A happy library user left this nice message for the Information Desk staff at Robarts Library:
Staff at the front desk were super helpful during a stressful time! Much appreciated!!
We received a lovely message from the parent of an International Baccalaureate student who visited Robarts Library this week to begin her research. Thank you to everyone at UTL who makes this such an inspiring place to visit:
My daughter had her first trip to the Robarts Library today and ABSOLUTELY LOVED IT!!!!
The Brutal escape room game email account that we used to provide hints to players in the guise of a retired staff member ('Harriet Fieldstone'), received this lovely message:
To: Harriet Fieldstone <harrietfieldstone@aol.com>
Sent: Wed, Oct 31, 2018 5:02 pm
Subject: Re: Escape helpHi Librarian,
We could not solve the game in time. But we would like to show our appreciation of you designing and setting up the game. We can see that it involves a lot of effort and we do know Robarts better now! We really enjoyed it. Thank you so much!
Sincerely,
Alice
Graeme Slaght, Scholarly Communications & Copyright Outreach Librarian, received this thank you message from a faculty member:
Hi Graeme,
I really appreciate the service you all provide. Students love having access to the books via the library and I am happy to assist them with this whenever I can.
As confirmation, I shall be using the same readings in INI104H1S in 2019 and I much appreciate all of your efforts in helping make INI104H1S successful!
Best,
Viktoria
Dr. Viktoria Jovanovic-Krstic
University of Toronto, Innis College
Katilin Fuller, Liaison & Education Librarian, Gerstein Science Information Centre, received this tweet thanking her for creating and coordinating the environmental scan series for the Translational Research Program.
Kudos to the ITS and Scholars Portal teams that worked together to make the upgrade of OJS platform used for our journal hosting service go smoothly and provide 35+ journals with the support they needed through this transition. Many thanks have been received, including the following message from Professor of Law & Criminology at the University of Toronto, Markus D. Dubber.
Hi Mariya,
I wanted to send you a note to congratulate you on--and thank you for—making the OJS upgrade so smooth for us journal editors. I haven’t tried to upload a new issue yet, which will be ultimate test, I suppose, but so far everything has worked great and the one time when I couldn’t figure something out on my own, you and your team quickly pointed me in the right direction.
Graham Library staff, with a particular nod to Adrienne Findley-Jones, InterLibrary Loan and Course Reserve Technician, received this note of thanks on an unusual delivery mechanism--a package of freshly baked cookies from an appreciative commuter patron.
Tim Neufeldt, Instruction Librarian, Music Library, received some very nice feedback from Midori Koga, Associate Dean Graduate Education in the Faculty of Music:
I can't thank you enough for the session this morning! The way that you lay it out in bite-sized pieces makes the whole process seem completely manageable. The students were very grateful to you, and I too learned so much. Thank you SO much for your time and expertise.
UTSC Library had a positive student/staff interaction this week and wanted to share their kudos to both UTSC staff and the innovative technology they employ. After submitting a noise complaint, a user expressed their happy surprise at how quickly the problem was resolved when UTSC Library staff quickly dealt with the complaint and pointed the user to the handy noise report button under quick links on the library web page.
We received the message below from a faculty member at the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation:
I have to pay tribute to the ILL staff at Robarts. Over the past 5 years they have been instrumental in two important research projects I have underway. They have managed to track down the most esoteric requests I send to them.
They go to the nth degree to find the articles or books I ask for. It is really quite remarkable and I am very appreciative of them.
Assistant Vice-Provost, Health Sciences Sector, Johanne Provencal, recognized UTL's new deceptive publishing guide on Twitter recently. The guide was created by the Division of the Vice President, Research and Innovation and Stephanie Orfano, Head, Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office, Heather Cunningham, Assistant Director for Research and Innovation Services, and Eva Jurczyk, Electronic Resources Librarian, of the University of Toronto Libraries.
The OISE Library recently received this message from Professor Emeritus Derek Allen thanking Patricia Serafini, Reference Librarian, OISE Library:
I am writing to express my appreciation for the outstanding assistance I received from Patricia Serafini yesterday. I wanted to photocopy two articles in a journal available at OISE in the periodical stacks. Ms. Serafini told me that I would not be able to make a cash payment for the photocopied material, but that I would be able to pay for it through the TCard Plus payment system. I was not aware of this system. Ms. Serafini did much more than simply explain to me how it works. She took me to a computer and gave me assistance as needed. When we reached the point at which I was required to confirm that I had read and agreed to the TCard+ Terms and Conditions we found that they weren't available. Ms. Serafini might then have left it to me to try again on my own at another time.
Instead, she offered to use her computer to search for the relevant pages, and she found them. She displayed them to me on a monitor at her desk, and waited patiently while I read them. We then returned to the computer where we had started and went through the procedure again; this time, I was in a position to confirm that I had read and agreed to the terms and conditions. As a result of Ms. Serafini's courteous and extremely helpful guidance I am now a participant in the TCard+ program. I thanked her most sincerely and told her that I would write to you to express my appreciation for her exemplary service.
A Computer Science grad student sent us their thanks online:
I would like to let you know about the recent assistance I have received from Ksenya Kiebuzinski. My contact with her began when I was trying to track down articles written in 1941 in a Canadian, Russian-language newspaper. My father was the editor of the publication; the articles eventually led to him serving a term in jail - no freedom of the press apparently in those days. Although you did not have the publication in your archives at U of T, Ksenya provided me with the required information to obtain them through Library and Archives Canada. Once I had the publications, they had to be translated from the Cyrillic. Ksenya volunteered a solution and has been incredibly helpful in obtaining those translations. She provided clean WORD versions of the most important articles and the work she did enabled me to obtain comprehensible translations. She provided me with a summary of the rest of the articles, including rougher versions of them so that I could determine whether or not I needed to follow up on any more of them. Also, she was extremely prompt with that assistance. Her help was greatly appreciated and, indeed, was invaluable to me. I would like to commend her to you in the strongest possible terms. Thank you, thank you, thank you."
Lynda Sturgeoff, Ph.D.
The Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library has received many compliments on its current display, A Celebration of the Life and Work of Dr. Anthony B. Chan. Dr. Chan was one of the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library’s long-time supporters. He passed away in June 2018. Recently, the library received a message from another long-time supporter, Dr. Keith Lowe (retired professor, Howard University, Washington DC, USA):
Immense gratitude to you and EAL for presenting the display of works by our beloved Tony Chan… our champion!
The following note of appreciation was received by Lari Langford, Head, Access & Information, from an Emeritus Professor:
Easy as eating pie (or drinking a martini) - and thanks so much for helping me with this. Your directions were extremely clear. All the staff were very helpful and efficient.
We received kudos via Twitter this week from the Public Knowledge Project about an upgrade to the open journal platform. Congratulations to Mariya Maistrovskaya, Institutional Repositories Librarian, Kaitlin Newson and Bartek Kawula at Scholars Portal who performed the upgrade of our OJS instance, and Gordon Belray, Sean Zhao and Cordelia Tang (TALint student) in Information Technology Services for their work on the homepage redesign, technical and content support.
 |
PKP (@pkp)
|
|
@uoftlibraries has done a fantastic job with their #ojs3 upgrade -- beautiful! jps.library.utoronto.ca
|
|
The Interlibrary Loan/Resource Sharing unit recently received this message from an instructor in the Department of Italian Studies and the Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies:
This is incredible. You are always so efficient. Thank you so much for your assistance and speed; my research would be much more difficult without you.
We recently received this note of appreciation regarding the Family Study Space at Robarts Library:
I was very pleased to see the establishment of the family study space in the library.
This note was recently received by Lyle Davis in the Resource Sharing unit for his assistance to one of our library users:
It is so kind of you to do so! You've already provided me the link to the HTML page, and you went the extra mile to help me get the PDF!
Roger Reka, TALint student at Gerstein, Glyneva Bradley-Ridout, GSLA at Gerstein, and Charmaine De Castro, TALint student at Gerstein received a note and a box of chocolates in thanks for their kindness and hard work assisting a patron with a reference question last week.
Jayson Meghie, Access Services Generalist at the OISE Library, received a visit from graduating Master of Teaching students who stopped by on their last day of classes to thank him. The students presented Jayson with a card, writing:
Thank you so much for being such a friendly presence in the OISE Library. You have been so helpful and we are so happy to have had the chance to know you this year.
Hana Kim, Director of the East Asian Library, received this glowing feedback via Instagram:
The following lovely feedback was received from an OISE Library user regarding the excellent customer service that Sam Eshafi, Access Services Associate, provided:
I want to let you know what great service I received from Sam at the OISE Library front desk. I didn’t have my change purse for the pay phone, so he let me use the desk phone to call UTM to see if they could renew my book which I got from intercampus loan. He also helped me with renewing the Gerstein book by phone so I didn’t have to go down there. Previously this week, Sam also told me there was a larger scanner downstairs with the printer machine which could accommodate a large book which saved me taking it out and finding a scanner somewhere else. He is a very personable and kind person, very conscientious in trying to help the patron. I’m glad that you employ someone like Sam on the front line for library services.
Nailisa Tanner, OISE Collections and Outreach Librarian, and Cassidy Foxcroft, OISE TALint student, received some lovely feedback regarding their excellent research support:
Nailisa and Cassidy in the archive [i.e. OISE’s Ontario Historical Education Collections] have been totally awesome helping me with research for the past several months. So definitely a shout-out on their behalf! They’ve been very patient with finding and holding my requests, troubleshooting scanning and they let me use the archives with no fuss or muss. Nailisa has handled most of my appointments and requests, so I would like to especially recognize her service to me.
We received this message from a user of the brand new Family Study Space:
I'm in the Study Space right now and it is just what I needed. Thank you and your team for providing this space for us.
The Ask Us desk staff at Robarts Library received this thank you from a grateful student:
Thank you so much for you speedy reply and email. I wasn't sure you could accommodate a last minute consultation. I dropped in earlier today and obtained a lot of strategies from your team.
I am really appreciative of all you help. It's the first time I reached out for support and I am really impressed with your services... I will follow up with the strategies provided.
Professor Robert Davidson, Director of the Northrop Frye Centre at Victoria College, described the role of librarians Agatha Barc and Colin Deinhardt in supporting and facilitating undergraduate scholarship at the College, in an article published in the winter issue of Vic Report:
Splendid proof of just what Vic undergraduates are capable of came this past fall with the extremely successful launch of Literary Titans Revisited: The Earle Toppings Interviews with CanLit Poets and Writers of the Sixties. This volume, which was edited by Anne Urbancic, Victoria College's Mary Rowell Jackman Professor of Humanities, and published by Dundurn Press, was the result of archival work done by NFC's first cohort of undergraduate fellows in close coordination with the library's Agatha Barc and Colin Deinhardt.
Jess Whyte received this thank you from Professor Adam Hammond regarding a visit she made to his ENG 287: The Digital Text class, in which preservation of digital texts and the impacts of those preservation tactics on the works themselves were discussed:
Thanks so much for your presentation today! It was really useful for framing some of our earlier discussions of digital libraries and archives, and will be immensely useful when we start talking about the “significant properties” of born-digital texts in the coming weeks.
