Blog Archives

Meet the Curator – Dr. Maia Isabelle Woolner

cure yourself by electricity

Dr. Maia Isabelle Woolner curated the exhibition Cure Yourself by Electricity! Personal Electrotherapeutic Devices in Canada and Beyond c. 1880s-1930s. On display in the ground floor lobby of the McLennan Library building, the exhibit is a shockingly fascinating tour through …

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‘Wrong author, you silly Shih Tzu. Godot will never recognize you in that James Joyce disguise.’

two well dressed dogs attached to a dog cart

By Labiba Faiza, ROAAr McGill Library This July, ROAAr’s Caption This series celebrated the dog days of summer by featuring a picture of an incredibly stylish dynamic dog duo. It came as no surprise that participants came up with a …

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Fashionable Northern Tours

Summer is the perfect time for a holiday get-away. Maybe you are in the midst of looking into various guides and maps to get to your perfect destination and make the most of it. Travellers of the nineteenth century did …

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“I fear our cypher is detected”: When agony ads go awry

The “FLO. Ciphers,” sent between September 1853 and January 1854, were a lovers’ correspondence that appeared in the Agony Column of “The Times”. Identifiable only by their addressee, the correspondence was the subject of much intrigue due to the unique numeric cipher in which it was written. The cipher was broken and later intercepted by Charles Babbage, a Victorian mathematician with a knack for code breaking. The ever-witty Babbage let the correspondents onto his discovery by correcting the grammar and spelling of one of their messages. Finding themselves exposed, the lovers ended their secret correspondence in haste.

By: Ronny Litvack-Katzman, Research Assistant, ROAAr At first glance, the Agony Column appears a perfect outlet for clandestine correspondences. Throughout the 19th-century, thousands of writers across the British Empire successfully sent and received cryptic messages through popular Victorian newspapers such …

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Enduringly Paw-pular

John McCrae and his dog Bonneau

Trends in dog breed popularity come and go – but our love of dogs is here to stay. July weather brings us into the dog days of summer so we’ll take a moment to explore some canine curiosities and the …

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Caption This – June in Brazil

Our thanks go to Sharon Cohen, B.A. ’74 for the community caption for last month’s postcard. This card likely dates from the so-called Clipper era of Pan American operations. The airline offered flights to South America out of Florida beginning …

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The Story of Choryo 張良 and Kosekiko 黄石公

By Melody Hsu, McGill Visual Arts Collection Museum Database Assistant (2022), B.A Art History and International Development, Minor Communications, 2022 A smirking, elderly man atop a galloping horse gazes down at a young man kneeling on a dragon. The young …

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Mammoth Football! Caption This May 2022

By Labiba Faiza, ROAAr, McGill Library For the month of May, ROAAr’s monthly “Caption This” series put the spotlight on an intriguing photo of people playing a mysterious sport on campus, taken circa 1890.1 A crowd of spectators can be …

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10 McGill Library activities to do with visitors in town for convocation

A crowd of graduates in caps and gowns seen from behind at a ceremony.

It’s that time again! After more than two years of virtual ceremonies and convocation-themed Zoom backgrounds, happy graduates and their families are back on McGill’s beautiful campuses. To celebrate, we’ve compiled a list of ten fun Library-related things to do …

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Asian North American Art in McGill Visual Arts Collection

By Serene Mitchell, McGill Visual Arts Collection Museum Database Assistant (2022), B.A History, 2022 As a student of Asian North American history, I’ve always been drawn to the development of cultural identity and understanding migration history through sites of artistic …

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