Blog Archives

Celebrating Homecoming 2025 with the Libraries

Black and white photo of student studying in the a dorm room in the 1970s..

Make the Libraries your happy place during Homecoming. Reconnect with the McGill community this fall with a masterclass, exhibit tours, library tours, and more. Our 2025 Homecoming programming has something for everyone. Masterclass AI, Privacy, and the Public Good – …

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Something to Write Home About

Close up of student on top of collage featuring student on top of Eiffel Tower Old McGill Yearbook page from 1931/

Meet “Orvil,” a wide-eyed McGill freshman of 1930 whose letters home published in the 1931 Old McGill Yearbook are equal parts endearing, funny, and just a little bit cheeky. From missing the pigs back on the farm to navigating poetry …

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Warden and Witness: 118 years of the ‘Our Lady of the Snows’ banner at McGill

By Katelyn Jones, PhD Candidate, Art History, Max Stern Fellow, McGill Visual Arts Collection (2025-) A magnificent, embroidered banner titled Our Lady of the Snows hangs inconspicuously in the discrete location of the Royal Victoria College Residence Hall nicknamed the …

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Personal and Colourful

By Angela Mortimer, Master of Information Studies (MISt) student at McGill University. Angela is passionate about material culture, public libraries, and social history, and getting people interested in the same.    While working at Rare Books and Special Collections, I …

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Celebrating the inaugural Friends of the Libraries Student Awards

Award winners Julia Couture and Sara-Alba Gonzalez Pepe with a red Friends of the Library banner.

La version française suit. On Monday, April 28, students, library staff, and Friends of the McGill Libraries members gathered together in celebration of the inaugural Friends of the Libraries Student Library Award winners. The awards are generously supported by the Friends of the Libraries …

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Pain Made Visible: Art, Illness, and Inquiry at the Osler Library of the History of Medicine

Illustration against a wall. Subject: Person painted entirely red/pink.

La version française suit. On April 17, a packed audience filled the reading room of the Osler Library of the History of Medicine for two events exploring the subject of pain. The event opened with an artist panel, pain subjects: …

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The Lande Legacy and the Art of Building Rare Book Collections

Receipt for bags of potatoes, Abraham Pastorius, Montreal, 1802. Lande John Law Collection. Rare Books and Special Collections, McGill University Libraries.

La version française suit By: Chris Lyons, Senior Curator, Rare Books & Special Collections (retired) Rare books libraries collect collectors. At first this might sound like a mercenary or macabre way to describe the work of the earnest curators responsible …

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Practicum Pause: Ezra J. Teboul

Cover 1986 catalogue Mossman Collection of the History of Science and Ideas.

La version française suit For MISt student Ezra J. Teboul, a practicum at McGill Libraries was the perfect blend of history, technology, and librarianship. With a background in the history of signal processing and electronic music, Ezra was drawn to …

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McGill and Concordia Collaborate to Build AI Literacy

La version française suit In today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape, understanding Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) is no longer optional—it’s essential. In late fall of 2024, McGill University Libraries, in partnership with Concordia Library and eConcordia, unveiled GenAI Quickstart: Foundations for …

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Backstory: A History of McGill Student Publications

McGill Daily Special Supplement May 1958

La version française suit. Originally published on August 4, 2017 in The Dark Room   Guest post by Annelise Dowd. Annelise is a graduate of the McGill University Master of Information Studies program who worked on a practicum project working with …

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