Ellen Lockhart, Assistant Professor in Musicology, sent this message to Tim Neufeldt, Instruction Librarian & Adjunct Professor at the Music Library:
This is a note to thank you for coming to teach my HMU4200 students last Wednesday. In addition to being a favour to me, it was incredibly helpful for my students, who come from very divergent academic backgrounds and, as graduate-level performers, are often very anxious about the research component of their degree. I often forget just how insecure they are about their basic research skills. It was a real wake-up call for me to come in after the first hour of class, to see a completely packed classroom, and all students completely engaged in the interactive research demonstration you were doing. Great idea, too, to pick a topic from the class, and one that one of my students had found to be a challenging research area! They kept you busy with question after question, long after I should have let you go back downstairs to the library.
Even though a lot of them had already handed in their bibliographies by the time they heard your talk, most of them asked if they could go back, revise, and re-submit based on what they’d learned. They also snapped up almost all the business cards you left me.
In short, the very enthusiastic response from the students has convinced me that — should you be interested — I’d love to maintain a closer relationship with the library in my HMU 4200 class in future.
The John M. Kelly Library is proud to congratulate Sarah Stiller, one of our library technicians, on winning the USMC Employee Recognition Award and an Indigo gift card for her Blind Date with a Book display.
Sarah created this display to encourage patrons to not judge a book by its cover, and check out a book they would not normally choose. She began by selecting 30 books from our Popular Reading collection, wrapped them beautifully with Valentine’s Day decorations, and then added a few clues as to what the book was about or quotes from the text to entice readers.
Thirty books was not enough! Over the span of two weeks, we put a total of 67 books on display and 64 of them were checked out. Sarah says, “It was so fun to put together the display, and seeing the smile on patrons’ faces when they stopped to look or check out a book was totally worth it!”
We received this note of appreciation for Student Library Assistant, Orly Zebak:
The istaffer Orly Zebak was incredibly helpful. Her suggestion on how to locate missing books was most helpful.
A library user recently wrote us this lovely note about Askari Husain, Evening/Sunday Supervisor at Robarts Library:
Askari has always made my experience at Robarts an amazing one. He's very helpful and well mannered and I appreciate his professionalism and dedication.
Erica Lenton, Faculty Liaison & Instruction Librarian and Kaitlin Fuller, Liaison & Education Librarian, received this thank-you from a participant in their 3-part GPS (Graduate Professional Skills) series Strategies for systematic, scoping, or other comprehensive searches of literature:
Many thanks to you and Erica for leading this excellent series of workshops on systematic and scoping review. This training was instrumental for me to lead this review: http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/12/e018311.
Julia Chun, Korea Studies Librarian, helped a Toronto Star reporter write about a Korean book a TTC rider was reading, for his weekly books column: “Olla! tʻumyŏnghan pʻyŏnghwa ŭi ttang, Sŭpʻein by Sang-ŭn Yi” (Hola! Spain the Land of Transparent Peace). She received this thank you message:
Just wanted to say thank you for your help identifying the Korean book. Couldn’t have done it without you!
Leanne Trimble, Data & Statistics Librarian, Nadia Muhe, Statistical Support Specialist and Ben Walsh, User Services Librarian collaborated on the creation of a new instruction session for finding psychological data, for PSY305 - The Treatment of Psychological Data. The professor, who is the Canada Research Chair in Social Psychophysiology, had some nice feedback:
Dear Ben, Thank you SO MUCH for the great presentation today! I really enjoyed your style and sense of humour, and the content was perfect! Thank you, Leanne, and Nadia for everything! I really, really appreciated your time and expertise, and I look forward to working with you again in the future!
Erica Lenton, Faculty Liaison & Instruction Librarian at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, received this note from an instructor in Occupational Therapy:
Your lecture greatly informed students’ research proposals and subsequent research projects, and will go on to inform their practice-based research considerations in their future work, particularly with respect to developing comprehensive and cohesive search techniques for the review of academic literature.
Jack Leong, Director, Canada-Hong Kong Library, received the following thank you note from the President of the University of Toronto Hong Kong Public Affairs and Social Service Society:
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to you and the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library for the ample advice and supports over the past few months. When Magi, the academic director and also the co-founder of HKPASS, and I first presented our proposal to you, you just simply told us that you would support us with organizing the conference – right off the bat. It was also our pleasure to have you as the moderator for the conference. The two panels definitely wouldn't have gone that smoothly without your experienced moderation on that day.
Ksenya Kiebuzinski, Head, Petro Jacyk Resource Centre and Jack Leong, Director, Canada-Hong Kong Library, received the following thank you note from the organizing team for 'The Life and Times of George Castrihibit' exhibit, for their coordination work on behalf of the International and Community Outreach Coordinating Group:
Dear Jack and Ksenya, The exhibition has been a great success so far. We have attracted quite a large number of visitors, mainly from our community, who were thrilled by both selections, Miss Nugee's and U of T's libraries. They were also impressed by the passion of the people involved in putting this together. Ksenya, you were fantastic and I cannot thank you enough. Miss Nugee and Prof. Austin spoke highly about you during the presentation. You captured the deep meaning of this event. We would like to thank you both from the bottom of our hearts for your assistance and contribution in curating Skanderbeg's exhibition at Robarts Library. … I hope we will have a chance to work together again.
TALint student in the Robarts Library Reference and Research Services Department, Karine Bourgeois, received glowing praise from a member of the U of T community:
Since joining the Department of Surgery at the University of Toronto and being assigned a UTORid for access to the library system, it has never been easy to navigate the various pathways to isolate and obtain reference articles. I have rarely spent less than 1 to 3 hours finding references I was looking for and then obtaining copies which did not always arrive or open in a printable format. On occasion, I would not succeed!
On Sunday, January 7th I became frustrated and started calling various numbers at the library attempting to find some course I could take to learn how to navigate the library system on the net. I finally had the good fortune to reach Karine Bourgeois who turned out to be a spirited, bubbly and friendly librarian who did not hesitate for a second to show me how easy it would be. It felt like I had recovered my sight after a long period of blindness. God bless her soul. I have spent many years in the operating room where such incredible talent is always welcome at any price. Ms. Bourgeois is one of those talents. It all took 15 to 20 minutes.
I have consulted many of my colleagues and they all had similar difficulties. They dreaded the prospect of looking for reference material which to us researchers is an invaluable lifeline. May I suggest that Ms. Bourgeois jot down in point form, what she spelled out to me and mail such a simple document to any new member of various faculties. It would be a boon and a welcome lifesaver to many.
Ms. Bourgeois was an incredible, serendipitous telephone encounter, for which I am truly grateful. I wanted to convey my congratulations and my thanks!
Chief Librarian Larry Alford received this email in recognition of Perry Hall last week:
Mr. Alford, just a brief note to let you know that Perry Hall, the supervisor at Robarts’ Reader Registration and Information Desk, was more than helpful when I left a phone message (on Friday Dec. 15 after 5 p.m.) about a problem accessing online services. He called back within minutes and updated my alumnus reader account, clearing up the problem. This is first-rate service, and I thought you should know.
Jordan Hale, Original Cataloguer & Reference Specialist at the Map & Data Library, received some snail mail with a big thank you:
Thanks for all your help in finding maps of southwestern Saskatchewan. I am so pleased to have some of the discards from the Map & Data Library, and look forward to working with them. Thanks, too, for the time to show me how to navigate Geogratis and Geoscan – two treasure troves I look forward to exploring. Your generosity is very much appreciated!
Carey Toane, Entrepreneurship Librarian, received a note of appreciation from a U of T startup founder who has been looking for information on his niche industry for several months and was able to find some useful data in a report from the newly acquired Frost and Sullivan database.
Thank you very much for the information. The information in this report is quite useful for market research, at least for building up our pitch deck. I am grateful that you keep us in mind and help us on updating the information.
A happy interlibrary loan user at City University of New York had this to say, upon learning the Internet Archive had scanned a public-domain score from the Music Library's collection (a piano 4-hands arrangement by Gustav Mahler of Bruckner's 3rd symphony):
"Thank you" doesn't even begin to express the gratitude I feel toward you and the other good people at the University of Toronto for making this available. What a Christmas gift!
December 5, 2017
On December 5, the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library hosted a mini-conference for the students of EAS308: East Asia on Maps Ancient and Modern, instructed by Dr. Linda Rui Feng, Professor and Undergraduate Coordinator at the Department of East Asian Studies. Approximately 50 students showcased their discoveries and ideas about ancient and modern maps during the poster session at the library. After the event, Dr. Feng wrote to the library’s Director, Hana Kim:
“Thank you so much for giving my class the library venue to hold our end-of-semester conference...My class enjoyed the conference. I found the students actively engaged with the posters; they had wonderful discussions, and the space was just right for our class size. They also enjoyed having the coffee and donuts! Again, thank you for making this such a productive event for us.”
December 4, 2017
Heather Cunningham, Assistant Director for Research and Innovation Services at Gerstein, received this very kind email of thanks from the President of U of T’s STEM Fellowship group. The group used the Alice Moulton Room on November 27 for a workshop. STEM Fellowship is a Canadian student-run, non-profit organization that equips the next generation of student researchers and innovators with skills in data science and scholarly writing.
The first part of the workshop detailed different research opportunities available to students in and around U of T. The second portion focused on strategies and tips in approaching lab managers, writing applications, and applying for grants and funding.
I just wanted to personally thank you on behalf of the entire STEM Fellowship team for helping us book the Alice Moulton Room for our workshop this past Monday. I'm happy to say that the event was a huge success and we had an excellent turnout, all of which would not have been possible without your help.
We really look forward to working with you in the future.
November 30, 2017
A library user who phoned the Ask Us desk for information about a 1935 issue of Canadian Forum, a journal started at U of T in 1920, shared that he thought our customer service was outstanding. He commented that he had spoken with several library staff in various departments, including the Information Desk and Ask Us desk, and everyone he spoke with was happy and helpful.
He specifically described our approach as "how can we help?" rather than "no we can’t’".
November 30, 2017
Mariya Maistrovskaya, Institutional Repositories Librarian, received thanks from a Mount Allison University faculty member for her assistance getting set up in and using TSpace's Adoptive Repository service to comply with a funder’s open access policy:
“I just wanted to say thanks for your help. Uploading the files was really easy… and saved us a lot of money when compared to publishing the articles through 'gold' OA.”
November 28, 2017
Matthew Hendley, Professor of History at the State University of New York College at Oneonta, recently visited the Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library for a seminar and to conduct research on Hong Kong’s housing policy. He wrote to the library's Director, Jack Leong, following his visit:
“I am again very impressed by your library and the professionalism of your staff … making the research portion of my trip a success.”
-- Matthew Hendley, Professor of History at the State University of New York College at Oneonta
November 28, 2017
Perry Hall, Supervisor, Reader Registration, Information Desk, Periodical and Course Reserves Services at Robarts Library, and Catherine A. Duff, Senior Access Services Associate at Robarts Library received an appreciative thank you for their assistance:
Thank you for the wealth of information which will help me to get back into the loop. I really appreciate you going the extra mile. Thanks again.
