2013-14LibraryAnnualReport

A N N U A L
R E P O R T
2 0 1 3 - 2 0 1 4
Q U E E N ’ S U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R Y

CONTENTS
2 Message from the Vice-Provost and University Librarian
4 Facts and Figures
6 Enhancing the Student Learning Experience
8 Envisioning the Library and Archives of the Future
10 Supporting Learning Outcomes
12 Facilitating Access
14 Implementing E-reserves
16 Fostering a Learning Community
18 Research Prominence
20 Developing Collections
22 Finding Information
24 Digging into the Archives
26 Sharing Research Results
28 Expanding the Library Network
30 Showcasing Special Collections and Archives
32 Internationalization
34 Welcoming Chinese Librarians
34 Supporting Health Sciences in Bangladesh
35 Strengthening the Bader International Study Centre Library
35 Engaging in the Matariki Network
36 Financial Sustainability
38 Redeploying Human Resources
38 Developing Human Capital
39 Collaborating
40 Leveraging Donor Generosity

2
An annual report is a wonderful opportunity to reflect on our contri-
butions to the academic enterprise, and to inform people of recent
activities. In the past we’ve had internal documents, from the annual
reports of individuals and units to the annual planning and budget
document for the Library and the Archives. This year, we’re pleased
to introduce a new form of report, one that highlights a number of
stories for the interest of the Queen’s community. Although such a
report cannot capture every detail of our work, we hope it gives a
sense of the vitality of the Library and the Archives.
At all times, our plans are guided by Queen’s vision of the Canadian research-intensive university
with a transformative student learning experience. The year summarized here, 2013-14, shows many
examples of the Library’s position at the learning and research crossroads. Our greatest strengths
are the close working relationships we have with each faculty and school and the information ex-
pertise we bring to their academic programs and research. We also engage in a wide array of external
collaborations that help us leverage developments in the broader information landscape, for the
benefit of learning and research at Queen’s.
Of the many notable developments of the past year, several stand out. The engagement of students
and faculty in the development of the Library and Archives Master Plan was truly inspiring, and
approval by the Board of Trustees and integration with the Campus Master Plan has positioned us
well for the future. We made great strides in the collaborative development of research data
management services, in preparation for upcoming requirements from research granting councils.
At the same time, our support for teaching and learning took new strategic directions and integrates
effectively with the university’s Teaching and Learning Action Plan. As well, we can feel very proud
of contributing to the success of the university’s new Accessibility Hub, which strives to remove
barriers for persons with disabilities.
I would like to thank everyone in the Library and the Archives and all of our partners for their
contributions to our accomplishments of 2013-14. It is a privilege to work with such talented people
who together inspire learning, spark creativity and build community.
– Martha Whitehead
MESSAGE
FROM THE
VICE-PROVOST
AND UNIVERSITY
LIBRARIAN

B B
B B
B
B B
BB
4
FACTS AND
FIGURES Top rank (A)
for category in
The Globe and Mail
Canadian University
Report
First in holdings
per student in
Maclean’s 2014
University
Rankings
122.63 FTE employees (library technicians, staff, librarians, archivists)
11 linear kilometres of archival records,
including 3,000,000 images, 300,000
architectural drawings and thousands of
sound recordings and moving images
14,000 answers
to individual
queries
3,000,000+
physical volumes
80,000+ e-journals containing
more than 85,000,000 articles
24 x 7 open hours in Stauffer Library
during exams, and 2 am closing
most other days in winter session
14,709 students taught in
830 classes across all
faculties and schools

5
Q U E E N ’ S U N I V E R S I T Y L I B R A R Y
Stauffer Library,
housing the Queen’s
Learning Commons
and Academic Services,
as well as humanities
and social sciences
resources and services
Douglas Library,
housing the
Engineering and
Science Library and
the Jordan Special
Collections and
Music Library
Bracken Health
Sciences Library
in Botterell Hall
Education
Library in
McArthur Hall
University
Archives in
Kathleen Ryan
Hall
Lederman
Law Library in
MacDonald Hall

