Yearly Archives: 2018

It’s a Slam Dunk: Inspiring a Nation of Youth

– Written by Lori Podolsky – How does a building with “unadorned simplicity of its exterior, the forbidding gloom of its interior, the patched condition of its flooring and the holey state of its roof” inspire a nation of youth? …

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Season’s Greetings: Vintage Martlet Style

Screenshot from Martlet Remix

For the last couple of years, McGill Library has upped our game when it comes to holiday greetings. Last year, we animated wintry scenes from our ROAAr collections. This year we took a different approach. While looking for content for our upcoming …

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Curatorial Snapshots: McGill’s Books of Hours

Richard Virr, Retired Chief Curator, Rare Books and Special Collections and co-curator of the Resplendent Illuminations exhibit currently running at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has chosen 13 notable images from McGill’s holdings to give us a taste of …

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What Happens When the Library Roof Catches Fire?

The short answer to that question is a lot of work, countless cardboard boxes, unimaginable reams of acid-free tissue paper, innumerable man-hours, and a long-term recovery plan. The long answer is, like so many stories, best told in photos.     …

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2018 Annual General Meeting & presentation of the Friends of the Library Award

Signage welcoming attendees to Friends AGM

By Kate Williams, member, Friends of the Library Committee The 2018 Friends of the Library annual general meeting, presided over by the Chair, Ann Vroom, and held in McGill’s historic Birks building, offered a brief summary of the year’s activities, …

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A Walk Through “Books that Pop!”

A german Accordion alphabet and phrase book in the Books that Pop Exhibition.

Guest Post by. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Associate Professor, Pennsylvania State University, College of Education, Curriculum and Instruction and Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Coming back to McGill University after being away for a couple of weeks, I got off …

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70 candles for the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

By Lori Podolsky “That there can be no peace unless human rights and freedoms are respected” (John Peters Humphrey, 1947) John Peters Humphrey, the first Director of the Human Rights Division at the United Nations, and along with Eleanor Roosevelt …

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An Exceptional Day of Mourning

By Julien Couture, Assistant Archivist at McGill University Archives On November 30, 1933, Canada lost one of the greatest war heroes of its young history. On this centennial of the end of the Great War, it is important to look back and reflect …

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A Hyakumanto Dharani – among the earliest surviving examples of printed text

In 1968, McGill acquired a copy of the Hyakumanto Dhāraṇī (百萬塔陀羅尼經), one of the earliest surviving examples of printed text, along with the miniature wooden pagoda within which it was stored more than a thousand years ago. A dhāraṇī can be described as a charm used …

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Small wonders tell big stories at Rare Books & Special Collections

La version française suit By Elis Ing, Liaison Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections Before delving into the trove of tiny books at McGill’s Rare Books & Special Collections, it’s worth asking a few questions. To start with, how tiny …

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