Freedom to Read Week 2014

February 13, 2014

Freedom to Read Week

February 23 – March 1 2014 is Freedom to Read Week, “an annual event that encourages Canadians to think about and reaffirm their commitment to intellectual freedom, which is guaranteed them under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.“

The British Columbia Library Association/Canadian Library Association (BCLA/CLA) Student Chapter, in collaboration with the American Library Association (ALA) Student Chapter, would like to promote and support this event!

Join us on Tuesday February 25th 2014 from 10:00am-3:30pm in the Lillooet Room (within the Chapman Learning Commons in the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre)!

We will be hosting a live read-a-thon of banned or challenged books & material, in which anyone can sign up for 10-minute blocks to read out-loud to whoever is present. Participants can bring a reading of their choice, or may even read their own written material. If you don’t have an item of your own to read don’t worry – we are having a display of banned books on-hand from which participants can read!

Not sure what’s been challenged? Check out this list!

As part of this event, we’ll take a break for lunch, and host a roundtable discussion panel regarding their experience with censorship & intellectual freedom. Our speakers will include:

Susin Nielsen: Author of “Word Nerd”
Kathryn Shoemaker: UBC Professor & Illustrator of “A Telling Time”
Judi Saltman: UBC iSchool Professor

Schedule for the day:

10:00am-12:00pm: Read-a-thon (and information table in IKBLC foyer)
12:00pm-1:30pm: Writer panel & mingling
1:30pm-3:30pm: Read-a-thon

What’s more, Koerner Library will be participating in Freedom to Read Week with displays on their third floor and information posters in the library. They’ll be at this event with freedom-to-read themed games with the chance to win a prize! We will also have a table out in the foyer of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (IKBLC) from 10:00am-12:00pm, in order to raise student awareness.

If you’d like to participate in the read-a-thon, please sign up to read in this document!

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Sarah Ellis – The Writer as Critic: Inside and Outside the Book

February 13, 2014

A talk by the award-winning children’s writer, Sarah Ellis. Ellis has always appreciated children’s literature from the multiple perspectives of writer, reviewer, critic, and teacher of children’s literature and creative writing. She will discuss her experience as the insider crafting a story and the outsider striving to put that story into context.

Her fourteen children’s books have won many awards, including the Governor General’s and the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award. Sarah received a master’s degree in children’s literature after a career as a children’s librarian, and is now on the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She has also lectured in Japan, Venezuela, England, Ireland and various Canadian and American locations. She received the British Columbia Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 2013.

The colloquium is sponsored by the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature Program, offered by the Creative Writing Program, the English Department, the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, and the Department of Language and Literacy Education.

Bio:

Sarah Ellis (born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada) is a Canadian children’s author and librarian. She attended the University of British Columbia where she received her Bachelors of Arts honours in 1973 and a Masters in Library Science in 1975. She also attended the Centre for the Study of Children’s Literature, Simmons College in Boston in 1980. She has been a librarian in Toronto and Vancouver. She has also written reviews for Quill and Quire. Ellis is a strong advocate for children’s literature and she belongs to many different clubs and unions such as the Writers’ Union of Canada, the Vancouver Society of Story Tellers, the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable, Children’s Writers and Illustrators and many more. She has won numerous literary awards, including the Lieutenant Governor’s Award for Literary Excellence, the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award for Odd Man Out, the Sheila A. Egoff Children’s Literature Prize for Odd Man Out, Back of Beyond and The Baby Project, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award and the IODE Violet Downey Award for Out of the Blue and The Several Lives of Orphan Jack, and theGovernor General’s Award for English-language children’s literature for Pick Up Sticks.

Wednesday, February 26, 2014, 12:00 – 1:00 pm, The Dodson Room Level 3, Chapman Learning Commons
Irving K. Barber Learning Centre

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Barbara Kwasnik – The Intent of a Classification: Evaluating Classifications Based on the Concept of "Warrant"

February 11, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS). Clare Beghtol uses the concept of “”warrant”” as a means for evaluating classification systems based on how well they fulfill their goals. For example, through the prism of cultural warrant it is possible to evaluate a classification system based on how well it represents the needs of a particular culture. Other warrants include literary warrant, educational or mission warrant, and scientific warrant. I’ll review the traditional criteria for evaluating classifications and add to these criteria some considerations of warrant. The goal is to provide you with a multi-faceted approach to evaluating classification schemes in the context of their potential uses and users.

Biography of the Speaker: Barbara Kwasnik currently serves as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs. She also teaches in the areas of organization of information, theory of classification, and information science. She is especially interested in how classifications intersect with everyday human endeavor — for example, how they are translated from one culture or application to another. The purpose is to help support increasingly diverse contexts. Previous research (with Kevin Crowston) includes investigating whether genre information can help in searching, personal information management, and browsing.

Select Articles and Books Available at UBC Library

Kwasnik, B. (1999). The role of classification in knowledge representation and discovery. Library Trends, 48(1), 22-47. [Link]

Kwasnik, B. (2010). Semantic warrant: A pivotal concept for our field. Knowledge Organization, 37(2), 106-110. [Link]

Kwasnik, B. H., & Crowston, K. (2005). Introduction to the special issue: Genres of digital documents. Information Technology & People, 18(2), 76-88. doi:10.1108/09593840510601487. [Link]

Walker, K., & Kwaśnik, B. (2002). Providing access to collected works. Cataloging & Classification Quarterly, 33(3), 211-224. doi:10.1300/J104v33n03_11. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Library, Archival, and Information Science

Archival Material

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UBC Advising Conference

February 7, 2014

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Megan Davies – History in Practice: Community-Informed Mental Health Curriculum

February 7, 2014

Webcast sponsored by the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and hosted by the School of Nursing. Five decades ago, the Canadian mental health system was turned inside out. Nearly 50, 000 beds were closed in aging provincial asylums, with patients following a new regime of short hospital stays, psychiatric drugs and community services. History in Practice uses the power of education to foster professional and caring attitudes and values in mental health services and to improve the capacity of these services to understand client well-being as related to the whole person, with a history, opinions, and talents and located in a social, economic and political environment. To this aim, researchers worked alongside community experts – people who have received mental health services – to create a diverse set of engaging and intelligent teaching resources for use in post-secondary environments.

Select Articles Available at UBC Library

Mfoafo-M’Carthy, M. (2014). Community treatment orders and the experiences of ethnic minority individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness in the Canadian mental health system. International Journal for Equity in Health, 13(1), 69. doi:10.1186/s12939-014-0069-3. [Link]

Zarfas, D. (1988). Mental health systems for people with mental retardation: A Canadian perspective. Australian and New Zealand Journal of Developmental Disabilities, 14(1), 3. [Link]

Kates, N. (2008). Promoting collaborative care in Canada: The Canadian collaborative mental health initiative. Families, Systems, & Health, 26(4), 466-473. doi:10.1037/a0014230. [Link]

UBC Library Research Guides

Medical Education

Psychiatry

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