Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU) Libraries has once again partnered with the Aga Khan Museum to develop digital installations for their current Rumi exhibition. Since 2019, the Libraries’ Information Technology (LITs) and Collaboratory teams have collaborated with the Museum on immersive projects for exhibitions, providing graduate students with real-world opportunities to work on digital installations. The first collaboration was the 2021 Remastered exhibition of Persian, Turkish, and Mughal Indian manuscript paintings, in which the Libraries developed: holographic 3-D visualizations, smartphone interactives, digital restorations and animations of artwork. The partnership has continued to grow, giving unique opportunities for graduate students to gain experience working with immersive technologies. 

Last August, the Aga Khan Museum reached out to TMU Libraries to kick off discussions about their then upcoming exhibition titled Rumi: a visual journey through the life and legacy of a Sufi Mystic. The exhibition, which opened in May and runs through to October 2023, “celebrates one of history’s most famous poets on the 750th anniversary of his passing.” Dr. Michael Chagnon, who joined the Museum in 2019, curated the exhibit that explores “Rumi’s enduring impact through an examination of artifacts, manuscripts, and contemporary art.” TMU Libraries, along with a group of contemporary artists, was asked to assist in creating new ways of learning about the poet’s life and experiencing his work.

Under the direction of TMU Libraries’ Immersive Technology Specialist Michael Carter-Arlt, the partnership (and this project), has given way to the opportunity for Library Collaboratory research assistants and TMU graduate students Ava Mozaffari, Liam Gregory and recent grad Jae Seo to gain experience and expand their skills in fabrication and 3D printing, contextual video creation, and large-scale projections. 

“The Libraries’ partnership with the Aga Khan Museum has allowed students and faculty to learn how XR technology can be used for museums,” says Carter-Arlt. “It’s rewarding and a privilege to work with and mentor graduate students, as they develop their own professional portfolios.”

Mozaffari, an international student and 2023 graduate of the TMU Master of Digital Media program, worked as an assistant developer on the project creating a contextual video and a portrait projection of Rumi. “This project was a fusion of my Persian roots, and digital art and technology,” she says. “It allowed me to expand my technical capabilities and also gain a richer appreciation for my own culture and its enduring impact on the world.” 

The portrait, a ten by ten foot tiling animation made up of multiple images related to the poet, is seen at the beginning of the exhibit and acts as an introduction to the poet’s work and life. From a distance, visitors see the poet’s face. As they move towards the projection they discover folios, significant artifacts, statues of and poems by Rumi. The piece provides an understanding of the poet’s legacy in a single instance through a purely visual context. 

Using the open-source programming language Processing, Mozaffari developed and coded the installation so it could be re-scaled, re-formatted and re-purposed for new projects. Prior to this she worked in Processing for student projects, but had not explored its use for such a  large piece. This project pushed her to learn how to adapt and alter the code.

Recent computer science graduate Jae Seo had previously worked with Carter-Arlt on the Remastered exhibition and acted as a consultant for the Rumi projection portrait. Similar to Mozaffari, Seo valued the opportunity to further develop skills and explore Persian-Islamic culture. “This project allowed me to utilize AI tools to expedite the process for coding using Processing, a language I’m not very familiar with,” says Seo. “It also opened my eyes to the captivating intricacies of Islamic culture.”

In addition to the portrait, Liam Gregory, a graduate student in Computer Science, assisted with the 3D printing of three exhibit artifacts. The prints were done in collaboration with artist Simin Keramati who had also created an interactive installation for the exhibition. While knowledgeable about the 3D printing process, Gregory had not worked on a large-scale project. Through the collaboration, and working from 3D models that had been created by Carter-Arlt, he was able to gain a solid grounding in 3D printing. 

“The pieces for the Rumi exhibit presented an interesting challenge in printing sturdy parts for public use. Getting such large and strange pieces to print well was a neat test of my skills and of equipment available at the Library Collaboratory,” says Gregory. “It was great to help out the exhibit and add something very different to my portfolio.”

In total, the LITs and Library Collaboratory teams developed five immersive experiences. In addition to the portrait projection and 3D printing of artifacts, the project scope included: a 13th century interactive timeline of world events, Rumi’s life and his impact on art and architecture; a contextual video depicting three folios related to Rumi’s poetry; and a touch screen application that allows visitors to engage with selections of four Rumi poems.