November 21, 2017
Nicholas Worby, Government Information and Statistics Librarian, and Jesse Carliner, Communications and User Services Librarian, received kudos from Professor Vic Falkenheim for an instruction session they recently taught for MA students in the Department of Political Science:
"I wanted to thank you as well as Nich for the sessions last week. The feedback from students has been excellent. They learned a lot and found it very useful. Many thanks."
November 20, 2017
Susan Fine, Manager of Signature and Established Alumni Programs, wrote this appreciative email to Communications and User Services Librarian Jesse Carliner and Assistant Media Archivist Rachel Beattie for their collaboration on last week's hugely successful LGBTQ Film Series event:
Dear Jesse and Rachel,
Bethany and I wanted to send a note to thank you for providing us with an opportunity to partner on last week’s LGBTQ Film Series event.
It was a pleasure to collaborate with you on this well-established program. It’s clear you are both passionate about the project, and combined with your knowledge of cinema you really have a fantastic series!
We are starting to get survey results from alumni, and they are just as thrilled with the program as we are. I’ve included a few highlights:
- Fantastic short films, love the opportunity to be with my "tribe", and the films weren't too long, just the right length. The food afterwards was wonderful, as was the conversation.
- Amazing to hear these stories. There's no other place where we can be exposed to them.
- I'm impressed that the showing was to a full house. The idea that this set of films attracted an entirely different audience than its first showing on Church Street speaks to both interest and your outreach.
- It was a great opportunity to mingle with the community and engage in discussions about our queer history! A very educational experience overall.
- It was a wonderful family feel type of evening and I learned new LGBT Toronto history I was not aware of before. It was also great to see friends that I meet only at these types of events.
It’s clear from these responses (and the many others I did not include) that we were successful in engaging our audience with an educational and fun opportunity, and that we demonstrated to them the unique benefits of being part of our community. Seeing survey results like this really speaks to the success and the value of your film series.
We can’t wait for our next opportunity to collaborate!
Thank you again,
Susan
November 14, 2017
Mary Morrison, a distinguished voice teacher at U of T for many years, and Barbara Hannigan, who studied with Mary, both received honorary degrees at Convocation last week.
Barbara gave a stirring convocation address in which she thanked the “fabulous U of T Music Library” where she consulted many scores as a student.
The convocation was live streamed and recorded. [watch Barbara's address at the 19m45s mark]
November 7, 2017
Mikaela Gray, Liaison & Education Librarian at the Gerstein Science Information Centre, received the following as part of a longer letter of thanks from two students she met with yesterday for her first consult flying solo as a UTL librarian:
“We'd also like to extend our thanks once more for your time yesterday. It was so generous of you to give us well over an hour of assistance, and it helped us more than you know. While we still have much to learn, we feel so much more confident in our direction and ability, and have you to thank!”
October 30, 2017
Natalia Barykina, GSLA in the Petro Jacyk Central & East European Resource Centre, received two lovely remarks over the weekend for her work on the “Russian Revolution in Contemporary Opinion” exhibition. The first is from Professor Lynne Viola of U of T’s History Department:
Dear Natalia,
I am writing to thank you for the wonderful exhibit you created for us at Robarts! The sheer amount of work — and creativity— is impressive. You did an excellent job—showing the same originality and creativity as in your earlier scholarly work. Thank you!
With best wishes,
Lynne
The second is from an external visitor:
I wanted to commend your work on the Russian Revolution display at Robarts (which I photographed in full, eager to look through the materials more). It’s one of the very few markings of the centenary I’m aware of. I found the material on the non-Russian peoples particularly intriguing. I’m currently reading Gitelman’s “A Century of Ambivalence” about Soviet Jewry and noticed you’d put another of his on display. A number of the books on the art and propaganda of the Bolsheviks interested me greatly as well, so thank you.
October 27, 2017
Interim Chief Librarian, University of Toronto Mississauga, Shelley Hawrychuk, received this glowing email from a faculty member:
"I wanted to send you a short note re: the excellent work of the UTM Library Staff. As a Professor of Anthropology, I've wanted to write this note many times before because of the incredible thoughtfulness and efficiency of your librarians - particularly of Michelle Alexander, whom I have had many contacts and interactions with over the years. I find her so incredibly reliable and responsive that I wanted to finally take a moment to let you know how much I enjoy working with her.
What nudged me to finally take the time to write this email was her work on a movie I had frantically ordered 2 weeks ago. This was a National Geographic movie that I found out about relatively late, hoping that the library might be able to purchase it on time for a class I taught today. As always, Michelle was incredibly responsive, checked for streaming possibilities, and sent in an purchasing order immediately. Since I had ordered this DVD so late, I had already made other arrangements for my class today - only to get an email from Michelle today in the morning, notifying me that the movie had arrived and that she had already placed it on reserve for me - right in time for me to teach it in my class.
While I had already found a good alternative documentary to show today, I was thrilled that Michelle had ordered the movie so speedily, that it (to my great surprise!) arrived on time, that she remembered the date I wanted to show it AND immediately placed it on reserve for me.
I am so grateful for her work. She really is quite incredible."
October 23, 2017
Instruction and Liaison Librarian Navroop Gill received some beautiful flowers from an OISE faculty member as a token of appreciation for the wonderful information literacy session she facilitated for her students.
October 16, 2017
Victoria Skelton, Head Librarian, and Monica Hypher, Library Technician at the Industrial Relations and Human Resources Library (Newman) recently received this kind email from a graduate student expressing her thanks:
"I am sending this email not only because I miss seeing the two of you on a regular basis, but because I simply wanted to thank you for the amazing work you do.
Upon completing the MIRHR program (one of the most enriching experiences of my life), I began studying for the LSAT and preparing my Law School applications. The PWR: work&labour news&research (the library’s weekly email publication) has been a strong motivator throughout this journey as it has kept me tied to the issues I am passionate about, and consistently reminds me of how incredible the CIRHR is and the support your library team provides…. Although a small team, it is certainly mighty!"
October 10, 2017
Congratulations to Mindy Thuna, Head of the Engineering and Computer Science Library, on being an OCUFA 2016-2017 Academic Librarianship Award recipient!
For more information please click here.
October 2, 2017
Librarians Lucy Gan, Stephen Qiao, Fabiano Rocha, Julia Chun, Helen Tang and Hana Kim (Head), of the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library, received great feedback about an orientation session they gave for graduate students in the field of East Asian Studies:
“Great event, should be mandatory for EAS students at every level!”
“I am really grateful to Lucy Gan and all the friendly librarians in EAL ! Thank you so much.”
September 29, 2017
A lawyer and LL.M student recently shared her appreciation for the Law Library staff, and in particular Reference/Cataloguing Librarian Humayun Rashid:
"I just wanted to take this opportunity to tell you how pleased I have been with the staff’s services at the library. Every time I’ve needed assistance, your staff was prompt and provided super service.
In particular, I wanted to tell you how pleased I was today with Humayun Rashid. I had trouble locating a book on the shelves, even though the catalogue indicated it was “in”. I had made a trip specifically to the library to get this book. Naturally, I was a bit distressed when I looked all over and could not find it. I came back to the front counter. Huamyun offered to look for it with me. I was not optimistic at all. Amazingly, he actually found the book for me, which was misshelved in the vicinity of its proper location. I was so relieved, as he had saved me so much time and trouble, having to get an interlibrary loan. I am so thrilled, because it is really difficult to find a misshelved book, as you can imagine. I just thought I’d let you know how much I appreciated his help!"
September 25, 2017
A faculty member wrote to Faculty of Music Dean Don McLean to say how much students gained from a library research workshop given to students in the Digital Music Distribution class last week by librarians Carey Toane and Tim Neufeldt:
“In the first two weeks of class, some students told me they were very concerned that they didn't have enough business background to do the coursework, but I had told them that the course was designed to teach them what they don't know, and that your session would really help them. Now they know that it did! I let Don know that you have worked with me to make sure that students have support they can really use -- you are always generous with your time and ready to help.”
September 25, 2017
A Victoria College student recently wrote to Renata Holder expressing her appreciation for Gerstein Access and Reference Services Associate Linda Singh:
"Dear Renata,
I want to write to you how wonderful Linda Singh is at her job. I am impressed by her professionalism. She is super helpful and very friendly.
I asked her if there is any staff nomination system in gerstein library, so that I can write her name down and nominate her as staff of the week. She said Gerstein does not have a system like this. Therefore, the best way for me is to write to you.
I always think it is important to report goodness of people. I always cheer for people who are good at their jobs and I want their supervisor to know that they have done a good job. It is what I can do as a service user.
I want to let you know that Linda Singh is a great helper and she is very professional and warm."
September 19, 2017
September 15, 2017
Rotman professor, Nouman Ashraf, wrote to Chief Librarian Larry Alford recently to express appreciation for a session curated for his students by Fisher librarians Liz Ridolfo and David Fernandez:
"Dear Larry,
I wanted to take a moment to thank Liz Ridolfo for taking the lead on arranging and curating a visit for my RSM 362 course (an upper year elective at Rotman Commerce entitled leading across differences). As well, David Fernandez was equally impressive as he shared his insights along with Liz’s to bring a rich discussion about how we must look beyond the canon to understand how norms and practices have evolved in society. The students raved about the experience and some of them are still chatting in the cafeteria at Robarts!
It is my experience that student engagement can happen best when we leverage all of our institutional resources to enable deep learning.
I am grateful that the fine staff at the Thomas Fisher are such tremendous partners in this important work."
August 31, 2017
Sarah Stiller, one of the John M. Kelly library technicians in our Access and Information department, received a surprise visit last week. Patricia Dal Ben, a doctoral student in the Faculty of Theology, wanted to show her appreciation for Sarah as she prepares to defend. Patricia came by with flowers to thank Sarah for her help, her kindness, and her willingness to provide support.
August 31, 2107
The Information Commons' Amanda Wagner received a lengthy letter of thanks from a former U of T professor, for her help over many years:
"I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Ms. Amanda Wagner for assisting me extensively in the past 17 years while I worked on the production of:
a) A Monograph “Beigun'i ga mita senryōka Kyōto no 600-nichi (AN AMERICAN MEDIC IN OCCUPIED KYOTO 1947-1949), Published by Fujiwara Shoten, Tokyo, 2015, 436p, which had been purchased by the East Asian Library (DS897 K857 N5736 2015). Although writing the book took 15 years, it contains over 100 historically- irreplaceable color and black-and-white photographs taken between 1947-49. I obtained them as color slides in 2000. Ms. Wagner assisted me with their sorting and digitalization. Even right before the publication in September 2015, she kindly took time to decipher the blurred name plate in one of the photographs which enabled it to be used as the front cover of the book.
b) “Map & list of the general location of the Japanese POW Laborers’ camps in the Soviet Union and in Outer Mongolia around 1946,” both in English and Japanese, which had been uploaded in Wikipedia in August 2017.
Ms. Wagner had helped me in the last two years as I tried to combine two maps, published by the Japanese Government, into one. Her kind guidance continued to the final stage where the map had to be combined with the list of location names and relevant statistics.