7
Enhancing
the Student
Learning
Experience

8
ENVISIONING
THE LIBRARY
AND ARCHIVES
OF THE FUTURE
The Library today is in the midst of a digital revolution: a shift in
how knowledge is stored and accessed that is probably more pro-
found than any previous change in its history. Learning, too, is
changing from an emphasis on information conveyed through
lectures to an inquiry-based, experiential approach to building
knowledge – an approach that takes advantage of opportunities
offered by the Library and the Archives.
In light of this changing environment, Queen’s University Library
has developed a new Library and Archives Master Plan. The plan
seeks to adapt to these new demands while holding on to the best of the old. Says Professor Shelley
King, a member of the Library and Archives Master Plan Steering Committee and current Chair of
the Senate Library Committee, “what is being planned is not the bookless library – digital and
traditional means of storing knowledge will exist side by side – but it is a reframing of the relation-
ship to book culture.”
The plan creates new learning spaces, highlights valuable collections and recognizes the key role the
Library plays as a centre of campus life. A new “Library Square” will embrace the Stauffer and Douglas
libraries, a public space that will serve as the academic crossroads of Queen’s, drawing in ultimately
not just students and faculty, but the broader Kingston community as well. A transformed Douglas
Library will highlight archives and special collections, and services supporting digital scholarship.
In Stauffer Library and the smaller libraries across campus, the plan calls for space to be opened up
for academic support services and technology-enabled study spaces for groups and individuals.
Whether students are relying on the Library’s traditional collections or its digital resources, services
and spaces, they are using the Library. That’s key, says King, who notes that “the Library continues to
matter because it is – and is perceived to be – at the heart of undergraduate and graduate education.”
The planning process involved stakeholders across the university and was closely tied to the devel-
opment of the Campus Master Plan. The Library and Archives Master Plan was approved by Queen’s
Board of Trustees in December 2013. Full details, including a video featuring Queen’s students and
faculty, are available at queensu.ca/connect/lamp.

9
Proposed –
Douglas Library
main level
exhibition space
with new opening
to above
Proposed –
Stauffer Library
view to multi-
purpose atrium
with seating

10
SUPPORTING
LEARNING
OUTCOMES
Information today is the currency of the knowledge economy. Rec-
ognizing this, many of the university’s academic programs identify
information literacy as one of the key outcomes for undergraduate
education.
Queen’s University Library has long been a leader in information lit-
eracy programs, which essentially aim to deepen learning through
effective engagement with the information ecosystem. Students
have access to more information than ever before, but research
shows that they often struggle with determining a research focus,
conducting effective searches and developing arguments – the elements of inquiry.
Librarians partner with faculty to help ensure that students graduate with the skills required for life-
long learning and inquiry, in whatever careers they pursue. In 2013-14, this was evident not only in
the 830 classes taught by librarians, reaching 14,709 students across all faculties and schools, but also
in work behind the scenes. Librarians partici-
pated in strategic program re-envisioning and
curriculum development initiatives, such as the
redesign of the Bachelor of Education program.
The Library engaged actively in the Queen’s
University Quality Assurance Process, writing
reports for 14 cyclical program reviews and
reviewing all academic program proposals for
their information needs. The Teaching and
Learning Working Group facilitated the map-
ping of specific learning outcomes for selected
courses in each faculty and the development of
an information literacy assessment plan.
Experiential learning is a close cousin to inquiry-
based learning, and a Queen’s priority. The

11
Library provided 17 individual experiential
learning opportunities for students in Arts and
Science,Education,and Engineering and Applied
Science in 2013-14.As well,librarians contributed
to numerous ‘real life’ learning assignments in
courses. “For example,” says Nasser Saleh, Head
of the Engineering and Science Library, “each
year students in applied sciences have problem-
based design projects where they work with
clients on real engineering problems. And the
librarians work right with them – they start with
what do the students know now, and what
do they need to know, and then teach them how
to search, evaluate and use information from
various sources to develop a solution to the
assigned engineering problem.”
An expanding aspect of the Library’s course involvement is in developing materials for Queen’s
growing number of blended and online courses – producing online learning modules and lectures,
linking to resources, and helping create exercises and quizzes. As part of Queen’s contribution to
the Ontario Online suite of courses, a program that lets students across the province take online
courses at other universities for credit towards a degree at their own school, the Library offered an
information literacy component for the 13 courses developed in 2013-14.
Not to be overlooked in all this learning support – the 14,000 individual inquiries answered over
the year by librarians and staff. This note from a grateful student says it all:
“Just wanted to thank you again for the other day, you helped me both with
my assignment and gave me a reason to fall back in love with science. For this
I’m very grateful.”

