Library Catalogue Maintenance – April 21,2021

Posted on April 12, 2021 by Dan Slessor

The Library online catalogue system will be down for all day for hardware migration and operating systems upgrade.

WHEN? Wednesday, April 21, 2021, 7 am to 6 pm.

What is available during this time:

  • picking up requested library materials at the Circulation desk (between 8am – 4:30pm)

What are NOT available during this time:

  • searching in the online catalogue (books & media search)
  • request and renewal of materials
  • access to your library account
  • links pointing to catalogued items

During this time, we recommend searching for materials using the Quick Topic Search on the Library homepage.

If you have any questions please feel free to get in touch with the Systems Librarian, Philip Wong (philip.wong@langara.ca).

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2021 Langara Open Student Scholar Prize

Posted on March 17, 2021 by Dan Slessor

We are now accepting submissions for the 2021 Langara Open Student Scholar Prize. This prize, created by the Langara Library, Open Langara, and the Langara Institutional Repository (The LaIR), celebrates exemplary work being done by Langara students and offers them the opportunity to share their work in the Langara Institutional Repository (LaIR). View the 2020 winning submissions.

The deadline for submissions is April 19, 2021.

If you are an instructor interested in nominating student work from one of your classes, simply contact the student and let them know you endorse their submission, should they choose to enter the contest, and provide the link to the prize info and submission form.

Continue reading →

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Langara embarks on an exciting partnership for the UN Sustainable Development Goals

Posted on March 5, 2021 by Lindsay Tripp

Exciting news! snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓ – Langara College has joined Kwantlen Polytechnic University, Thompson Rivers University, and four US colleges (Montgomery College, Maricopa Community Colleges, Pima Community College, and the Community College of Baltimore County) as an institutional partner in the UN Sustainable Development Goals Open Pedagogy Fellowship. Continue reading →

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Academic Innovation Directory – updated

Posted on February 22, 2021 by Linda Ma

For Langara employees… The Directory includes all the areas represented within the Academic Innovation portfolio:

  • Library and Learning Commons
  • CAPER-BC
  • Educational Technology (EdTech)
  • Teaching & Curriculum Development Centre (TCDC)
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Library collection maintenance, or: how I learned to stop worrying and love weeding

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Emma Lawson

Since the library is currently closed to the public due to COVID and our physical book circulation is limited, this is a great opportunity for librarians to do some much needed weeding. Weeding, or deselection, is often met with fear by those outside of the library. Libraries are supposed to house books, not get rid of them, right? In actual fact, weeding is an essential part of collection maintenance and part of librarians’ professional practice.

Continue reading →

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Library database trials

Posted on February 16, 2021 by Emma Lawson

The library is running several database trials this month and would love your feedback. Trials help us evaluate the content for usefulness and accuracy, as well as the platform for functionality and ease of use. Positive feedback doesn’t guarantee that we will subscribe, however, as there are multiple factors involved in the decision process including but not limited to license terms, funding, curriculum needs,  and overlap with other library resources.

To provide feedback on the trials, fill out a brief Database Trial Feedback survey or contact your Subject Librarian.

Continue reading →

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Open Education Project Spotlight: Computer Science’s Saeed Mirjalili

Posted on January 29, 2021 by Lindsay Tripp

In July 2020, Saeed Mirjalili was awarded one of three inaugural Langara Open Education Grants. The grants provide Langara instructors with $1,500 to help further open education projects on campus.

An instructor in Langara’s Department of Computing Science & Information Systems since April 2016, Saeed proposed to develop a robust practice test bank for CPSC 1045: Introduction to Web Programming, which enrolls approximately 576 students annually. Continue reading →

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Book your virtual library instruction for Spring 2021!

Posted on December 2, 2020 by Allison Sullivan

While online learning continues, your subject liaison librarians are still hard at work creating new virtual lessons and online learning objects to deliver our consistently amazing information literacy instruction. If your students are completing assignments with a research component, consider speaking with your liaison librarian about incorporating information literacy into your learning outcomes.

You can learn more about our virtual library services and information literacy instruction here:

Some options for online library classes may include:

  • Synchronous session with the librarian over Zoom to offer an interactive information literacy class.
  • Asynchronous learning objects that allow students to walk through the research process that students can watch on their own time.
  • Embed your Library Assignment Guide directly into your Brightspace Course. Instructions on this can be found here:
  • Custom built learning objects that offer subject specific exercises and suggestions for research projects (this will take more lead time)
  • Using the existing online tutorials through Brightspace. More information on that can be found here:

If you are a regular user of the Online Tutorials, we are interested in your feedback! We plan to make some changes to the tutorials that will start in Summer 2021 and want to make sure that we are consulting with faculty throughout the process. Please let us know your thoughts by taking our survey here:

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Trends in Information Literacy Instruction – November 2020

Posted on November 9, 2020 by Allison Sullivan

In this edition of Trends in Information Literacy, we see five articles that outline opportunities for interactive teaching, workshop design, critical thinking assessment, and library programming.

For interactive classes both in-person and online, there is a profile of the Rain Classroom application from China that allows a suite activities accessible to students from their mobile devices.

We see again the themes of backwards design and rubrics pop up again as a method of designing and assessing library workshops that have critical thinking as a major learning outcome.

Finally, two articles suggest that teaching around social media and library programming are creative ways that we can integrate the goals of the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy in Higher Education into our larger goals as an institution.

Read below the jump to find the full citations and a brief summary.

Continue reading →

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Time to double check streaming videos

Posted on October 16, 2020 by Annie Jensen

Do you use videos in your online classes? Now is a great time to double check that the Library has an active license to any streaming videos you plan to use this Spring semester (and beyond). We may also be able to find streaming versions of some DVDs.

The Library is happy to look over lists of videos you plan to use, to ensure we will have an active streaming license for the videos on the date you need them. If you would like the media team to check titles for you, please send the following to Annie Jensen (ajensen@langara.ca):

Title of video:

Date needed:

Your department:

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