Both works were significant contribution to the world-wide scholarship, and there is no word to describe Ms. Wagner’s kindness which had been extended to me for 17 years. All I can say is that they would not have materialized without her unfailing help and encouragement.
Sey Nishimura, M.Sc., Ph.D.,
Former Assistant Professor, Department of East Asian Studies, University of Toronto 1983-1991; former Associated Scholar at the Institute of the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology, University of Toronto 1991-2010."
August 22, 2017
A faculty member emailed the Engineering & Computer Science Library with a lovely compliment for Liaison & Instruction Librarian, Benjamin Walsh:
"Thanks, Ben, The book is now 125,000 words, around 2/3 through, and I have an offer from ACM Press and am expecting one from Oxford Univ. Press.
You’ve been a huge help!"
August 22, 2017
Professor of Finance, Lisa Kramer sent a note of thanks to Scholarly Communications and Copyright Graduate Student Library Assistant, Shelby Stinnissen, for her help with preparing course reserves for the fall semester:
"I just want to say thank you for being on top of all of this, especially so far in advance of the start of classes. It’s really reassuring, as an instructor, to have this level of support!"
August 9, 2017
Jack Leong, Director of the Canada-Hong Kong Library, recently received very positive feedback from Mr. Kazunari Yui, a PhD candidate at Gakushuin University in Japan, and a teacher at Japan Women's University.
"Dear Jack,
Thank you very much for your time, assistance, and advice today. I visited the OISE Library after the tour and could successfully find some good books, from which I scanned several interesting articles related to global citizenship education in Canada.
It seems I can bring back a lot of important information from the library. Please accept my appreciation. Thank you again for your help and best wishes for your career at the University of Toronto.
Best regards,
Kazunari Yui"
August 8, 2017
Desmond Wong, Outreach Librarian at the OISE Library, received a lovely note of appreciation from an OISE faculty member regarding a library instruction session he gave for her class(es) yesterday.
"Desmond,
I'm writing with another thank you.
After I returned from working with students who have moved to the rooms on the second floor, I came back to the third floor and my students told me how you had returned to provide additional support for them. Thank you so much. I saw the extra resources you shared with them (We are treaty people box) and they told me how wonderful you were in providing support.
So I am writing to thank you again for all your support yesterday with both my classes. It made a big difference to their work and their learning, and, I think in terms of their attitude about the library and the library resources. At 4 pm two of my morning students returned to do further work!
If it's fine with you, I am hoping we can continue to do this as part of my social studies and history teaching. I think working and learning and accessing resources in the OISE Library is going to be a regular feature of my course teaching."
August 3, 2017
Communications/User Services Librarian, Jesse Carliner received kudos from Political Science instructor, Erica Petkov, for the library research workshop he taught to her POL300 class - Topics in Comparative Politics: Humour and Politics:
"Hi Jesse,
I just wanted to thank you again so much for your presentation yesterday! It was extremely helpful and the students definitely benefited from it.
Best,
-Erica"
July 11, 2017
This anonymous student’s thoughtful feedback on their interaction with Manda Vrkjlan from the Kelly Library demonstrates not just the significance and impact of our excellent staff but also shows how the varied types of study we provide can help with our students’ academic success:
"I just wanted to extend my gratitude for the help received from Manda today … regarding study rooms.
Not only did she educate me in their locations, booking, possibilities and usage rules, she assisted my study group in finding a room when one was being occupied by a single student.
Now, we’re all a bit better prepared for our midterm, and didn’t have to disrupt other students with questioning each other in the general area. Her support was helpful and generous
Thanks!"
July 4, 2017
Kathy Broad, a faculty member at OISE, recently sent a note of praise to OISE Library GSLA (and recent grad) Marcos Armstrong for the excellent support she received from him at the Reference Desk:
"Dear Marcos,
Just wanted to thank you for your time and help this afternoon with Refworks Flow. I feel like I have taken a huge step in digital organization and records management! Your patience and helpful guidance were most appreciated."
July 4, 2017
Sheril Hook, the Kelly Library’s Chief Librarian received the following email from Duane Rendle, Dean of Students at St. Mike’s. His appreciation to Richard’s exceptional support is a good reminder of the many and varied skills our librarians must master in the course of their work:
"Hi Sheril.
Just a very quick note to tell you what it huge help Richard Carter was for me yesterday. I was doing the narration for the "rules of residence video" and Richard really went over and above getting me set up with the software and making sure it was all working. A true pleasure to deal with.
Best
Duane"
July 4, 2017
The Kelly Library’s Theology and Rare Books Librarian, Noel McFerran, received the following lovely note from a student in thanks – not just for his assistance but for the library’s services overall:
"Hi Noel,
I have finished my final paper for the Intro to Theology course offered off campus. The articles that you provided for me regarding female ordination were very useful for the paper. Thank you for your expertise! I did not mention how helpful the library has been in the course evaluation and would like to correct that. Is there someone I can correspond with to let them know how great the services you provide are?
Thanks again,
Celia"
June 27, 2017
Reference Librarian, Sara McDowell and Communications Assistant, Lindsay Harker worked together last week to create an image for the U of T’s Sexual and Gender Diversity Office’s #DisplayYourPride initiative for June 22.
According to Communications and Reference Librarian, Jesse Carliner:
"The image became the most retweeted tweet from all the U of T channels for this initiative, including the main U of T Twitter account. It was also the most retweeted tweet and most liked tweet of any tweet from our account ever. We currently have had almost 11,500 views for the tweet which makes it one of our most viewed tweets on the account. [...]
Kudos to Sara and Lindsay for communicating our celebration of Pride and inclusiveness in such a colourful way that remains true to the spirit of the library."
June 20, 2017
The John M. Kelly Library is home to the fonds of Patrick O’Neill (1875-1938), who lived in Northern Ireland and was an active member of the Nationalist party. His fonds is a collection of papers pertaining to his political life, as well as some personal records and memorabilia.
The papers were donated to the Kelly’s special collections by Seamus Beattie, a grandson of Patrick O’Neill. Recently, another grandson, Harry, and his wife, Mary, visited from Dublin to view his ancestor’s papers. His letter below gives special acknowledgement to the Kelly Library's Liesl Joson and Simon Rogers for their assistance with his genealogical research.
"Hello Liesl and Simon,
May I thank you very sincerely for the wonderful experience of viewing my grandfather’s papers in your library?
Your hospitality and warm welcome were much appreciated by Mary and myself.
I am still making my way through the reading of the material you allowed me to copy and it is very interesting.
Many thanks again and best wishes.
Harry O’Neill"
June 13, 2017
Faculty of Law professor, Dr. Anver M. Emon reported that the Bora Laskin Law Librarians received a heartfelt shout out at a convocation ceremony this past week, and had some words of appreciation for the librarians of his own:
"Not sure if you were at the valedictory speech on the grass today but the student speaker gave a huge shout out to the law librarians who host the 24 hour coverage during exams — the whole audience cheered…you guys got major kudos today.
The fact that you all provide the service is super generous of you, it’s all of you going well over and beyond the call of duty. Not sure I could do it. Students seem to really appreciate it. You make us all look good.
Thank you.
Anver"
June 6, 2017
Dr. Simone Attillio Belezza, of the University of Trento, was a Visiting Research Fellow with the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine at the Centre for European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies this winter. He expressed his appreciation to Ksenya Kiebuzinski, Head of the Petro Jacyk Central and East European Resource Centre, and the Fisher Library in his follow-up report:
"My visiting period at CERES took place between January, 23 and March, 26, 2017. I am extremely grateful to this program, because it allowed me to spend a research period in Toronto... As my new research project deals with the history of the Ukrainian diaspora in the West during the Cold War, while I was in Toronto, I was able to access libraries and archives and meet people that were very useful for my work.
The libraries of the University of Toronto turned out to be one of the best repositories in the world concerning Ukrainian and Ukrainian diaspora history. The Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library preserves copies of some rare publications of the Ukrainian diaspora otherwise unavailable. I must acknowledge my gratitude in particular to Ksenya Kiebuzinski, who welcomed me at the Petro Jacyk Central and East European Resource Centre and helped me with understanding what repositories were more useful for my research."
June 6, 2017
Cheryl Regehr, Vice-President & Provost, announced the appointment of four new University Professors - the University's most distinguished rank - this week. The newly appointed University Professors are: Brenda Andrews, Mary Gospodarowicz, Cheryl Misak and Morris Moscovitch. The announcement, distributed broadly, included a very nice acknowledgement of the libraries, which assisted the Provost with database information in support of the University Professor applications:
"I would also like to thank the U of T Libraries for their thoughtful support in this process."
June 6, 2017
University Archives Reference Specialist, Barbara Edwards, received a delivery of flowers from an out-of-town researcher, Lemuel Alonso, as thanks helping him to locate and digitize some archival materials.
May 30, 2017
May 23, 2017
We received a wonderful note of appreciation for an unnamed member of the building patrol team at Robarts Library: "The guard you had on this weekend is outstanding! Professional, friendly, helpful and above all --- calm."
May 23, 2017
Liesl Joson, of the John M. Kelly Library’s Special Collections team recently received a lovely thank you card from an external researcher. Carolyn was referred to our library by a reverend in the US who felt we would be able to help her source a quotation by Henri Nouwen:
"Dear Liesl,
Thank you for your helping me find this work of Henri Nouwen.
I am looking forward to reading his article because I’ve learned so very much about love, forgiveness and grace from him!
Sincerely,
Carolyn"
May 23, 2017
Last week UTL welcomed John MacColl, University Librarian & Director of Library Services at the University of St Andrews, who was visiting from Scotland. In a note of appreciation to Chief Librarian Larry Alford and the staff he met during his visit including Jack Leong, Margaret Wall, Lari Langford, PJ Carefoote, Sian Meikle and Alan Darnell, John expressed that he was very impressed with the libraries, the collections and the work being done by UTL staff.
May 9, 2017
Instruction & Faculty Liaison Librarian, Ana Patricia Ayala shared some incredible praise she received about Gerstein TALint student, Roger Reka:
"Roger has been working with one of my teams in a Scoping review addressing interventions to reduce antibiotic misuse in low to middle income countries. He came on board at a later stage of the process and in a matter of weeks has flawlessly managed to get updated with material covering 11 months. The PI of the review called me to highlight, and I quote:
Roger is a fantastic member of this team, I can’t thank you enough for bringing him on-board. He is methodical in his approach, smart, and friendly. We had to hit difficult targets in a short time and my expectations were blown away by his work. Please pass this along"
Jesse Carliner and Eveline Houtman received some great feedback on Twitter about their '10 Days of Twitter' course for U of T faculty:
@hbelfry : "Thanks both of you – was great incentive to improve my Twitter skills and meet new Toronto colleagues #UofT10DoT @EvelineLH @jessecarliner"
GSLA Thomas Harding also received some wonderful feedback via Twitter:
|
Ashley Williamson (@aahwilliamson) |
|
|
@uoftlibraries Tom at the ref desk FTW on a really tricky gov pub question! Thank you. |
|
May 2, 2017
GSLA, Parisa Zahiremami and Government Information & User Support Librarian, Kyla Everall helped a visiting UN Librarian connect with an elusive book, and she sent this lovely note to Kyla, Parisa, and the Robarts staff:
"Dear Kyla,
I came by over the weekend and scanned the chapter I needed. Everyone at the Loans desk was super nice and helpful. Yay for the Robarts team!
