Blog Archives

Introducing the Goodman Intern

My name is Colin Rier and I am a undergraduate student at McGill University studying food history. I am this summer’s Goodman Intern at Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), working with the cookbook collection. I have a long history …

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Focal Points – Casey Wood and the McGill Collections

owl from Dionision Minaggio's Feather Book

Birds, eyes, and bile came into focus at this semester’s ROAAr symposium “The Eyes have it; a Re-appreciation of Casey Wood.”  You might wonder what such things have in common; the answer is Casey Wood. Wood was a passionate and …

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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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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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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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Waxing Nostalgic: McGill@Expo67

Passport interior cropped. Credit: Jennifer Garland

La version française suit By Jennifer Garland, Associate Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections McGill@Expo67 is an exhibition in the McGill Library that celebrates Expo 67’s 50th anniversary and explores the role of Expo 67 in teaching and research and …

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Celebrate Homecoming 2017 at the Library

McGill Library’s ROAAr units have planned an eclectic mix of tours, hands-on events, and lectures for McGill Homecoming (Thursday October 12 – Saturday, October 14). Explore Montreal and McGill architecture then and now, learn how to transcribe weather information from …

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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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Visualizing Montreal and McGill with Historypin

C.O.T.C Training on McGill Campus

By Sarah Severson, Assistant Librarian and Coordinator, Digital Library Services Walking around Montreal it’s easy to get lost in the past looking at all the old buildings. What if you could search for a place on a map and click to see …

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Table Setting Riddles 101

The Doncaster Collection. Photo: Lauren Goldman

By Kat Despain, Research Assistant to Nathalie Cooke, Professor and Associate Dean, Archives & Rare Collections, McGill University Library Do you like puzzles? Do you like food history? Do you want to win $25 at the McGill bookstore? Take up our riddling …

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