12
FACILITATING
ACCESS
Queen’s University Library was a pioneer in providing library serv-
ices for students with disabilities, collaborating with Health, Coun-
selling and Disability Services in opening the Adaptive Technology
Centre in 1991. The first of its kind in Ontario, this award-winning
centre has been a model for universities across the country.
Today, the Library is one of the leaders in providing not only services
to students with disabilities, but in addressing the information needs
of any member of the university community who has a disability.
The fall of 2013 saw the launch of Queen’s Accessibility Hub, a significant new resource recom-
mended by the Information and Communications Working Group of Queen’s Accessibility Frame-
work. The working group includes staff from multiple university units, including the Adaptive
Technology Centre, and is chaired by the Vice-Provost and University Librarian. The Hub is a web-
site that provides resources on everything from how students with disabilities can get help and
how professors can create accessible docu-
ments, to how visitors can find accessible
routes through campus. More than that, it is a
live resource managed by the Hub Coordinator,
Andrew Ashby, who personally helps anyone
who wants to “Ask Andrew!” The Hub has been
widely praised and is being emulated by other
organizations.
In 2013 Queen’s was also involved with the
ocul (Ontario Council of University Libraries)
Accessible Content E-portal project. Under this
program, library content at universities across
the province is scanned and then placed in a
repository for use by students with disabilities
at all the participating schools. Queen’s Library

13
was involved in the pilot project, and Michele Chittenden, Coordinator of Library Services for
Students for Disabilities, has been working together with other ocul librarians to develop processes
that will enable all universities to share even more material from their collections in future. Michele,
one of Ontario’s pioneers in developing library services and resources for students with disabilities,
was also a member of the Association of Research Libraries’ Accessibility and Universal Design
working group, helping to create a toolkit, released in March 2014, that looks at the idea of universal
design as it applies to learning. Rather than creating a course then trying to adapt it to accommodate
those with specific learning needs after the fact, educators should try to think of the needs of every
learner before designing the curriculum as well as the physical or virtual learning environment.
For example,” says Chittenden, “when creating your course website, ensure that it is accessible for
individuals who use a screen reader.”
For the Library, accessibility is fundamental to its mission: it’s all about removing barriers to
information access.

14
IMPLEMENTING
E-RESERVES
“I found it very efficient and would use it again; students
found it easy to get readings any time they wanted.”
Queen’s Principal Daniel Woolf on using the e-reserves service for his
History 400/803 course, History of Historical Writing
When it comes to time and resources, faculty members today are
stretched – not just (perhaps understandably) the Principal, but all
of them. One way that the Library helps them – particularly with
courses that depend on a broad selection of readings and other ma-
terials rather than a standard textbook – is through its e-reserves service. Rather than having to scan
books or photocopy articles, and seek out the necessary permissions themselves, the Library does it
all for them. Started as a pilot in 2012-13, implementation of the ongoing service began in 2013-14.
Faculty send in reading lists – they might need a number of journal articles, scanned chapters from
books, videos or dvds. Library staff make sure each item is available to students in the format
requested, and also that it can be adapted for those with perceptual disabilities. With books, they’ll
pull them from the shelves and copy pertinent material using a scanner far more sophisticated than
what faculty members might have themselves. With other materials, they might provide the needed
links through the Library’s digital management system as well as making sure that any materials
are made available in the way that complies with associated licenses. It’s all provided to students
free of cost. E-reserves staff also undertakes copyright clearance for any requested material, a
considerable savings in time for faculty.
Having these reserve items in the Library’s system allows students to access them whenever they
want – a dramatic change from traditional print reserves. And the service is integrated with learning
management systems where students find other course materials.
The Library’s goal is to make information resources visible and available at the point of need, and this
is one good example – digital, accessible, copyright-compliant content embedded in the university’s
virtual learning environments.

16
FOSTERING
A LEARNING
COMMUNITY
A Queen’s education is not only about what students learn, but how
they learn and will continue to learn in their careers and everyday
lives. When they need help learning how to find information, write
an essay or organize their time, or help getting course material in an
accessible format, students can turn to the Queen’s Learning
Commons. Located on the ground floor of the Stauffer Library, the
Queen’s Learning Commons is a joint venture of the Library, Student
Academic Success Services, ITServices and Health, Counselling and
Disability Services.
The learning commons concept focuses on the student learning experience. Part of it is a welcom-
ing, attractive learning space where students can work together or on their own, and get help
when they need it. Another key aspect is student engagement in developing and delivering
services, through teams of peer student assistants. As well, there’s the connection between the
services and the academic programs they support. For example, this year the Queen’s Learning
Commons again played a key role in organiz-
ing and hosting the two-day Inquiry@Queen’s
Undergraduate Research Conference, a collab-
oration involving numerous faculty and more
than 100 undergraduates from first year to
fourth. The students presented papers and
posters on topics ranging from plant mutation
to possible prostitution legislation. In another
event, sponsored by University Research Serv-
ices, the Queen’s Learning Commons hosted
posters showcasing the work of students
awarded Undergraduate Student Summer
Research Fellowships. Speakers’ Corner in the
Queen’s Learning Commons was the site
of numerous other community learning oppor-
tunities, including Freedom to Read week