Thank you again for your help,
Ariel"
April 25, 2017
A recent visitor to Gerstein called to convey her praise for the fantastic service that she received from Access and Reference Services Associate, Linda Singh and SLA, Michael Baldanza. Although the passenger elevator was not working, she says that received exceptional service in accommodating both her physical and learning disabilities. Michael and Linda were not only able to help her track down an elusive book, but Michael also assisted her in locating relevant information in the book, and making photocopies for her. She called it a “wonderful experience”, and was thrilled to have received “so much compassion from everybody”.
April 25, 2017
A grateful patron phoned to thank Samantha Elmsley, a GSLA in the Robarts Reference Department, for her caring and thorough service. As a user with an invisible disability, she was particularly happy with Sam’s service.
April 25, 2017
Professor Emeritus of Political Science and Senior Fellow, Carolyn Hughes Tuohy, sent a message to Jesse Carliner, praising the service she had received from GSLA, Tom Harding:
"Dear Mr. Carliner,
I am writing to commend one of your employees, Tom Harding, for the extraordinary service he provided to me this past weekend. I was writing a paper to a deadline, and needed to produce a chart showing article counts on a few particular subjects from the 1960s to the present. I took what I thought was a chance that online UTL research support could help me and submitted a query, without mentioning any time pressure. I sent my query at 4:17 on Saturday afternoon. At 5:05 I received a very full and helpful response from Tom, who not only showed me how the UTL advanced search function could help but also had searched out another site at the University of Illinois with a broader range of options. As it happens, the UTL advanced search gave me exactly what I needed and by 6:00 pm I had produced my chart.
As you can appreciate, I am very grateful for this prompt and well-focussed help on Tom's part - as well as for the functionality of the UTL resource. I asked Tom to provide me with your email address so that I could send my commendation to you, and I would be pleased if you would record it in his file.
Thanks very much,
Carolyn Tuohy"
April 25, 2017
The Deputy Editor of U of T Magazine, Stacey Gibson, sent a letter of gratitude to Loryl MacDonald and the UTARMS staff, including Marnee Gamble, Tys Klumpenhouwer, Karen Suurtaam, Emily Sommers, and Harold Averill, for their help with her recent profile on the late Ursula Franklin:
"Hi Loryl,
My name is Stacey Gibson, and I’m the deputy editor of U of T Magazine – the quarterly periodical that is mailed to 320,000 U of T alumni. Our new spring issue has just come out, and I was lucky enough to write a profile on Ursula Franklin: http://bit.ly/2oScM7f.
I just wanted to tell you that the U of T archivists were truly amazing to me throughout my research. I was there quite a bit over the past couple of months, and every single one of them went out of their way to help me. If it wasn’t for Marnee Gamble, I honestly wouldn’t have had an article. After searching through many boxes, I offhandedly mentioned to Marnee that I could not find the personal information about Ursula that I needed – the “soft” stuff about her childhood and her time in the concentration camp that Ursula didn’t like to talk about. Marnee remembered she had heard a tape years ago in which Ursula had talked to CBC Radio about it, and searched and searched to find it for me. Because of her, I found the lead, and the ending, to my story.
I also had a last-minute question about Ursula’s involvement with a scientific study (called the Baby Tooth Survey), which Tys passed on to Karen Suurtaam – who, despite being on maternity leave, followed up with Ursula’s daughter and got back to me by the next morning! Because of them, I was able to correct an error that otherwise would have snuck into the article. Emily sent me RCMP files electronically, Harold answered my questions, too, and everybody put up with the continuous revolving stack of files that I left near the main desk for weeks. Plus, everyone was so professional and kind to me throughout, which meant a lot to me.
Anyhow, I just wanted to express my gratitude to your amazing staff.
Thank you,
Stacey"
April 18, 2017
The John M. Kelly Library’s Special Collections team recently received a lovely thank you card from one of our undergraduate students. Natalie Doummar is in the Concurrent Religious Education program at St. Michael's College, majoring in Christianity & Culture and English. Her work was a Directed Research project overseen by Reid Locklin, Associate Professor of Christianity & Culture:
"Dear Liesl, Noel, Carmen, Jessica, and all of you very helpful and awesome people at the second floor Special Collections Room!
Thank you for all of your assistance, knowledge, support and friendliness over my time here this year! I will very much cherish these memories and I learned so much about G.K. Chesterton! Prayers for the future."
April 11, 2017
Lidio Presutti, Amanda Wagner, and the staff at the Information Commons received praise from an appreciative PhD student:
"Dear Mr. Presutti,
I just submitted my PhD dissertation yesterday and will defend this June. Throughout my doctoral studies, I contacted the Information Commons on a number of occasions, and am so grateful for the support and the professionalism of your department that I wanted to write this email to you.
At the outset, the Information Commons (IC) people have terrific communication skills (not all "techies" do!). More specifically, I find that the IC'rs listen carefully to the issue, understand it, and then reply with "people speak" so that non-technical types like me can follow and understand the proposed solutions. More than that, when the IC'rs themselves are unsure of the answer, they typically find the right answers quickly. In an evaluation of your department, I would rate it a flat 10 out of 10 on any of the metrics.
In particular though, I am writing about the remarkable support of Amanda Wagner. I was at the end of a doctoral, complex participatory action research project and was a bit irked that I had yet another issue to deal with, the Table of Contents (TOC).
In this case, Amanda patiently showed me how to automatically generate the TOC through Word. Due to the nature of my project, there were some added complications with the TOC. Although my submission was on deadline, Amanda always replied promptly and demonstrated competency, professionalism—and much generosity as well.
Your department has greatly assisted my doctoral studies at the University of Toronto, and I am most grateful to you and your team.
Sincerely yours,
David Goldberg, B.A., M.Ed.
PhD Candidate (ABD)
University of Toronto"
April 11, 2017
Assistant Professor at the iSchool, Patrick Keilty, sent a note of thanks to the Inforum's Nalini Singh for her help with a recent article that he published:
"Dear Nalini,
I just wanted to extend my personal thanks for your help with my article 'Tedious: Feminized Labor in Machine-Readable Cataloging,' which was published today in Feminist Media Studies. I have attached the article and hope you enjoy it.
Shipping some of our materials off to Downsview may have caused a bit of a kerfuffle, but I am happy to say that this essay was at least one happy byproduct. Before we shipped the materials, I wanted to know what was in our collection, so I spent an afternoon combing through it. I unearthed some IBM documents that had never circulated since they were purchased in the 1960s. They form the basis for the article, and you helped me make sure I found everything related to them. I wrote the article during the Inforum refurbishment. I take it as a positive omen that the article was accepted around the time the Inforum refurbishment was complete, and published now, after the first academic year in the revitalized space.
I wish I had been given the opportunity by the journal to include an acknowledgements section, because I would have written a great big thank-you to you. Instead, this email will have to serve as a poor substitute.
All warm wishes and many thanks again --
Patrick Keilty, PhD"
April 11, 2017
Larry Alford, Hana Kim, and Stephen Qiao received terrific feedback from partners, co-organizers, and participants in the EAL's recent events. Find excerpts from some of the feedback below:
Message from Jim Cheng, Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL) President:
"On behalf of CEAL, I would like to thank you for your extremely generous support of our annual conference, which ended last night with great success.
Your beautiful libraries, outstanding collections, and hospitality deeply impressed our members and I. Hope we will have the opportunity to work together again in future.
I am deeply grateful."
Excerpt from message from Zhijia Shen, President, Society of Chinese Studies Librarians (SCSL) – Co-organizer of the Fourth Sino-American Academic Library Forum for Cooperation and Development | Vice President/President Elect, Council on East Asian Libraries (CEAL):
"As your co-organizer of the 4th Sino-North American forum, and on behalf of the Society of Chinese Studies Librarians, I want to thank you time and again for the wonderful collaboration! It was a great experience working with you and your excellent staff on this significant conference! SCSL newsletter will publish a special issue to report on the forum. [...]
Many thanks again! Hope to see you again at other conferences, perhaps in China!"
Excerpt from letter from Prof. Zhu Qiang, President, China Academic Social Sciences and Humanities Library & Director, Peking University Library, China:
"Many thanks [...] to you and your wonderful team at the University of Toronto Library, especially Ms. Hana Kim and Mr. Stephen Qiao for the steadfast support and collaboration during the whole conference."
March 14, 2017
PhD student, Ashley Williamson, tweeted her appreciation for Communications and Reference Librarian, Jesse Carliner:
"Jesse at the Robarts reference desk was helpful and kind."
March 7, 2017
GIS Analyst, Gerald Romme from the Map and Data Library earned some epic praise after helping the U of T History Department's Justine Walden:
"O M G
Gerald is a genius.
I was tying myself into knots after I learned that according to System Requirements, City Engine doesn't run on Sierra OSX 10.12, which is the operating system on my new Mac, and was torquing out trying to do a retrograde installation of an earlier operating system and selectively preserve months worth of work that would necessarily be lost, and Gerald was like, why don't you just try installing CityEngine?
And VOILA. It is here.
Gerald will get much Lindt chocolate for this."
February 28, 2017
Tatsuaki Kinno, a Japanese Judge, and other visitors from Japan recently toured and surveyed Robarts Library's accessibility services and efforts. Kinno sent a note of appreciation to Jack Leong and Lari Langford after the visit:
"I was so impressed with your effort to improve accessibility. I feel we should learn from the attitude of your government and library staff's effort. Anyway, it was good experience for me today. I deeply appreciate your kindness."
February 21, 2017
A UBC PhD student who recently used the Mu Collection - part of the Chinese rare book collection at the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library - sent in this positive feedback about the library's staff and services:
“The Mu Collection [at the Cheng Yu Tung East Asian Library] has been very helpful! The librarians have also provided no small amount of advice. Helen Tang has been particularly helpful throughout this week, and Michael Cody, very willing to answer a series of questions when he was in on Monday.”
February 14, 2017
SLA, Rathees Uthayakumar, received kudos from a patron using the Ask a Librarian chat service, who was pleased with the "very helpful service".
February 14, 2017
Mehrdad Samadzadeh, of the Engineering & Computer Science Library got a lovely thank you from the Senior Interlibrary Loan Technician at Carleton University Library for filling a large number of requests in a speedy fashion.
February 14, 2017
Archivist Bridget Whittle tweeted her appreciation for the Engineering & Computer Science Library's exhibition, The Sandford Fleming Fire: Recollections Forty Years Later:
"With fire, people always think about materials burning or smoke damage, this is usually what does them in. Great little exhibit on the fire. twitter.com/uoftlibraries/…"
February 7, 2017
Robarts GSLA, Samantha Elmsley recently helped a researcher with an inquiry regarding the Child Care Information Resource Collection, and received this message of gratitude in response: "Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart!!!!!"