“Our partnership with the Aga Khan Museum has been a wonderful opportunity for our students to gain valuable experience that they can take into their career,” says Kelly Dermody, head of LITs. “We hope to explore more partnerships with organizations like the Aga Khan Museum in the future.”

Do you use streaming media and DVDs for instruction? TMU Libraries is conducting a survey to learn more about multimedia needs for teaching. Fill out our brief survey (15 – 20 mins) and let us know about your current usage, challenges, and costs.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated and will help to better inform our collection development priorities and licensing needs. 

Fill out survey: Teaching with streaming media and DVDs

The survey deadline is May 31, 2023.

Theatre aficionado saved over 4,000 theatre programs making it one of the largest personal collections

Article by: Michelle Grady

TMU students and faculty interested in the history of Canadian theatre will now have access to one of the largest private collections of theatre playbills and programs from Toronto, Broadway and London’s West end dating back nearly 70 years.

Theatre aficionado Paul Christie, who was well known in the theatre community in Toronto, amassed a huge personal collection of playbills and programs dating back to 1953, which has kindly been donated to the TMU Libraries Special Collections.

“Before Paul passed in 2021, he and I were talking one day and I asked him, ‘what would you want done with your collection when you’re gone?” says Arnie Lappin, Christie’s close friend and colleague at the Elgin-Winter Garden Theatre, where he worked as an usher for 25 years. Christie’s collection is extensive, dating from 1952 to 2020 and it includes approximately 4,000 theatre bills and programs, as well as ticket stubs, reviews and images from performances.

After extensive research and consideration, Lappin connected with the TMU Libraries’s Special Collections, where students and researchers at the School of Performance, as well as the general public, could access this extensive archive of theatre materials and dive into a great historical record of theatre in Toronto.

“It was really important that these go somewhere where they would be accessed by students and that they would be used and appreciated and have a life in research,” says Alison Skyrme, special collections librarian. She and her team at the Special Collections have been busy cataloguing and digitizing Christie’s collection, which will be ready for full access come summertime.

A theatre buff and mentor

Christie had a deep personal interest in theatre productions, says Lappin. “Paul’s knowledge of the performing arts was peerless, and he unconditionally supported the careers of generations of emerging actors, singers and writers.”

Though he worked as a court reporter professionally, he also worked and volunteered for over 25 years at various Toronto theatres, including the Elgin-Winter Garden Theatre, where he met Lappin. “All during his life he was a mentor to hundreds of aspiring performers, writers and directors – attending their shows, events, reading their books and scripts. As he neared retirement he began working at Toronto theatres as an usher and eventually worked at the Elgin-Winter Garden Theatre Centre in that capacity for 25 years.”

Christie organized his collection of about 4,000 theatre bills and programs in binders by date, and included reviews or images that appeared in the theatre section of the paper. Skyrme says the Library is keeping these materials as they catalogue everything.

“I think the history of theatre in Toronto is really held here,” she says. “There are programs from other cities as well, but it’s mainly focused on Toronto, and it’s really fascinating to see that there were theatres that no longer exist, including one called the Crest Theatre.”

Though there are databases online that contain information about theatre productions in Toronto, Skyrme says she isn’t certain how far they go back. “This collection has information that might not be available anywhere else.”

“The fact that it is so organized means that his intentions in the collection are very clear. We know exactly how he accessed them himself and how he wanted them to be catalogued,” she says. “So we tried to stay true to that and keep it as he had organized it.”

The collection will be available to view at the Library’s Special Collections this spring.

Article posted on TMU Today, March 23

181 comic books published during the 1940s serve as a trove of research possibilities

Everyone knows Batman, Superman and Spider-Man, but thanks to a generous anonymous donation, TMU students and researchers can get a glimpse of Canada’s own comic book history and heroes.

In February 2015, TMU received a donation of 181 rare Canadian comic books from the Second World War, featuring such legends of Canadian pop culture as Nelvana of the Northern Lights and Canada Jack.

“It’s the holy grail of Canadian comics,” says TMU Professor Andrew O’Malley, who has used the collection for his own research, including his project “Comic Books, Children’s Culture and the Crisis of Innocence, 1940-1954.” Classes in the English department have also used the collection for curations.

Read the full article by Michelle Grady in the latest issue of Toronto Met University Magazine.

This year, TMU Libraries, Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning, and the Chang School are celebrating Open Education (OE) Week, March 6-10, 2023, by highlighting work being done at the university in support of open education.

