resources Servicelab by the entrance to the Redpath Library Building, becausethere is very little lab space available otherwise for arts stu-dents,” he says. “The Humanities and Social Sciences Libraryfills this critical need for us.”

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“I didn’t set foot in thelibrary in my first year,” con-fesses Laurence Bich-Carrière.“It wasn’t necessary, because Ionly needed the electronicdatabases.” But now she is aconstant presence in theNahum Gelber Law Library;since October 2006 she hasbeen working withWainwright Junior FellowPierre-Emmanuel Moyse onthe history of laws governingproperty ownership inQuebec prior to the 1855introduction of the CivilCode, which demands plentyof research among olderitems in the Gelber Library’sWainwright Collection. “I’midentifying important consti-tutional texts, those that mark changes in the law, and thencollecting them in a consultation package that could be used byteachers or researchers – or perhaps even published,” she says.In addition, she is a tutorial leader for the Faculty of Law’sLegal Methodology course, mandatory for students in first orsecond year. There she provides hands-on lessons to a tutorialgroup of sixteen students, helping to illustrate the points cov-ered in their lectures. “Much of the job involves teaching themhow to use legal databases and library resources, and I’m alsopreparing and marking assignments,” she explains.

And, of course, she has her own research to carry out. Lastsummer Bich-Carrière researched juridical culture, and reliedheavily on the Library’s collection of online journals. “The feel-ing of being in your house at nine on a Sunday morning andlooking through older material is great,” she enthuses. “I reallyappreciate the effort the library people made to find as manydatabases as possible.”

Fortunately, she notes, the Nahum Gelber Library is a pleas-ant place to work. “And that’s not just the opinion of a lawstudent – it’s the opinion of all the other students who visit it,”she insists.

What the Library Means to Me

L I B R A R I E S 7

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