January 24, 2017
Lisette Henrich, Help Desk Analyst at the Information Commons received a note from a grateful grad student:
"Dear Lisette,
Thank you for forwarding this information to me. But most of all thank you for your extraordinary help on Wednesday while I was making a speech in Montreal. You were patient, understanding, knowledgeable and confident – all of those are the best values anyone can have. I was lucky to have you helping me over the phone (and lucky that the young man who answered the call was wise enough to put you on the case!). Many, many thanks. You saved my work as well as my sanity."
January 24, 2017
Communications and Reference Librarian, Jesse Carliner, received appreciative feedback from a student with whom he had a research consultation. She was searching for digital artifacts (videos, poems, pictures) related to several legal cases that concern wearing religious garb in the public sphere. She wrote, “This was so great! Jesse was so nice and helpful!”
January 10, 2017
Well done Megan Campbell, Director of Advancement and all of the contributors to Noteworthy on the fabulous latest issue! In a congratulatory note to Megan, one reader called it a "terrific edition -- really interesting!" and another reader sent the following note to Chief Librarian Larry Alford:
"A very belated thank you for sending 'Noteworthy' – a truly world-class publication. We also – with full heart – wish to reciprocate and to thank and wish you a great holiday and a most successful new year."
January 10, 2017
A thank you came in through the Information Desk (Let Us Know form) for Robarts Student Library Assistant, Raymond Bach, that read, “VERY kind, helpful staff member, Raymond. Really appreciate it. Thanks.”
Keep up the good work, Raymond!
January 3, 2017
Kudos to TALint students Rathees and Karine, who as Judith Logan explains, "went over and above for an external researcher yesterday finding the location of a very tricky primary source document. You can see from the researcher's reply how happy she was with the response. Their work and perseverance were exemplary. We are lucky to have such wonderful GSLAs working at Robarts Reference."
Read the grateful researcher's letter below:
"THANK YOU SO MUCH! You have solved the puzzle that no one else could. The Robarts reference librarians *always *come through for me. Over a 30-plus-year's stretch of writing and editing books, the Robarts has never failed to help me with reference problems, and done so quickly. More importantly, Robarts librarians have done so thoroughly. Nearly every book I have published thanks the Robarts, and this one will too.
Armed with your information, I can request the microfilm from Salt Lake be shipped to a local LDS genealogical site at the LDS church in the city where I am now (Tallahassee, FL), and proceed.
Thank you again,
Victoria Brehm"
January 3, 2017
After last month's Guerilla Archiving Event held in the Inforum, one of the event's organizers, and U of T professor, Michelle Murphy sent a thank you letter to those who contributed to the event, including Sian Meikle, Lari Langford, Nalini Singh, and Sam-chin Li:
"Thank you so much for your efforts supporting the Guerrilla Archiving event on Saturday. We could not have done it without you. I am extremely grateful for all the support from the Faculty of Information at every level. You all are fabulous! I am deeply grateful.
Thank you to Larysa and Kathleen! You were brilliant, and we would have been a mess without your help. Also, a special thanks to Sam-chin Li, Sian Miekle and all the other fabulous UTL people who gave of their time and expertise. Behind the scenes were our great colleagues at the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative and our collaborates at Data Refuge at Penn. Also, a shout out to the JHI, who provided the coffee and pizza.
I also want to personally give my heartfelt thanks to Matt Price and the Civic Tech TO people who did amazing work coding up tools, and the the incredible Patrick Keilty who was an organizing force to be reckoned with.
Wow! I am so grateful for all the support!"
January 3, 2017
Government Information Librarian, Sam-chin Li received a personal note of thanks and a request from NYU's Jerome Whitington after her presentation at the Guerilla Archiving event:
"Thank you so much for your presentation at the data archiving event. I have been helping Michelle coordinate, and I thought your presentation would be a good contribution to the toolkit we are putting together."
January 3, 2017
Sam-chin Li was also instrumental in helping student, Dave Farrell, write an A-grade paper. See an excerpt from his note of thanks below:
"I wanted to thank you again for all of your help and guidance with my paper on Richard Nixon's trip to China. I got an A on the paper! This can largely be attributed to your excellent advice in finding primary sources and introducing me to so many databases."
December 13, 2016
Manda Vrkljan, Caroline Silva, Elicia Wilkinson, Bridget Collings, and the Kelly library’s InfoExpress service recently received a lovely acknowledgement of their hard work in Dr. John McLaughlin’s new book, What Are They Saying About Ancient Israelite Religion?:
"I can never repay the debt I owe to the staff of St. Michael's John M. Kelly Library Infoexpress service. The team of Manda Vrkljan, Caroline Silva, Elicia Wilkinson, and Bridget Collings obtained and delivered articles and books from throughout the geographically widespread University of Toronto library system, as well as by interlibrary loan from other institutions. As I neared the end, they did this on very short notice, sometimes within hours, leaving me free to concentrate on writing without having to spend time tracking down last-minute references. Without their constantly cheerful efforts over many months, not only would writing this volume have been exceedingly more difficult, it would not yet be done."
December 13, 2016
Communications and Reference Librarian, Jesse Carliner received some nice feedback in a consultation survey from a student who was looking for primary sources related to the persecution of Jehovah’s Witnesses in Quebec around 1950.
She wrote:
"This was great and I would definitely recommend having a consultation to my friends. Jesse helped me find primary sources such as photos, videos and newspaper articles that I would have had trouble finding on my own. He created a document with a link to those sources with a guide as to what key words to search in which databases. It is very useful to me to have this guide for my further research. He also showed me different databases that will be useful to me."
December 6, 2016
Rev. Heather J. Vais sent this glowing letter of appreciation to the Information Commons' Amanda Wagner:
To whom it may concern,
I am a Doctoral candidate at Knox College and the Toronto School of Theology. I am presently finishing up my dissertation and have a deadline of December 2nd to have all my work submitted. The T.S.T has some very strict requirement regarding formatting of dissertations. The administrator at Knox College kindly passed on the name of Amanda Wagner as someone who may be able to help with the formatting of my work.
I called her and she happily agreed to see me today. She was extremely pleasant (and quite calming in the presence of a somewhat anxious student!). She not only showed me the ropes, she also took two hours to pore over my document and ensure my formats were correct. She checked margins, made appropriate page breaks, reformatted my tables, figures and appendices, created my table of contents, realigned all my figures, charts etc. and generally prepared my document for submission. Amanda has saved me hours of work trying to figure out how to do the formatting and she also saved me more hours by doing the work for me!
Amanda provides an invaluable service to this University and its students. She should be commended for carrying out her job with such great skill and in such a calming and pleasant manner.
I commend Amanda for her great work and extend my gratitude to her and to your department.
Sincerely,
Heather Vais
November 25, 2016
Emily Sommers, Digital Records Archivist at UTARMS, received a glowing service review from a researcher:
"I would just like to pass along my very positive experience dealing with Emily Sommers this past year. I have been researching a relative of mine who attended the University of Toronto at the start of World War 1 and who was subsequently shot down and killed in 1917.
Over the last two years that I have been researching his life, I have traveled from the National Archives in Kew, to the Canadian War Museum and a variety of other locations across the country. Throughout this entire research process, Emily was the most helpful and pleasant archivist I have dealt with. She has shown me new lines of investigation, original documents that I had no idea existed and kept me focused on what I really needed to look at which saved me a trip to Toronto. I would like to pass along my thanks to her and let you know she is an excellent member of your staff".
November 8, 2016
Interlibrary loan supervisor, Anne-Marie Crotty, was mentioned in a footnote from a recent publication of one of the PhD students at the Centre for Medieval Studies: "I thank Mrs. Anne‐Marie Crotty and the staff of Interlibrary Loans at Robarts Library, University of Toronto, for their assiduous efforts in processing my request for an interlibrary loan."
October 31, 2016
Kudos to Gerstein's Instruction & Faculty Liaison Librarian, Erica Lenton, and MADLab Manager, Michael Spears for their recent acknowledgement in an article published in the Crystal Growth & Design Journal. The article in question is called "A Versatile System for High-Throughput In Situ X-ray Screening and Data Collection of Soluble and Membrane-Protein Crystals", by Jana Broecker
October 18, 2016
Debbie Green, and the Reference and Research Department at Robarts received this thank you message from Dr. David Roberts, assistant professor of Urban Studies:
"Thanks for providing so much support on this assignment. I hope it turns my students into regular users of all of the various library services. [...] You guys make my work easier and my students’ work better!"
October 11, 2016
Communications and Reference Librarian, Jesse Carliner received kudos from one of the attendees of the library instruction session that he taught, "Essential Research Skills: Finding Scholarly Sources":
"Jesse Carliner is a very effective instructor. He is clear, precise, helpful, knowledgeable, and easy to follow. He even went out of his way to extend the session hours to offer extra help with my actual research homework - looking for scholarly sources online."
October 11, 2016
One of our iStaff members, Nooria, received this appreciative feedback from user, Anne Popovich:
“Nooria was amazingly helpful and patient! She helped me find an elusive text and how to use the scanner which saved me about 2 hours of work!”
October 4, 2016
Susanna Jacob sent this lovely note after visiting the exhibit, 'Our Wonderful Universe: Astronomy at U of T', which featured the work of her husband, Astronomer and Astrophysicist, Robert Garrison, and was curated by UTARMS Archivist, Karen Suurtamm.
"The exhibit is beautifully informative. I spent twenty minutes or so with it, reminiscing with myself about the observatory, and stories of Chant, and memories of Helen Hogg, and the night of the supernova discovery - wild. Bob (Robert Garrison) was on the phone with media from all over, and we were hosting a large University of Chicago alumni party that very evening. It all worked out, but he was definitely wearing two hats for the night.
I also especially enjoyed the stereograph images of the 25 brightest stars and the moon (If I'd known, I would have brought my stereoscope!).
Thank you for such a lovely, and for me, nostalgia-filled, display. I will share memories of the visit with Bob."
September 27, 2016
Rita Vine, Head, Faculty and Student Engagement, passed along this feedback from faculty in response to the Scan & Deliver pilot program launched by the Gerstein, Robarts and UTM libraries. The program allows U of T faculty, staff and graduate students to request articles from print journals at these libraries to be scanned and delivered to their desktops via email.
The response thus far has been largely positive, as evidenced in this selection of appreciative comments below:
"Very nice! I will look forward to making use of this."
"What a great service - can’t wait to use it."
"Thanks for this. You and your team are ever ahead of the library sciences curve... Always moving forward!"
"Thank you, this is absolutely a fantastic initiative!"
"Thank you. Great service."
"This is wonderful and amazing! Wonderful really! What about books? Articles from books?"
September 27, 2016
The Information Commons' Media Production unit received thanks for their "excellent technical production of the Toronto Mysterious Barricades concert” by the Mysterious Barricades organization. The Mysterious Barricades organization works to provide suicide awareness and prevention. The Mysterious Barricades concert was an 18-hour, 13-city concert webcast live on World Suicide Prevention Day, September 10, 2016.