17
readings, a Black History Month event and the Shattering the Academic Language Barrier:
Climate Science Explained speaker series.
“We work with phenomenal students,” says Nathalie Soini, Learning Commons Coordinator, “What
could be better than that?”
Emily Newman, ArtsSci‘14
I am a student peer assistant in the Queen’s Learning Commons. Working at the information desk, we get a
very broad spectrum of questions. Many are complicated. We get people who say,“I am struggling with re-
searching a paper”or,“I’m having a hard time reading my course work. Is there somewhere I can get help?”
Depending on the question, we refer them to the librarians, the Writing Centre or the Adaptive Technology
Centre, or any other of what we call the Learning Commons’partners. Some questions are simple:“How can
I print?”“Where do I photocopy?”even“Where’s the nearest Starbucks?”
We also run workshops. We did one this year for
Biology 350 on how to make poster boards using
PowerPoint. We gave seminars on how to use the
new microfilm readers. We have a lot of online
video tutorials, too. That was one of the major proj-
ects this summer. For example, we helped make a
couple for Student Academic Success Services –
one on avoiding plagiarism and one about learning
strategies.We did some of the voice-overs, and I did
transcripts and PDFs to make everything accessible.
I think it’s easy for students to come up and talk to
one of us. It’s just natural for people to interact with
a peer.

20
DEVELOPING
COLLECTIONS
Research and innovation depend on information – information that
is acquired, managed and preserved by libraries. At Queen’s, each
academic department is supported by a librarian who selects and or-
ganizes information tools and resources for use in research, teaching
and learning.
The Library’s world-class collection is built with the assistance of
these librarians, who keep abreast of the latest databases, books,
journals, reference tools, primary sources, government documents,
data and statistics, and image, videostreaming and music collections.
These resources are acquired and managed through agreements with vendors, collaborations with
consortia, and the work of a cadre of experienced Library staff. In 2013-14, the Library wrapped up
its Restructuring Action Plan, begun in 2010 predominantly to streamline policies and procedures
relating to acquisitions and collection management workflows. The final report noted that this
process of change is ongoing, and identified further actions for subsequent years.
In comparison with peer institutions, Queen’s has fared well in developing its collections, but
acquisitions budgets are facing challenges at all institutions. Cost savings are achieved through con-
sortial purchases wherever possible. In 2013-14, Queen’s continued to benefit from participation in
the Canadian Research Knowledge Network, spending approximately $3.6 million on 41 licenses
negotiated through its content licensing program. The Canadian Research Knowledge Network
consists of 72 universities across the country, enabling all to license extensive electronic collections
from publishers such as Elsevier or Sage for far less than it would cost to do so independently.
Costs continued to rise and the spending power of the acquisitions budget declined significantly
in 2013-14. Taking one major publisher as an example, the negotiated price increase for the collec-
tion licensed for Queen’s was 3.76%, but with the change in the value of the Canadian dollar in
2013-14 the real cost increased by a total of 9.96%. With no increase to the acquisitions budget,
these kinds of cost increases meant reductions in spending on other areas of the collection. Librar-
ians engaged in careful assessment, considering factors such as alignment of particular resources
with the priorities of the Strategic Research Plan, and implemented new tools for reporting statistics
and supporting decision-making.

22
FINDING
INFORMATION
It’s not uncommon to hear researchers in some fields say “I haven’t
used the library in years,” and to hear a librarian respond, “But you
have, all the time, online.” In the sciences, and to a large extent the
social sciences, digital is the predominant format of current informa-
tion resources.
The Queen’s School of Business is a nice example of an academic unit
that doesn’t have a ‘library’ in its building but makes great use of a
wide variety of collections and services. For Constance Adamson, the
liaison librarian for business, working with the School is like dealing
with “a university within a university.” Because business involves so much – from economics to soci-
ology and psychology – serving the needs of the school demands an ever-evolving range of books,
journals and databases. Not just academic material but also trade literature and the information
sources about companies and industries.
Perhaps most challenging, from her perspective, is meeting the disparate needs of the school’s large
and diverse student body.
At the PhD level, in addition to their dissertations, says Adamson, the students are often working
on a range of esoteric subjects, often at a very rigorous level. “They have a lot of irons in the fire,”
she says, and research needs that match these.
With mba and executive mba students, the challenge becomes providing what she calls ‘point of
use’ material. They request something just as they need it, and scattered across the country and
around the world many will never set foot in the physical library. “Email queries come in from all
over the place. Often they’ll just need a chapter of something – they don’t need to read several
books. I’ll give them advice and a plan of attack.”
For the undergraduate commerce students, of which Queen’s admits about 475 a year, the challenge
she says is helping them find, “material that isn’t too daunting – but not dumbed down.”

