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New Mobile App wins Award!

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OLITA Technological Innovation AwardIn the bookstore? Need to quickly see if the Library has the book you want? The Toronto Metropolitan University mobile app on iOS and Android now includes the ISBN/QR barcode scanning application.

This application can be used to interpret QR and ISBN barcodes. Scanning the ISBN of a book will look for the item in the Toronto Metropolitan University Library & Archives (RULA) catalogue to see if it is available.

Scanning a QR code will interpret the data and display the results on screen or if the data contains a URL, it will launch that website. QR codes are now available in the Library catalogue.

The RULA brains behind this application recently won the OLITA Award for Technical Innovation for 2011 – congratulations to Graham McCarthy, Innovative Technologies Librarian, and Steven Marsden, Junior System Programmer!

Have to see it to believe it? Watch this video to see how its done.

Special Collections Photo Contest

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There’s still time to enter the Special Collections Photo Contest! The contest deadline has been extended until January 21st, with winners announced on January 23rd!

View the online hints or visit us on the 4th floor of the Ryerson Library to view photos, books and prints of famous people from history on display. If you think you recognize the portraits, take our quiz online to be entered for one of two prizes: a $50 Bookstore gift certificate or a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Names and faces will be revealed after the contest closes.
http://library.cf.ryerson.ca/forms/faces/

For more information, call or email Special Collections at 416-979-5000, x4996 or specialcollections@ryerson.ca.

Special Collections Holiday Photo Contest

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The 3rd Annual Special Collections Holiday Photo Contest is underway – with a twist!

This year, the elves in Special Collections have decided to take some of their own pictures for the annual Holiday Photo Contest, and the result is a guessing game with famous faces and great prizes! Visit us on the 4th floor of the Ryerson Library to view photos, books and prints of famous people from history on display. If you think you recognize the portraits, take our quiz online to be entered for one of two prizes: a $50 Bookstore gift certificate or a $25 Starbucks gift card.

Don’t have time to visit us this holiday season? You can still participate in the contest by using the online hints to help you identify the people pictured in our display cases. We even added our Bonus Question picture to our poster (okay, okay, our poster model works in the Ryerson Library, and while she’s not that famous yet, we think you ought to get to know her).
Names and faces will be revealed after the contest closes. 
http://library.cf.ryerson.ca/forms/faces/

For more information, call or email Special Collections at 416-979-5000, x4996 or specialcollections@ryerson.ca.

Happy Holidays!

Real Photo Postcard Exhibit

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Experience a touch of the past by taking a look at the real photo postcard exhibit on the main floor of the Library, near the Reference collection.  Real photo postcards were popularized in the early 20th century, and enabled people to make postcards from any picture they took.  Their popularity was aided by Kodak releasing an affordable, folding pocket-sized camera in 1903, designed for postcard-size film.

A sampling of books, and some examples of real photo postcards are on display.  To learn more about real photo postcards and to see some additional examples, please view the following library resources.  Special Collections, located on the 4th floor of the Library, also contains the Kodak Canada Corporate Archives and Heritage Collection, which consists of photographs, negatives, advertising records, magazines, pamphlets, daily record books, recipe books, cameras and other photographic equipment produced by Kodak Canada Inc. and other Kodak manufacturing facilities around the world.  The camera collection includes an example of the folding camera used to make real photo postcards.

Special Collections is accessible Monday – Friday, 10 am – 5 pm by appointment only – please contact Beth Knazook, Photographic Specialist at eknazook@ryerson.ca or phone x4996.

Fall Issue of NEXUS Available

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The Fall issue of NEXUS, the Library newsletter, is now available online.  Highlights from this issue include the Library’s involvement in the Faculty Teaching Chairs initiative, Open Access initiatives at the Library, and an update from our Learning Commons partners.

Happy reading!

Day of the Dead Exhibit

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Just in time for Hallowe’en…have a look at the Day of the Dead exhibit on the main floor of the Library, near the Reference collection.

To learn more about Day of the Dead, please see the following title, part of which also available online through Google Books.  To see an example of a Day of the Dead celebration, view the following digital image available through ArtStor.

Additional digital images relating to Day of the Dead are accessible via ArtStor, an online repository of hundreds of thousands of digital images,  covering artistic traditions across many times and cultures including architecture, painting, sculpture, photography, decorative arts, and design as well as many other forms of visual culture.

For help searching ArtStor, or any other library resource, please visit the Reference Desk on the main floor, or chat with us online at AskON.

Scholars Portal Reaches 20 Million Articles

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Scholars Portal has recently added its 20 millionth article to its ejournal interface!  Scholars Portal Ejournals provides students, faculty and researchers at Ontario’s universities easy access to scholarly articles on a wide range of academic subjects through a bilingual search interface.

For help searching Scholars Portal, or any other databases available through the Library, please visit the Reference Desk on the main floor, or try AskON chat reference.

Webcast in support of Open Access Week

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In celebration of International Open Access Week  2010 (October 18 – 24), the Library invites you to join us for the following webcast on open access.

A Critical Theory of the Open: A Dialogue Between John Willinsky and
Andrew Feenberg, is a free webcast sponsored by the Simon Fraser
University Library and the Canadian Association of Research Libraries
(CARL).  This webcast will explore, in dialogue, issues surrounding the concept of open access.

The webcast will be shown on Thursday October 21, 2010, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 pm (11:00 am – 12:30 pm Pacific Time) in LIB489, on the 4th floor of the Library.  If you are not able to join us, you can view it at: 
http://tlcentre.sfu.ca/broadcast/.