September 27, 2016
Navroop Gill, Instruction and Liaison Librarian, and two of our GSLAs, Marcos Armstrong and Lily Ren, received a note of thanks from a faculty member for their excellent work providing information literacy instruction for OISE’s Master of Teaching students:
“Thank you so much Navroop to you and your team for all of the preparation and work you did with my students this week! I've received all positive feedback from them about the workshops and they feel much more confident heading into their searches. I'm really grateful for your careful organization and thorough workshops - these will really help set them up for success this year.”
September 27, 2016
This note came in via the Feedback button in TSpace. The sender said it would “make him happy” if we shared this: “I am a graduate student in Turkey and I've been doing my research for my thesis. I discovered your system via Google by typing relevant keywords about my work. I would like to thank you for providing free PDF downloads. I hope to benefit more from your data base; with my best regards.”
September 13, 2016
Words of praise from Prof. Sarianna Metso to Dr. Barry Dov Walfish, Librarian and Selector for Jewish Studies, Religious Studies and Theology, after a session with him at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library with her class on The Literature of Ancient Israel (RLG 313):
"Thank you so much for making the session at the Fisher Library so thoroughly enjoyable for me and my students. It was truly wonderful to see the students so interested and excited about the material, and we all learned so much from your intimate knowledge of the library’s treasures. Several students commented how much they appreciated the visit. The items you had selected were perfect for my class, and the beautiful catalogue, which I will make available for the students, will remind us of what we saw. I will certainly return, and I will spread the word to my colleagues as well."
September 13, 2016
Kudos to the Reference & Research Services team from Deputy Chief Librarian, Julie Hannaford, on a successful beginning for the new Ask Us service on the second floor of Robarts Library:
"A big thank you to you all for staffing the new reference desk on the second floor. Debbie has shared with me how many more students we helped in this first week of classes over the first week of classes, 15-16 – it is 4x the number – a truly impressive number. I can’t begin to imagine how intimidating it is to start an undergraduate program and to have to walk into ‘Fort Book’ for the first time. Having you there to give our students smiling faces and help them find their way is a huge way of alleviating their anxiety. Kudos to you all!"
September 6, 2016
The Marrakesh Treaty has now been ratified by Canada and is in effect. This Treaty will greatly facilitate access to information for people who are visually impaired or otherwise print disabled. It is a wonderful achievement, thanks in part to the tremendous work of Victoria Owen, Chief Librarian at UTSC. Her excellent work on this effort and her advocacy have made a huge difference in getting the Treaty signed and then ratified and will make a difference in access to information for many generations to come. Thank you, Victoria, and congratulations on this remarkable achievement.
September 6, 2016
The Communications team received some thoughtful feedback from TALint student Bridgette Kelly:
"Thank you so much for all of your efforts in putting together the In the Loop UTL student profiles over the course of the summer — what a great way to call attention to student work at UTL!
September 6, 2015
Kudos to our selectors in Spanish, linguistic and Canadiana studies (with a bit of Moldova and Russia on the side) for helping make this researcher's research stay in Toronto so productive:
"In the first week of August I was a couple of times at the Petro Jacyk Research Centre, and we talked about the activities and services of your Center. Thank you for your advice. Finally I could obtain a TCard as a research reader, which allowed me to borrow books from Robarts , E. J. Pratt and other libraries on the U of T campus for my research. As a matter of fact, in the mornings and till 3 pm I had two English courses at New College (International English Programs), and after that I could work regularly for my research at the Robarts Library or at New College. I am in Toronto since July 25th, and this time was very productive and motivating for me. By now, my most important research project is my PhD thesis, which I'm intended to defend at the end of this year at the University of Marburg (Germany). The PhD topic is a comparison of linguistic and identity discourses at Majorca (Spain) and in the Republic of Moldova from the perspective of sociolinguistics and cultural studies. At Robarts Library I borrowed books about sociolinguistic issues (language policies, language and identity, linguistic struggles in Quebec and Catalonia, etc.) and history of the Republic of Moldova."
September 6, 2016
Elena Springall, Coordinator of Resource Sharing & Instruction and Liaison Librarian at Gerstein received this note of thanks from a PhD researcher:
August 8, 2016
TALint student Jillian Harkness received praise from Dan C., a researcher using the Ontario Historical Education Collections at the OISE Library:
"...thank you for the assistance you provided to me while I was at OISE yesterday. You not only provided the right information which I requested, relating to the Science Course curriculums; you also made suggestions which pointed me in the right direction, to other material that pertained to my search. The historical archives, which OISE possesses, are especially valuable, as I found out from speaking to the Ontario Ministry of Education."
July 5, 2016
The Music Library and its staff were highly praised in a note from Louise Yearwood, the Executive Director of Alumni Affairs & Advancement at Victoria University:
"I recently had occasion to borrow some music from U of T’s Music Library; my need was time sensitive due to an exam. Never having visiting the Music Library before, I didn’t know how to access the stacks or what to do. The young woman at the front desk was extremely kind, professional and helpful to me and I found everything I needed quite easily. For a number of reasons I would describe her behaviour as above and beyond the call of duty, and my overall experience was excellent. Thank you U of T Libraries!"
June 28, 2016
Robarts Library and staff members Askari Husain and Anthony Frati received a rave review via email, from a graduate student at the Munk School of Global Affairs.
"I wanted to bring to your attention something I view as important - strong library support staff. When doing research, a majority of your time gravitates around the library, it has been a critical research space for thousands of years.
June 7, 2016
Debbie Campbell of the Access and Information Department recently helped former U of T President David Naylor track down an article, and received the following note of thanks:
"Debbie, this is great - thanks for the lightning fast and very helpful response."
May 10, 2016
Slavic Cataloguing Supervisor Lana Soglasnova received a note of gratitude from Professor Naomi Nagy of the Department of Linguitics, after she provided an instruction session for an undergraduate class.
"Thanks again for the superb presentation about using reference resources at Roberts for my TBB 199 class, Exploring Heritage Languages. As you know, the students this year were assigned to prepare a Wikipedia article about Toronto's heritage languages...On the last day of class, I asked students to write a reflective essay about the process of writing a Wikipedia article. Many of them commented on how they got started - with you."
Students provided very positive feedback on their newfound ability to understand and find relevant, reliable resources, making the research process more effective and efficient.
April 18, 2016
In the current Faculty of Medicine MedEmail newsletter, Dean Trevor Young praises the libraries for our support:
"Because of their support, especially that of University Chief Librarian Larry Alford and Associate Chief Librarian for Science Research and Information Neil Romanosky, we have renewed our license and will be able to continue offering UpToDate® to registered learners (MD students, residents and fellows) for the next five years. This is a big financial undertaking, but it will continue to be supported because of the partnerships built between our students, faculty and librarians."
April 7, 2016
Lana Soglasnova, Slavic Cataloguing Supervisor, received kudos and mention in Aditya Kahsar's translation of Raghuvamsam - The Line of Raghu, a piece originally by Kalidasa:
"Dear Lana...with my renewed thanks for assistance in work for this book, to you and Robarts Library. This is also mentioned in the book which I hope the library will get in due course. Hope to again visit Toronto in July and contact you for help in my next project."
March 23, 2016
John Toyanaga, Manager, Bindery, and Christy Thomasson, Preservation Specialist, of the Bindery Section at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, were acknowledged for their quality work. Master's student, R. Antonio Munoz Gomez, in Library & Information Science and Book History & Print Culture, expressed his kudos to these behind-the-scenes folks:
"My name is Antonio and I am a first-year student at the Faculty of Information. As part of an assignment for a course, two classmates and I recently visited the bindery on the 6th floor at Robarts, where John Toyonaga and Christy Thomasson kindly talked to us about the work that they do.
It was really interesting and informative to learn more about this service that as students we often take for granted. I wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for all the work that you and the bindery department do for our library system."
March 22, 2016
Jesse Carliner, Reference / Acting Communications Librarian, Nich Worby, Government Information and Statistics Librarian, and Leanne Trimble, Data & Statistics Librarian recently taught “Introduction to Data & Information Visualization” for the Graduate Professional Skills workshop series, and did not disappoint!
“Thank you for the brilliant workshop, please pass on my thanks to Leanne and Nicholas! I have shared my review and great recommendation of the workshop with my labmates-- they will for sure be thrilled to see the slides you shared in the email.”
March 11, 2016
Sam-chin Li, Reference/Government Publications Librarian at Robarts, received an A+ kudos from a very pleased 4th-year Geography/History/English student, Stephen Cain:
“Today (Friday, March 11, 2016), I had a consultation with Sam-Chin Li at the Reference Library and she was very helpful in assisting me with navigating the library website for my research assignment.
The pride she takes in preparing for our consultation and making sure that I understand how to navigate the website (which can be a complicated process) has helped me to achieve high marks in the past and will continue to. She makes sure that the research is comprehensive by covering all aspects and views. The use of primary sources, complimented by secondary sources and the elimination of biases, is the key to an 'A’ paper. This is the approach Sam-Chin takes to assisting with the foundational stages of research.
I would recommend making an appointment with a library consultant to any student having trouble navigating the library website. It can save students a lot of time and aggravation.
To book a consultation, I just moved my cursor over to ‘Ask,' at the top of the library homepage and then clicked 'consult.' From there, I answered a few questions regarding the subject matter of my assignment and how a librarian could assist me. Shortly after submitting, I was contacted by Sam-Chin and organized an appointment for just 2 days later at the fourth floor reference area of Robarts Library on St. George St.
I am so happy I did!
Testimonies from other students, like myself, who have benefitted from this library service, could prove useful in creating exposure for such a valuable service. Although I did stumble upon it when I was struggling with my research, this did not happen until I was in my 3rd year of studies. I would have benefitted greatly from this service earlier on in my academic career, and hope others will benefit due to emails like this one and great services that can often go unnoticed, like library consultation appointments.
Thanks Sam-Chin!”
March 3, 2016
Paul Whittam, Computer System Specialist with Information Technology Services, received a thank you card from Mary Ann Mavrinac from the University of Rochester, Office of the Vice Provost and Neilly Dean of River Campus Libraries, for his assistance with setting up Anne with access to web conferencing equipment while she was in Robarts Library.
“Dear Paul,
It was a pleasure to meet you last week. Thank you so much for your assistance in setting me up for the Library Journal webcast! Best wishes on your career. From my brief time with you I think you will be very successful!
Yours Sincerely,
Mary Ann”
February 27, 2016
The Interlibrary Loan staff, through their magic, have impressed medieval studies/book history and print culture PhD student, C.E.M. Henderson, who gladly tweeted about it:
"Shout out to the @uoftlibraries ILL librarians, who are basically wizards, and put up with my nonsense far more than anyone should have to."
February 24, 2016
Nora Frauley, one of our amazing SLAs (also iSchool student) at OISE Library, delivered excellent customer service to a patron. Nora was helping the patron on one of the public workstations and he was so appreciative of her help that he asked if he could leave her a tip!