23
As a librarian, her job is to make them under-
stand that, “There is no single clear answer. No
one place to go. You have to look at different
databases and articles and then it all adds up. It’s
not going to make a lot sense at first but it will.”
The ultimate goal, she says, is “Not do their
work for them, but get them to the door.”

24
DIGGING INTO
THE ARCHIVES
Who appears before a magistrate? And for what reasons? What is it
the courts are trying to do?
Those were the questions that students in Steven Maynard’s
Canadian social history seminar were trying to answer.
Maynard wanted them to learn not to take historical accounts for
granted but get used to digging into the historical record itself. And
thanks to a collaboration between the university and the City of
Kingston, to have the University Archives manage the City Archives,
they were able to do just that. More than 200 linear meters of city records spanning the period 1838
to 1998, and covering everything from city council meetings to bylaws are housed on campus in
Kathleen Ryan Hall, home of the Archives, and research services are provided by the university’s
archivists. The arrangement has existed for several decades, but 2013-14 saw the signing of a formal
agreement between the city and the university.
Working together in teams of four with the
archivists, Maynard’s students combed through
the City of Kingston Police Court records to try
to gain a first-hand understanding of not just
who ended up in court and why, but what ex-
actly the courts were trying to accomplish. The
goal was to try to pinpoint underlying problems
– and whether the city dealt with these at all.
The teams of students presented their findings in
poster form to their fellow classmates and then
to the City of Kingston at City Hall, before an
audience that included the city’s acting chief of
police and the deputy chief, Kingston’s chief
administrative officer,the city curator and others.

25
This is just one example of the kind of research
carried out in the Archives. Throughout the year,
undergraduate and graduate students, from both
Queen’s and the Royal Military College, received
instruction on how to conduct archival research,
and were informed about collections that would
be germane to their research interests, by
archivists like Heather Home. In consultation
with Heather, Professor Laura Cameron’s
Geography 327 students engaged in a class
research project that asked them each to choose
an image from an Archives’ collection to focus
on, and then to undertake critical and analytical
archival research to contextualize it and answer
various historical/cultural geography questions.
Home specializes in the private manuscript col-
lections that document everything from geneal-
ogy to scientific collections and includes the
history and culture of Kingston and the surround-
ing region.Researchers from the region and from
around the world come to explore these papers
from individuals, businesses and societies. The
private records program can be summed up in a
number of thematic areas, including: literary
papers, public affairs, business, and fine arts.
Many people love archives because of a fascina-
tion with historical documents. It’s clear that
those documents and records also inform the
present and help shape the future.

26
SHARING
RESEARCH
RESULTS
The ‘balanced academy’ is an everyday reality for Sharon Murphy,
Head of Academic Services, and her team. Their services span learn-
ing and research, providing expertise in accessibility, data services,
geospatial data, government information and scholarly publishing.
“It’s a continuum,” says Murphy, “with new undergraduates tackling
problems and questions as beginning researchers, and seasoned
faculty continually learning and building new knowledge through
their research.”
Helping with the sharing of that research has been a significant
focus for Academic Services over the past year. Coordinating a working group that includes the
Executive Director of University Research Services, Murphy is overseeing the implementation of a
three-year Research Data Management Services Plan. In 2013-14, researchers across the disciplines
drew on the data services team for help in depositing their research data in secure repositories –
such as the one the Library uses through its collaborations with the Ontario Council of University
Libraries — to enable future access and re-use.
For example, Nicholas Bala, Faculty of Law,
used the service to store the research behind
an influential paper on child relocation deci-
sions in family law. Another example involves
data from the Globalization of Personal Data
Project, a major international, multi-discipli-
nary research initiative conducted by the uni-
versity’s Surveillance Studies Centre. At the
other end of the discipline spectrum, Elizabeth
VanDenKerkhof, Department of Anesthesiol-
ogy and Perioperative Medicine and School of
Nursing, deposited data relating to a study on
the epidemiology of neuropathic pain.
David Lyon,
Queen’s Research
Chair in
Surveillance
Studies
BernardClark

27
The Library is also helping researchers develop data management plans, whether or not they use
the repositories made available through the Library. Several workshops were held for researchers
in 2013-14, including ones targeting graduate students through the Expanding Horizons series. Jeff
Moon, Data Librarian and Academic Director of the Queen’s Research Data Centre, says “Ideally,
researchers would think about the life cycle of their research from the outset of a project, and work
to collect, document, and ultimately deposit their data for current and future researchers.”
The development of these services involves collaborations not only across the university, but across
the province, the country and national boundaries. Indeed, no single institution can do it alone.
In 2013-14, individuals at Queen’s played leadership roles in initiatives of the Ontario Council of
University Libraries, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries, Research Data Canada and
the international Research Data Alliance, with a goal of building robust networks of research data
management services.
Principal Woolf and
an Undergraduate
Student Summer
Research Fellowship
participant.