Join us for a series of OE week events. Hear from faculty who have developed open textbooks and course materials, explore the latest open educational resources in your discipline, and learn more about how to create new and innovative open teaching materials that can improve students’ educational experience.

OE Week events at the Library

Open Education Resources (OER) and treats

Date: March 7
Time: 1 p.m. –  2 p.m.

Students are welcome to drop by the OE Week Table (main floor of the Library) to grab a treat and learn more about Open Education Resources, including free textbooks and teaching resources that are high quality and can save students money. 

Now is the time for open educational resources hackathon  

Date: March 8
Time: 10 a.m – 12:00 p.m.
Location: Zoom

Discover open educational resources (OER) to use in teaching. Learn how to search for the latest open educational resources in specific disciplines, and contribute to the online book of OER related to TMU curriculum: Now Is The Time For Open Educational Resources. 

Other OE Week events at TMU: 

Open education matters: panel discussion with TMU open champions

Date: March 9
Time: 2 p.m. – 4 p.m.

This panel discussion, moderated by Sean Kheraj, Vice-Provost Academic, brings together open champions from around TMU to share their experiences developing or supporting open educational resources (OER).

Moderator:

Sean Kheraj, Vice-Provost Academic

Panelists:

Cynthia Holmes, Associate Dean, Faculty & Academic, Ted Rogers School of Management

Nadia Prendergast, Assistant Professor, Daphne Cockwell School of Nursing

Megan Omstead, Graduate Program Coordinator, School of Nutrition

The Chang School’s Virtual Lunch & Learn: Let’s Talk OER! 

Date: March 7
Time: 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

The Chang School’s Teaching & Learning Committee and Open Education at TMU team invites you to a virtual Lunch & Learn on Tuesday, March 7 at 12:00 p.m. During this hour-long session, hear from panelists who were awarded The Chang School’s Open Education Resource (OER) Grants. These grants support creation and/or adaptation of Open Textbooks and Open Educational Resources in collaboration with students and colleagues across disciplines. The panel will share their experiences in actively creating OER, as well as their perspectives on using OER in their teaching. Please RSVP.

International Love Data Week is a global event held annually in February to raise awareness of the importance of research data management, sharing and reuse. 

This year’s theme is Data: Agent of Change – a prompt to think about how data can be used to bring about positive impact and change. 

Toronto Metropolitan University Libraries is hosting the following workshops during Love Data Week 2023:

An Introduction to Open Data

Monday, Feb. 13, 12 p.m.- 1 p.m.

Planning for Data Sharing: Writing a Data Management Plan  

Tuesday, Feb. 14, 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

Who is counted? How to use the Census of Canada timeline to search for ethno-racial and Indigenous identities

Wednesday, Feb. 15, 2 p.m. – 3 p.m.

An Introduction to Scholars GeoPortal and SimplyAnalytics 

Thursday, Feb. 13, 12 p.m. – 1 p.m.

Please join us if you love data!

“Research is about building on previous knowledge and expanding on new ideas,” says psychology student Omega L. who received one of three 2022 Virginia Edinger University Library Research Awards.

The award recognized student achievement in original research with a special focus on the critical use of library resources and research skills. Established by Petros Dratsidis and TMU Libraries for the 2021/2022 academic year, the prize celebrated Dratsidis’s late wife Professor Virginia Edinger Walker– an art historian who taught at Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University) for more than 20 years.

Recent TMU graduates Omega L.,Tara R. and Carmina T., were selected for their outstanding 2022 essay submissions, receiving an award of $2000 each. While honouring the legacy of Professor Walker, the award also shone a bright spotlight on the academic excellence of these three students.

Omega L.

Described by her supervisor, Professor David Day, as having a passion for learning and the motivation to work hard, Omega L received the prize for her thesis that examined domestic assault by a female perpetrator and the perception of the severity of the incident, attribution of blame and the similarity of effects on the study participants. Omega’s work was “a unique study in a literature that has previously only examined such defined characteristics as gender, age, and ethnicity/racialized groups as the independent variables,” says Day

Making extensive use of library resources, Omega conducted a comprehensive literature and critical review of the established research. In doing so, she learned the effectiveness of a literature review in providing a coherent account of current research and data. “It helped to further develop critical thinking skills when analyzing the methods used in articles and assessing the articles’ strengths and weaknesses,” she says. The review ultimately helped her develop a new area of investigation.  

