Category: Archived

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E-Mail Buddies

Summer is around the corner, and you know what that means: 30 new students have been accepted into the Dalhousie MLIS program next fall. If you are a current SIM student, then you’ll remember being paired with an e-mail buddy before launching into the (somewhat overwhelming) orientation week in September.

Please consider volunteering a few moments of your time to help an incoming student and participate in the e-mail buddy program this year. You can volunteer by contacting SIMSA here, tweet to @DalSIMSA, or find us on Facebook.

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SIM Students @ APLA

Spotlight on Student Research

SIM students @ APLA
Left to right: SIMSA Vice-Chair (Academic) Valerie Collins, DJIM Co-Chair Carlisle Kent, APLA Past President Louise White.

SIM students took the annual Atlantic Provinces Library Association (APLA) conference by storm in Moncton, NB last week.

Valerie Collins presented her paper on “Social Media and Scientific Communication,” a collaborative project she completed as part of a reading course with Lou Duggan, Dr Anatoliy Gruzd, and Dr Bertram MacDonald. Their research explored how the dissemination of scientific information has evolved from the Age of Reason to the Information Age.

Carlisle Kent presented “Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction,” a collaborative project she completed with Maria Bartlett, Andrea Kampen, and Hilary Lynd as part of the INFO 5520 (Research Methods) course, supervised by Dr Mike Smit. Their research investigated issues surrounding the meaning, perception, and experience of visual art in the digital age.

If you attended the 2014 Information Without Borders (IWB) Conference at Dalhousie, then you may be familiar with Marc Harper‘s work concerning the human rights issue of information access in North Korea. “Information access: a study of the potential for an information revolution in North Korea” was a presentation that tapped into Marc’s personal experiences in Asia.

Gayle Graham explored the role of publication in the spread of misinformation in her project, “The Halifax Explosion and the Spread of Rumour, 1917 to the Present.“

Mingyue Chen presented a pilot study of international students’ online health seeking behaviours, where she investigated barriers to finding health information for international students.

Finally, James Ross explored the dissemination of information in an environmental context in “What do users want in a State of the Environment report? A study of the State of the Scotian Shelf Report.“

You can read more about the Spotlight on Student Research here.

Check out the Twitter discussion generated by student research at the APLA conference using the hashtag #InfoStudies.

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Students to CLA

CLA
From left to right: Canadian Library Association President Marie DeYoung, SIMSA Co-Chair Andrea Kampen, SIMSA Digital Publications Officer Alieda Blandford

From May 28 to May 31, 2014, information professionals from all over the country descended on Victoria, British Columbia for the annual Canadian Library Association Conference and Trade Show. The conference offered more than 70 sessions, seminars, and workshops on everything from Open Access, copyright, cloud computing, and digital collections to book repair, social media, business services, and genealogy.

SIMSA executive officers (and CLA members) Andrea Kampen and Alieda Blandford attended the conference.

Stay tuned for their conference reports in the July issue of Inform.

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Librarians Without Borders in Guatemala

Congratulations, Jaq-Lin!

Jaq-Lin Larder, chair of the Dalhousie student chapter of Librarians Without Borders, is currently in Guatemala developing and operating a school and community library.

The Saber Sin Límites (Limitless Knowledge) Community Library opened in 2010 as the first and only community library in Chajul, Guatemala, with 3,783 titles, two librarians, and many helping hands. The project depends on the contributions of volunteers.

You can find out more about LWB’s Guatemala project here

Or read the current Guatemala blog here.