Library news

Find three of our service desks in a library scavenger hunt and be eligible for a $100 ONECard.

From October 25 - November 22, 2024 fill out a brief anonymous and confidential survey (takes 5 minutes!) and help us identify areas of the highest impact that can support Science graduate students.

From July 26-27, the Vancouver Art Book Fair (VABF) returned after a five-year absence to the Vancouver art and book arts community. With 67 exhibitors — including artists, book and magazine publishers, and galleries — the fair took place at the centrally-located Vancouver Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre near Yaletown.

Through the exploration of the biggest issues in art, the Company of Ideas (COI) forums bring in a rich diversity of speakers under an annual theme inspired by the teachings and philosophy of sculptor Jeffrey Rubinoff. Since 2008, the COI has tackled topics such as art and moral conscience, art and music, art and modernism – with papers and presentations delivered by UVic AHVS students alongside contemporary thinkers, philosophers, and artists.

Special Collections & University Archives is pleased to share the news of the recent artists' book acquisition, Kinship, by Islam Aly, 2024. Kinship is a thought-provoking and beautiful volume, and an important addition to UVic Libraries artists’ books collection.

The Japanese practice of kintsugi honours and celebrates the repair of what was once broken. This installation takes the fragmented pieces of self, story and culture, and attempts to reassemble them into something new through song. Kintsugi invites the user to create space to reflect on their own relationship to ancestry and examine how that relationship evolves over time.

This summer, the UVic Libraries Historic Computing Lab was honored to host, sponsor and contribute to “Hypertext & Art: A Retrospective of Forms,” an exhibition of historic hypertext artworks held in conjunction with the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI), held from June 10-14. Curated by Dr. Dene Grigar (Washington State University), it was the North American premiere of an exhibition originally presented in 2023 at the Bibliotheca Hertziana—Max Planck Institute for Art History, in Rome, Italy.

UVic Libraries is hiring a Communications + Design Assistant (for approved UVic work study students).

Get to know your library with a graduate student library tour. Pick a date: Sept 20, 23 or 26. Then post three things you remember from the tour in the Instagram comments and be eligible for a $75 swag bag.

Throughout September, individuals who book and attend (in-person or virtually) an appointment with a UVic librarian will be eligible to enter a drawing for a $100.00 ONECard.

Love pizza? Love reading? Visit the Ask Us desk this summer and pick up a Book Bingo Card and enjoy both.

The founding of University of Victoria over 60 years ago was marked by a campus with a distinct modernist art and architectural style. Clearly, many projects for the modernist campus were realized, however, the University Archives holds a tantalizing document depicting an unbuilt feature designed by William D. (Bill) West: a proposed fountain in the courtyard of the MacLaurin Building (also known as the education arts complex).

And if you take anything away from this article, let it be this: apply to everything that catches your eye and apply twice to everything that catches your mind. Also, go check out my exhibit in the reading room. It’s only up until August 2024. I wanted it to be transient and insistently physical, like the diaspora it belongs to. You won’t know us until you look through our windows.

Originally, I was drawn to the Transgender Archives at UVic — the largest Transgender Archive in the world — because I wanted to research trans histories. I chose FTM because those stories resonate deeply with me, and I have many transgender friends currently transitioning from Female to Male. As a non-binary person myself, I was curious about past treatment of trans individuals and important issues in the trans community.

From the Stonewall riots to present day, the journey has been long and challenging but the resilience and determination by the 2SLGBTQIA+ community has led to significant milestones.

In February 2024, the Diana M. Priestly Law Library unveiled a new display that showcases the background, history, and accomplishments of the Raging Grannies nationwide and includes artifacts from the University of Victoria’s Special Collections & University Archives.

My work involves talking to publishers about our renewals, making sure we receive and pay our invoices, ensuring that you're able to find and access electronic resources in our collections, and perhaps most importantly, making decisions to ensure the library collections have what they need to best support UVic's many academic programs.

One of the benefits of this position was how it allowed me to learn about so many facets of the library, from Special Collections to the Centre for Academic Communication to the Digital Scholarship Commons and everything in between. I’ve made so many connections across departments, and the staff at the Libraries have made every day a joy. I feel so fortunate for this opportunity and for all the wonderful people I’ve met along the way.

No two days are ever the same. Most days involve helping students – answering questions over email or having appointments and drop-ins. Depending on the day, I will work on answering questions over email and preparing for student appointments.

My job is to make sense of all of the interconnections between those different platforms and resources and help shepherd us towards a consistent and comprehensible web presence that helps students and other library users find what they’re looking for easily and efficiently.