Blog Archives

Virtual Puzzles: Winter fun & a splash of colour to ring in 2021

Outdoor activities are front and center this holiday break. If you are looking for a fun way to stay warm after an afternoon of sledding or skiing, try your hand at solving these jigsaw puzzles featuring vintage images courtesy of …

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Trot away from 2020 with our DIY rare holiday phenakistoscope

This holiday season is unlike any other. As we move into a new (and hopefully better) year, the Library wishes you much peace, rest, and health coupled with lighthearted moments of reflection, joy, and discovery. Once again, we have remixed …

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Busy behind-the-scenes: McGill Library’s Digitization-on-Demand

ballerina string puppet on a green backdrop

By Greg Houston, Digitization & New Media Administrator and Elis Ing, Liaison Librarian, Rare Books and Special Collections Lire la version française While our doors may be closed, we are still hard at work. With such rich collections of unique …

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Theodore A. Harris’ “The Long Dream, After Richard Wright” and the Activists in Our Collections

Philadelphia-based artist, Theodore Harris, insists on the power of visual art to reveal diverse perspectives, speaking of our collective past, present, and future in a contentiously shared world.  Presenting as keynote at Culture Shock, a yearly event co-hosted by The …

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Let’s Feast! Historical Cooking Challenge

In March the library staff took on the challenge of cooking from historical recipes (read about it here). Adapting historical measurements and ingredients proved to be great fun. Now we throw that challenge out to you. Choose a recipe, make …

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November Screen Share

Marbled Wrapper, rotated 90 degrees from the original

Click here for instructions on how to download a virtual background and set this image as your backdrop. This beautiful marbled paper is a later addition to Old Dame Trot and her Comical Cat, a small illustrated chapbook of Children’s …

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Punch and Judy – October Screen Share

Celebrating costumes and the uncanny factor of all puppets, here is our October screen share. Just in time for Hallowe’en, use the image to dress up your desktop or embellish your Zoom meetings. Scroll to the bottom for instructions on …

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More Zoom Backgrounds: ROAAr edition

Back by popular demand, we’ve got more Zoom backgrounds for students, faculty and staff to use as we start the academic year. In April, we featured campus places and library spaces. This time, we invite you to take in and …

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Dr. Jessica Stacey on Voltaire

Dr. Jessica Stacey is a recipient of the 2019 Raymond Klibansky Collection Research Travel Grant, awarded to pursue research with McGill’s Voltaire Collection. At the McGill Library last autumn, I was putting the finishing touches on a foreword to the …

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Launch | The McGill Library Orientation Game – “Raising Spirits: A Timely Diversion”

As we all prepare for a virtual fall semester, the McGill library is offering an innovative activity to welcome new, current, and former McGillians back to campus, even if only in spirit. We hope to draw everyone back from afar with the aid of their computers: to …

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