28
EXPANDING
THE LIBRARY
NETWORK
Anyone who wants a feel for the ubiquitous nature of the Library
at Queen’s should look a little to the north, to the shores of Lake
Opinicon.
The 3,200-hectare Queen’s University Biological Station (qubs) is
one of the premier scientific field stations in Canada, and, according
to qubs Director Stephen Lougheed, it has one of the strongest con-
nections to its university library. Morag Coyne, Queen’s liaison
librarian for biology, environmental sciences, and geological
sciences and geological engineering – and a member of the qubs
Advisory Committee – is a big part of that. She wants researchers at qubs to know that they can
use information resources and services on site as easily as they could on campus.
Lately, Coyne has been working on helping them bring their research to the world. Outreach is a
key part of the biological station’s mandate – making their research known not only to other aca-
demic researchers but the general public as
well. Coyne introduced them to her colleagues
in Academic Services, who are helping to make
sure that raw data gathered by researchers in
future will be stored in formats that others can
search and use. Ultimately the goal will be to
place this data in a secure research data reposi-
tory. Others will be able to access it, and as
Coyne puts it, “slice it up in different ways,”
combining, say, fish counts with gis data to
gain an idea of a species’ movements or study-
ing one small patch of station ground in intense
detail, to gain new insights.

29
The Library presence at qubs is about to be-
come stronger, with the opening in spring 2015
of a new research and teaching facility that in-
cludes a library. qubs was able to construct the
building thanks to the $1 million donation it re-
ceived from former student Jessie Deslaurier,
Artsci’87, Artsci’91, who earned her degrees by
taking one course a year while working full-
time at Queen’s. She was also on University
Council for eight years. The library will be
named in honour of Ms. Deslaurier’s father,
noted journalist Jack Hambleton. With a view
of Lake Opinicon, it will be a beautiful calming
space, where researchers can congregate and
students will write their papers and theses. It
will also promote Queen’s Library’s resources
and services available at their fingertips. This
development aligns nicely with the Library and
Archives Master Plan, which envisions a net-
work of library spaces across the campus – or
far beyond, in the case of the biological station
– highlighting information resources for users
where and when they need them.

30
SHOWCASING
SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS
AND ARCHIVES
The fascination people feel for the physical book – even when the
pages can be found in digital form – is evident in the eyes of
students who encounter the Library’s special collections.
Molly-Claire Gillett (Artsci’14) is one of those students. Her passion
for books and art led her to curate an exhibition in the W.D. Jordan
Special Collections and Music Library in the winter of 2014: A Pocket
Cathedral: The Queen’s Kelmscott Chaucer and the Arts and Crafts Presses.
The idea came to her when she was completing an art history intern-
ship at the Library, documenting the art books collection. She was
fascinated by the books she was working with, such as a copy of the Works of Geoffrey Chaucer
produced by William Morris’ Kelmscott Press and owned by T.E. Lawrence, and was encouraged by
Professor Gauvin Bailey, Department of Art History and Art Conservation, to propose mounting an
exhibition. He acted as her academic advisor, and Barbara Teatero, Curator of Special Collections,
gave the full support of the Library. As well as the physical exhibition, which ran from March 3 to
April 21, the Library continues to host a virtual exhibit, complete with the notes that Gillett prepared
for each display case.
While the digital versions of rare and special collections will never replace the physical objects, they
do provide the opportunity for researchers to view them remotely and to use them in new digital
ways. In 2013-14, the Library completed the digitization of its Canadian Pamphlet Collection and
18th Century British Political Pamphlet Collection. The Archives continued with the digitization
of the family files from Dr. H.C. Burleigh Collection, and, in collaboration with a sshrcc digital
humanities project led by Dr. Michael di Santo of Algoma University, the digitization of the personal
papers and sound recordings of George Whalley.
Queen’s has many ‘hidden gems’ in its special collections and archives, and highlighting them for
the benefit of students, faculty and researchers, here and beyond the campus, is a top priority.

