Blog Archives

The Rhodes Hours: female devotional culture in early Renaissance France

Iris Bednarski is a fourth-year Honours Art History student and the Editor-in-Chief of Canvas: McGill’s Undergraduate Journal of Art History & Communications.             Against the blue-tiled floor of a cavernous hall, a noblewoman kneels to pray. She clasps her hands …

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Chris Burns appointed Director of Rare Books and Special Collections

Chris Burns

La version française suit. McGill University Libraries are delighted to welcome Chris Burns as the new Director of Rare Books and Special Collections. Burns has served at the University of Vermont’s Silver Special Collections Library since 2001, where he held …

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Commemorating Remembrance Day at McGill Libraries

To mark Remembrance Day, take in this selection of historical materials, poems, newspapers, diaries, artworks, and artifacts from our extensive collections. Handwritten poem of McCrae’s “In Flanders fields” John McCrae’s poem remains one of the most influential pieces of Canadian …

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T is for Turn-up Book

unfolded turn-up book

By Prof. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Penn State, Video by Jacquelyn Sundberg, McGill Libraries What is a turn-up book? A brief history A turn-up book is an interactive booklet that has been engaged with by children and adults from the mid-17th century …

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A Few of Our Favourite Things

Lire la version française A happy cohort of undergraduate students were hired last term to devote their energies to systematically comb through a portion of the stacks in Rare Books and Special Collections in order to stabilize books most in …

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Once Upon a Print: Cinderella’s Wood Block Magic

Cinderella is a tale of transformation and perception. We are delighted to have in the Sheila Bourke Children’s Collection not only the chapbook Cinderella and the Little Glass Slipper, but also the woodblocks used to print this small, vivid book! …

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The “Flying Wonder” of Victorian Paper Toys

By Dr. Jacqueline Reid-Walsh, Penn State College of Education & Jacquelyn Sundberg, Outreach Librarian, McGill Lire la version française The “Flying Wonder” lives up to its name; this is a vibrant set of Victorian-era paper toys, animated with moveable flaps …

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Octavo, Quarto, and Folio! Oh my!

books of various sizes

Lire la version française By Jacquelyn Sundberg, Outreach Librarian, and Ann Marie Holland, Curator, William Colgate History of Printing Collection, Rare Books and Special Collections. If you are new to the world of rare books, you might wonder what these …

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A New (Old) Game of Solitaire

Dick's game of Patience

I would guess that most of us know how to play at least one form of solitaire. For owners of a Windows computer, the classic Free Solitaire game has been built into the operating system since 1990. It was included …

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A Journey Through Time With “Caption This”

In the beginning of 2022, ROAAr’s newsletter inaugurated an engaging series: “Caption This” through which we put intriguing images from our archives to good use by inviting users to caption them. After a two-year successful run, the series concluded in …

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