Blog Archives

Abandonnez ce qui a péri il y a longtemps…

… et laissez-nous aimer les vivants [English will follow]   Madeleine Parent n’aurait pu choisir une meilleure devise pour son album de finissants: «Abandonnez ce qui a péri il y a longtemps, et laissez-nous aimer les vivants». Une devise qui devait …

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McGill convocation through the years

The tent is up on McGill’s downtown campus and the convocation ceremonies are right around the corner. We’re taking a look back at the university’s convocations through the years with photos from our digitized collection of yearbooks, the McGill University Archives …

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Nicholas Cronk on Voltaire at McGill

AN AMERICAN VOLTAIRE: The J. Patrick Lee Voltaire Collection at McGill By: Nicholas Cronk, Voltaire Foundation, Oxford University (le texte en français suit) Pat Lee, who died in 2006, was a life-enhancing friend as well as a Voltaire enthusiast and …

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Ways of seeing: artistry on display in the Osler’s autumn acquisitions

Figure 3 Studying the senses, from Ducrot’s Cahier d’histoire naturelle, 1835-1837.

La version française suit By Mary Yearl, Head Librarian, Osler Library of the History of Medicine There is something about those eyes. The variety of colour; the sizes that span human stages of growth. Their presence is at once alarmingly …

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The Unknown Unknown: Finding the Jean Drapeau Collection

Photo d’Expo 67 tirée de l’album de photos personnelles de Jean Drapeau.

La version française suit By Chris Lyons, Head Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections — I think the most exciting part of my job as a rare book librarian is in discovering the “unknown unknowns,” to use Donald Rumsfeld’s turn …

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If These Buildings Could Walk: On a newly acquired Melvin Charney sculpture

Melvin Charney, CITIES ON THE RUN…Three Stragglers, 1999. Aluminium soudé, sablé et laqué. Don de Lilian et Billy Mauer. Collection d’arts visuels de McGill, 2017-055.

La version française suit By Vanessa Di Francesco, Assistant Curator, McGill Visual Arts Collection — The idea that the built environments we inhabit can take on their own lives, acting apart from us or on our behalf, occupies our popular …

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Branching out! Seed Library grows in year two

Seed Library Logo

By Dana Ingalls, Liaison Librarian, Macdonald Campus Library “If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need.” ― Marcus Tullius Cicero It may be snowing and cold, but spring is just around the corner, and the Macdonald Campus Seed …

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Contest! Decode This Curious Hieroglyphick Valentine

Detail Hyroglyphik

By: Anna Dysert, Librarian, Archival & Rare Book Cataloguing Decode the image below for a sweet Valentine’s Day message and win a prize! Printed some time in the mid-19th century, this clever Valentine’s rebus comes from McGill’s uncatalogued collection of greeting cards dating …

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New alumni resource: Project Muse

Project Muse Logo

McGill Alumni now have access to a wealth of digital humanities and social sciences content through Project Muse. Project Muse is an expanding collection of electronic books from over 250 academic publishers and over 400 journals published by university presses …

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Table Setting Riddles 101: The Solution Set

Eliza Smithson's signature, Smithson Cookbook Collection.

By Nathalie Cooke, Professor and Associate Dean, Archives & Rare Collections, McGill University Library Thanks to all who took up our riddling challenge offering answers from across Canada and abroad (including England, Ireland, and New Zealand). We promised to provide some …

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