34
For Queen’s Library, taking an international perspective can mean many things: providing informa-
tion for international research, supporting international students studying here, supporting aca-
demic programs abroad, and being part of the global information realm.
In the past year, there were several international highlights involving Library staff working directly
with academic librarians from other countries, sharing professional practices.
WELCOMING
CHINESE
LIBRARIANS
In September of 2013, the Library welcomed two visiting librarians, Xia Liu and
Qin Xu, from the Shanghai University of Finance and Economics for a three-month
visit. Wenyan Wu, a librarian assigned the role of internationalization specialist,
oriented them to the Library and was available to help throughout their stay. They
carried out several projects, learned the workings of the library system, and also
says Wu, “but also for us. People here appreciated learning a bit more about China and its libraries.”
visited the University of Toronto Library. “It was a learning experience for them,”
April 2014 saw health sciences librarians Paola Durando and Suzanne Maranda
travelling to Bangladesh to support the Bangladesh Health Professionals
Institute/Centre of the Rehabilitation of the Paralyzed (crp), a remarkable
school/clinic/inclusive school whose academic arm offers allied health
baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. The centre provides holistic
rehabilitation to children and to adults, e.g victims of the nearby Rana Plaza
garment factory collapse of April 2013 were treated at the crp.
This was Durando’s second trip to Bangladesh and Maranda’s first, in connection with the Interna-
tional Centre for the Advancement of Community Based Rehabilitation located at Queen’s. It was
a natural extension of Durando’s work as liaison librarian for the School of Rehabilitation Therapy.
Durando collaborates closely with the School’s faculty and has participated as well as an educator
in the School’s program offerings abroad at the Bader International Study Centre.
Durando and Maranda joined faculty members who are staff of the Bangladesh Health Professionals
Institute, and helped teach research skills using their new e-library guide for staff and students to
SUPPORTING
HEALTH
SCIENCES IN
BANGLADESH

35
access health-related databases, ebooks and ejournals. In a little over a week and a half, the two of
them and their Bangladeshi librarian colleague trained more than 140 people. They’ve also estab-
lished an ongoing relationship as Sister Libraries, a designation of the Medical Libraries Association.
STRENGTHENING
THE BADER
INTERNATIONAL
STUDY CENTRE
LIBRARY
Providing strong academic library services is a priority for Queen’s B
International Study Centre (bisc) at Herstmonceux Castle in England. With
planning for a new first-year program under way, and given its demands
librarian support, Martha Whitehead, Vice-Provost and University Librarian,
invited to visit the bisc library in the fall of 2013. She met with faculty, stud
and library staff, and provided a variety of recommendations. One of the
outcomes was the establishment of a partnership with the new bisc summer Field School in Digital
Humanities. The Library offers a paid student assistantship in the W.D. Jordan Special Collections
and Music Library to a student enrolled in the field school, for the following term at Queen’s.
ader
the
for
was
ents
ENGAGING IN
THE MATARIKI
NETWORK
The Matariki Network is an international group of leading universities, each
amongst the most historic in its own country, recognized as being both research-
intensive across a broad subject base and focused on providing a high-quality
student experience. The Library has ongoing international relationships through
this network – including, in 2013-14, participation in the inaugural Humanities
Network meeting at Dartmouth College and a library benchmarking project led
by Otago University. The institutions share many similarities, but they are also different enough
that the librarians find they encounter new ways of looking at common issues. The meeting at Dart-
mouth College resulted in plans for a series of annual meetings for scholars and librarians on various
topics in humanities research.
The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (carl) periodically arranges international study tours
for carl Directors, in regions of interest to their universities. In April of 2013, a delegation of eight
Directors, including Queen’s representative Martha Whitehead, visited 20 research libraries and
related associations in Sao Paolo, Rio de Janerio and Brasilia. Amongst the areas of common interest
was the progress made in Brazil in supporting open access to information.