–

Tara R.

Recent TSRM graduate, Tara R. submitted her fourth-year paper, in which she argues that the Ontario Employment Standards Act (ESA) should be amended to address representation gaps. The paper not only thoroughly impressed her professor, but also the award adjudicators. In her letter of support for Tara’s submission, TRSM Professor Pnina Alon-Shenker reflects that her “paper demonstrated outstanding research skills and allowed (Tara) to advance an argument, which was well supported by rich and compelling literature on the subject matter.” 

Tara feels the experience of writing the paper helped her refine research skills, which she’ll continue to use in future academic work. “This paper informed my scholarly development, inquiry, critical thinking, and research skills by challenging my ability to conduct comprehensive research,” she says.

–

Carmina T.

Carmina T. was selected for the undergraduate honours psychology thesis stream and worked on a research project and paper with Professor Sarah Dermody. Her paper titled Examining the Relationship between Drinking Motives and Minority Stress in Transgender Adults who Drink, received top marks for its demonstration of outstanding research and quality of paper. Dermody describes Carmina as “highly skilled in identifying relevant research literature from TMU Library resources and incorporating them into a cohesive and convincing narrative,” noting that her literature review was one of the “best [she’d] reviewed” by an undergraduate student. Carmina also notes that “writing the thesis proposal was a great learning experience in terms of research adequacy and preparation for graduate school.”

For all three undergraduate scholars, the Virginia Edinger Walker University Library Research Award rewards their pursuits in undertaking rigorous, new research. The skills acquired in searching, finding, reviewing and analyzing studies in order to understand and build new areas for inquiry, are celebrated with this award. 

“Papers and studies are often recognized, but the research skills, resources and work undertaken for those papers and studies is often overlooked, particularly with regard to awards,” says Dana Thomas, interim chief librarian. “The Virginia Edinger Walker University Library Research Award celebrates that work in pursuit of academic excellence. We are so pleased to be able to acknowledge these young scholars in honour of Professor Walker.”

TMU Libraries offers monthly research skills workshops. Open to all TMU students, workshops are designed to instruct students on topics that range from understanding literature and systematic reviews to managing data to search skills for specific databases and online resources. To learn more and register for upcoming workshops, visit: TMU Libraries – Workshops

With the update of all TMU email addresses from @ryerson.ca to @torontomu.ca, logins to some Library resources have changed. If you have created accounts for some of the specialized databases, or if you log in with your full email address, you may want to update your email address. In some cases, we have been able to make the update for you! Please see below for details on specific electronic resources. 

Email addresses already updated for the following databases
(Login with your new email address)

• Capital IQ 
• Scifinder-n
• Conference Board of Canada (updated mid-January)
• Fashion & Race
• SimplyAnalytics
• Toronto Star (updated mid-end of January)
• WRDS

Databases that require users to manually update email
(Login with your old email address and add the new email address)

• Uptodate: Log into your account and update the email on file by clicking on your name at the top right. Click on MyAccount and go to Contact information.
  

• Overleaf: You can add your torontomu.ca email address to your Overleaf account on the Overleaf Account Settings page. See Managing your Overleaf emails.Note: Once single sign on (SSO) is enabled (in early February), you will see a notification in your Overleaf dashboard to log in with SSO and confirm your torontomu.ca email address. For now, while you can add your new address, please keep your old ryerson.ca email address associated with your Overleaf account in order to maintain access to the Toronto Metropolitan Overleaf subscription. Later, when your torontomu.ca address is linked with SSO, you can remove your old ryerson.ca email and maintain the Overleaf subscription with just your torontomu.ca email address.

• New York Times: Log in. Go to nytimes.com and click on the account button near the upper right hand corner. Click on the account setting button. Click “update” next to your email address.

• SciVal & Scopus: Log in and click your initials at the top right. From there, you can use the “Elsevier account” option to change your primary email address or add a secondary one.

• Web of Science & InCites: Sign into Web of Science and click on your username that appears on the top right corner. Select “settings” and then “account settings.”  You will be redirected to a new page. On that page, add your new email ID under the “Email” tab.

• WGSN: Log in and click on your initial in the top right corner. Click on “My Account”. You may need to check a box to acknowledge the user agreement. Click on the link that says “change email” and then enter your new email address and click “save.”

For questions or additional assistance, please email refdesk@torontomu.ca