Award winners Katherine Hanz and Elizabeth Thomson holding up their certificates

Let’s celebrate! 2019 McGill Library Excellence Awards

Huge congratulations are in order for the 2019 recipients of the McGill Library Excellence Awards recognizing outstanding contributions to the Library, its users and its mandate. On May 22, 2019, Katherine Hanz, Liaison Librarian for the School of Information Studies and …

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May 23, 2019

Esi Edugyan and Amanda Parris on stage with the audience and cameraman in the foreground.

Two-time Scotiabank Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan in conversation with CBC’s Amanda Parris

By Cecily Lawson, Friends of the McGill Library committee member The 2019 Hugh MacLennan Lecture was given by Canadian writer and Giller Prize winner Esi Edugyan. She was interviewed on stage at Moyse Hall on April 29th by CBC radio …

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May 21, 2019

Montreal Mansions: Spaces in Time

In 1973 the Van Horne Mansion, a historic brownstone located on the corner of Sherbrooke and Stanley Streets here in Montreal, was controversially dozed. This event came on the heels of a spate of similar demolitions in the Golden Square …

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May 17, 2019

Loving in truth and fain in Riddle my love to show: Mother’s Day Acrostics with The Riddle Project

By Leehu Sigler “I’ve put in so many enigmas and puzzles that it will keep the professors busy for centuries arguing over what I meant, and that’s the only way of insuring one’s immortality”[1]– James Joyce Timeless Riddles is back …

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May 9, 2019

Ils vivaient avec leurs 17 enfants dans un logement de 4 pièces…

Un 4 pièces avec 6 ou 7 enfants! Certaines familles avaient 12 ou 17 enfants! […] Une chambre de garçons, une chambre de filles, une chambre de parents. Les enfants étaient élevés dehors. C’était la grande misère, raconte Marguerite. …

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May 2, 2019

Colour by Numbers: Contemporary Japanese prints in the Visual Arts Collection

La version française suit By Isabelle Chartier, Collections Administrator, Visual Arts Collection Printmaking is, traditionally, a colourless medium: black ink transferred onto white paper. Adding colour to prints is a slow and laborious process, at odds with the very essence …

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April 23, 2019

A scene from God’s love to wicked little Joseph (circa 1840). The title character, “indeed a very wicked boy”, develops a penchant for outbursts of colourful language. By page 16, the boy is dead, apparently smote for his wicked tongue. PN970 A4 G6 1832. Sheila R. Bourke Collection.

Content Warning: This Library Contains Colourful Language

La version française suit By Elis Ing, Liaison Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections “Pray, Goody, please to moderate the rancour of your tongue” (Pray Goody, ca. 1820). Colourful language makes many people uncomfortable. Profane, blasphemous or crude words are …

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April 23, 2019

Kookany Pass, British Columbia. George Mercer Dawson. 1882? McGill University Archives. Dawson-Harrington families fonds.

The Colourful Journey of George Mercer Dawson

La version française suit By Frédéric Giuliano, Archivist, McGill University Archives “The times were rife with great men making great strides, but in truth, I felt like one of those frogs in my adolescent poem, most certainly the younger, lifted …

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April 23, 2019

Gautier Dagoty, & Du Verney, M.. Essai d'anatomie: En tableaux imprimé…Paris, 1745. https://mcgill.on.worldcat.org/oclc/6315093

Jacques Fabien Gautier’s colourful life in printmaking

La version française suit By Mary Yearl, Head Librarian, Osler Library of the History of Medicine Jacques Fabien Gautier D’Agoty (1716-1785) was a man whose life was full of colour. Today he is best known for the spectacular works he …

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April 23, 2019

Can You Spot It?: Solving Visual Puzzles with The Riddle Project

By Leehu Sigler “Too many riddles weigh men down on earth. We must solve as we can, and try to keep a dry skin in the water.”[1] ― The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoyevsky Timeless Riddles is back with some more puzzling …

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April 15, 2019