38
REDEPLOYING
HUMAN
RESOURCES
The core business of the Library – information – has remained the same over
the years, but as an organization the Library continues to transform. Over the
past decade, maintaining excellent services has meant changes in staff roles.
Every year, vacancies are rigorously reviewed and resources are deployed accord-
ing to strategic priorities. In 2013-14, positions were filled to support user services
and the priorities of discovery and technology services, geospatial data, open
government information, scholarly publishing and special collections.
In its commitment to meeting user needs, the Library is always looking for ways to work more
effectively. Over the years it has evolved into one coordinated team of dedicated people with various
specializations. In 2013-14, a project was launched to review the model for delivering ‘public services’
– the interactions between staff and users at service points across the system and online – inspired
as always by the question of how best to meet the needs of faculty and students across the disciplines.
DEVELOPING
HUMAN CAPITAL
Queen’s spirit of initiative is clearly evident in the people of the library. Their
work is always changing, and they are always learning.
Liz Fox was a librarian who had worked at Queen’s for 35 years. She was known
for her remarkable dedication and support for others. Following her sudden
death in 2009, an endowment was established in her name, seeded by a donation
she had provided to the Library. Every year, thanks to the generosity of donors, it supports library
technicians seeking a professional development opportunity. This year the Liz Fox Memorial
Endowment Fund was able to sponsor three individuals for Data Liberation Initiative (dli) training
and a health libraries and resources course.
Other learning opportunities, funded by the Library, included participation in the Ontario Library
Association conference, the International Association for Social Science Information Services and
Technology, a Reference Processes course, the Canadian Association of Research Libraries’ Research
Institute,an Association of Research Libraries’ management workshop and a facilitation skills workshop
through the Ontario Council of University Libraries.As well,librarians and archivists engage in multiple
opportunities funded by professional development allowances and administrative travel funding.

39
Library staff also enjoyed informal learning, through a variety of events that bring people together
and help build the library team. This year included workshops for all staff on accessibility and on
intercultural aspects of service delivery. There was a tour of the university’s beautiful new Isabel
Bader Centre for the Performing Arts. This year’s staff meeting speaker series included a visit from
Nora Young, host of cbc Radio’s Spark. Her program’s emphasis on technology and its effects on
culture strike a chord with today’s libraries, and she spoke on the timely topic of the developing
world of big data and self-generated data.
COLLABORATING
Libraries are very good at collaborating. First and foremost with faculty and stu-
dents, to make sure that they have the resources they need. But to serve that pri-
mary relationship, to stretch resources and to build services that go beyond a
single institution, the Library has also developed strong external relationships.
The most notable collaborations of 2013-14 were through the Ontario Council of
University Libraries (ocul). Numerous individuals at Queen’s engage actively in ocul. Its benefits
include a unique platform to support digital library services, called Scholars Portal. It is Canada’s first
Trusted Digital Repository, meaning that e-journals stored there will be available in perpetuity to
member libraries who subscribed to them. Scholars Portal provides a suite of services that were key
to Queen’s Library’s strategic priorities this year. One example is scholarly publishing services: journals
published at Queen’s and hosted by the Library were migrated to the Open Journal System at Scholars
Portal, for cost efficiencies. Another is the research data management service in development at
Queen’s — the Library currently uses the Dataverse system hosted by Scholars Portal as a repository
for research data, and is partnering in the development of the Ontario Library Research Cloud, a
system that will provide petabytes of data storage at a fraction of the cost of other options.
ocul is also looking ahead to how Ontario’s university libraries might do an even better job of
managing and accessing information resources – a project dubbed “Collaborative Futures” involving
several Queen’s Library people. “Queen’s has benefitted incredibly from our involvement in ocul,”
says Vice-Provost and University Librarian Martha Whitehead, who served as Vice-Chair/Chair-
Elect of ocul in 2013-14. “It allows 21 universities to support learning and research in ways that
none of us could do alone.”

40
Queen’s is fortunate to have many generous donors who choose to
support the Library and the Archives. Some are passionate about
collections, some about digitization, others about facilities. Many
indicate that their donations may be used for any current priorities.
With the completion of the Library and Archives Master Plan in
2013-14, its recommendations for capital projects became a high
priority and they are bound to pique the interest of anyone wanting
to support the student learning experience and research.
A wonderful example, amongst many, of donor support for learning
and research is Dr. Cheryl S. McWatters, ba(Hons)’77, mba’88, PhD’91 (Management) and her
husband, John MacDiarmid, BSc’78 (Chemical Engineering), MSc’87 (Metallurgical Engineering).
Their generosity enabled the establishment of the Geraldine Grace and Maurice Alvin McWatters
Visiting Fellowship, named for Dr. McWatters’ parents. The fellowship, awarded on an annual basis,
is designed to foster, promote, and support original archival research by scholars, authors, or artists
in the collections located at Queen’s University
Archives. In 2013-14, it supported the work of
Dr. James Beach, from the University of North-
hampton, in England, who was researching the
life of Professor James Roy, who later became
a member of the Department of English at
Queen’s, following his time in the British Mili-
tary Intelligence during World War One.
LEVERAGING
DONOR
GENEROSITY
Dr. Cheryl S.
McWatters

14-0451Queen’sUniversityMarketing
101 Union Street
Kingston, Ontario
k7l 2l9

2013-14LibraryAnnualReport

More Related Content

What's hot

Viewers also liked

Similar to 2013-14LibraryAnnualReport

2013-14LibraryAnnualReport