PS She said no! ;)
February 23, 2016
Earlier this week, Pat Grace, staff member in Shipping and Receiving, went above and beyond when he discovered a package of papers, and in it was $100 US. It was mixed with books in a container that were part of interlibrary loan deliveries he was completing. He immediately brought the package and money to his supervisor, Peter Wilson, Associate Director, Finance, so that they could track down the student who has lost the package. A very sincere kudos followed:
“I would like to express my sincere thanks to you and everyone who played a role in returning my invoices and $100 US dollars that I had left with my borrowed library items. It brings me great joy to know that such kind, caring and honest people still exist. I greatly appreciate your efforts and thank you for taking the time out of your schedules to contact me and ensure that I received my lost items.
Thank you again. Your kindness and sincerity will not be forgotten!”
February 18, 2016
Kudos are always sweet, but they are even sweeter when they come with cookies!
"Dear OISE Librarians,
Thank you so very much for your hard work. The staff at the circulation desk are attentive, friendly, and patient. The librarians are knowledgeable and helpful. OISE is one of my favorite U of T libraries because of its quiet study spaces and general calm atmosphere. Keep up the great work! Happy family day weekend! Happy Valentine's Day! Happy Chinese New Year! - Lisa"
January 27, 2016
Fuad Akhundov, graduate student at OISE, offered these kind words for Amanda Wagner, Graphic Designer, after coming to the Information Commons:
"This letter is an expression of an enormous gratitude and heartfelt appreciation of an outstanding performance and great assistance by one of your employees, Mrs. Amanda Wagner.
Despite being affected by a cold, Amanda was kind enough to stay for another hour and a half to help me out with formatting and uploading my final thesis, a very cumbersome procedure that would otherwise take me a whole day with no positive result guaranteed.
Amanda's help was highly professional and really important. People like her make [Information] Commons a very student-friendly place indeed."
January 29, 2016
Mr. Peter Joyce, Coordinator of Insider Walks (members-only walks) with ROM walks phoned on Friday to give kudos to the Robarts Library staff. Mr. Joyce researches and develops walking tours for all over Toronto for the ROM. He came to Robarts Library to locate an obscure reference from an even more obscure journal that only Robarts Library had. He said that he was assisted by at least 10 staff members in the process of locating the journal, and that all of them were polite, careful, understanding, assisted him perfectly, and were pleasant and knowledgeable. A very helpful staff member at the reference desk personally took him up to the stacks and helped him find the journal on the shelf. He was so struck by how kind, considerate, and knowledgeable the Robarts Library staff were throughout his visit that he wanted to pass on his thanks and praise to library administration. He ended his call by saying, “I was so impressed by how the whole building worked together so smoothly.”
January 27, 2016
Colleen Burgess, Research and Instructional Services Librarian at D.B. Weldon Library (Western University) was gracious in her praise of UTL's LGBTQ+ initiatives, as presented at the OLA Super Conference:
Thanks for putting this film night together @uoftlibraries #olasc16
"Don't just put a rainbow on it and call it an LGBTQ+ service". Good advice, @uoftlibraries #olasc16
Another goodie: LGBTQ+ IL session series. Applause for being awesome, librarians at @uoftlibraries #olasc16
LGBTQ+ Outreach Film Series hosted in lib space in collaboration with student groups. Cool idea @uoftlibraries #olasc16
---
Attend the upcoming LGBTQ Film Series, February 11 at the Media Commons - event details.
January 11, 2016
A letter from the distinguished Chair of Ukrainian Studies, Dr. Paul Robert Magosci, FRSC, lauded the publication for Maximum Imaginativeness: Modern Czech Book Design, the exhibition held recently at Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, authored by curator Ksenya Kiebuzinki, Head, Petro Jacyk Central & East European Resource Centre and Slavic Librarian.
"This is to acknowledge with thanks and appreciation the book, Maximum Imaginativeness: Modern Czech Book Design, which you were kind enough to send to me. This is a beautiful and intelligently written volume for which the library and its staff, most especially Dr. Ksenya Kiebuzinski, deserves the highest accolades."
January 14, 2016
Allison Bell, Manager, Research & Reference Unit of Gerstein Library, received the following feedback from a thankful patron, for assistance with finding a missing citation:
"Allison, There is JOY here that you know the buttons to press and can navigate your way to find this needle in a haystack! A valuable needle it is!
THANK YOU! for your skill and willingness and to the library such that we public readers can access this electronic info. Some us are not surfing; some serious research it getting done. You are helping".
January 8, 2016
Leslie Boehm, Adjunct Professor with the Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation gave a big thumbs up to the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office:
"Dear Mr. Alford, I just wanted to say how impressed I am with the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office.
I am using them for 2 courses I teach and I find the idea of digitizing the class readings as well as the helpfulness of the staff to be two very impressive service roles of the Library."
January 7, 2016
The story below tells of how Joanne Lynes, Access Services Associate at OISE Library, went above and beyond in her efforts to return a patron's stolen purse.
Library Mystery: A Stolen Purse, a Due Date Slip, and a Good Samaritan
It’s not unusual to be asked strange questions at the circulation desk and this one was no exception. I picked up the phone and the voice on the other end said they had an unusual situation. The woman explained that she found a purse outside with a library due date slip in it from the OISE/UT library. I asked "Where outside?" She said outside of her house in Parkdale. She went on to describe how she found it on the sidewalk while walking home – she took it home hoping to find some identification and contact the owner. The only identification was the information on the printout from the OISE library. She tried the phone number and asked if I could help find the owner of the bag. I thought the odds of finding the owner of a random stolen bag were pretty remote, but agreed. I discovered the patron number did, in fact, match a current student. I sent her an email letting her know that someone named ‘Cara’ had found her purse and provided her phone number. I waited for her reply.
"Thank you very much Joanne. I got in touch with Cara and will be retrieving my bag on Friday. I was robbed about two months ago in that area so I'm happy to at least get my leather handbag and keys back- I didn't expect it."
January 7, 2016
Julie Hannaford, Jesse Carliner, Loryl MacDonald, and David Fernandez all received a note of thanks from students in Dalhousie University's Information Management Program. The students visited Robarts and Fisher for a presentation during their career discovery tour on December 15, and afterward they wrote:
"Thank you for your time and expertise when we visited. Your enthusiasm and knowledge of the library highlighted your passion for academic librarianship, which has re-ignited our interest."
January 4, 2016
The Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library and its team recently received high praise from visiting researcher Dr. Matthew Hendley, of the State University of New York, College at Oneonata. In an email following his November visit he wrote:
"I contacted the library's director, Jack Leong, in advance of my visit and he answered numerous questions via email to ensure I would be well oriented for my visit. Upon arrival in Toronto he gave me a brief tour of the library and showed me some extremely valuable resources. Helen Tang had a stack of books and pamphlets waiting for me when I arrived. Furthermore, she tracked down invaluable microfilm copies of several Hong Kong newspapers. Other staff at the library, including student assistants, were also extremely helpful. I only had three days to make the most of the library's collection but felt they were well spent."
December 11, 2015
The new iStaff initiative at Robarts Library received praise on Twitter from Joe Salem, the Associate Dean for Learning Undergraduate Services and Commonwealth Campuses from Penn State Libraries.
"cool program @uoftlibraries - New iStaff Library Information Ambassadors Help Users Navigate Robarts shar.es/1Go11C via @ShareThis"
November 24, 2015
Adam Carmichael, a graduate researcher from the University of Victoria (located in BC), was delighted by the assistance provided by Elena Springall, Co-ordinator of Resource Sharing and Liaison Librarian to Undergraduate Medical Education at Gerstein. Piecing together a few facts given about the dissertation that Adam was seeking, she was able to provide the digital copy in no time. Adam’s statement says it all: “Thanks! That's awesome that it's digitized. Long live the reference librarian!”
November 18, 2015
Stacks Student Library Assistant, Irene Jeong, was recognized for her exceptional customer service:
"Irene- a young student who was stacking books at Robarts Library was EXTREMELY HELPFUL. I could not find a book on the Ottoman Empire. A week later, I returned to check for that book—Irene not only remembered me but even asked if I had found that Ottoman Empire book and helped me find it.
SHE WAS VERY HELPFUL, GOOD NATURED, AND PROFESSIONAL."
November 17, 2015
Jenaya Webb, Public Services Librarian at OISE, and Carey Toane, Entrepreneurship Librarian at Gerstein, were recognized on the front page of the Ontario College and University Library Association's newsletter this month, receiving a special thanks from current Editor-in-Chief, Elizabeth Yates.
"It’s very strange to work on an issue of InsideOCULA without my editorial companion, Jenaya Webb. Jenaya and I joined the newsletter team in June 2012, under the dynamic leadership of then-Editor-in-Chief, Martha Attridge Bufton. Together with Martha and Carey Toane, we collaborated on what seemed a Herculean transformation of the newsletter from PDF to web-based magazine. Carey – whose talents are also missed – moved on and the three of us carried on through another massive migration: this time, to join the new OLA publication, OpenShelf."
Throughout all these changes and challenges, all of us could depend on Jenaya to be hard-working, enthusiastic, unfailingly positive and full of great ideas. I’ve also benefited from her keen sense of diplomacy a few times. She has contributed so much to the development of InsideOCULA – its design, content, strategy and vision benefited greatly from her editorial and aesthetic skills. And then there’s the tremendous dedication required by our relentless deadlines.
When Martha finished her term as Editor-in-Chief, Jenaya and I decided we could forge on by sharing the role of Co-Editor-in-Chief. Jenaya has now moved on to new challenges, but I wanted to take this occasion to publicly acknowledge all her hard work. Thank you, Jenaya!"
November 12, 2015
The Engineering & Computer Science Library left one library patron ecstatic about the quality of their collections. He had come to the reference desk looking for books on Chebyshev filters. After looking through the catalogue and sharing with GSLA Jelena Stankovic, about his work and project, he went upstairs to look through the books. After about 40 minutes, he came back down to the reference desk and said:
"I found what I was looking for! This library is amazing. I used to go to other places, but they just don't have many good books anymore. This place has everything I need."
November 9, 2015
Eveline Houtman, Coordinator of Undergraduate Library Instruction, Robarts Library, was in the spotlight of a Tweet by fellow academic librarians, Donna Witek, and Ian Beilin: "Today's #acrlframework Spotlight on Scholarship is “‘Mind-Blowing’” by @EvelineLH in @CommInfoLit acrl.ala.org/framework/?p=1… #infolit #OA". Eveline's article, "‘Mind-Blowing’: Fostering self-regulated learning in information literacy instruction" was highlighted in the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL) Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education.
November 9, 2015
The Scholarly Communications & Copyright Office team (Nelly Cancilla; Graeme Slaght; Bobby Glushko; Stephanie Orfano; Teresa Pietropaolo-De Marco) were sent an email recognizing efforts put into the recent alternate reality game for Open Access Week 2015:
"Dear Bobby:
Just a quick note to recognize your terrific reality game initiative at Robarts. Sounds like heaps of fun – sorry I didn’t play! What a great way for patrons to interact with the library. And not to mention – you’ve received terrific media coverage – just one sample enclosed. http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/11/05/robarts-library-dabbles-in-conspiracy-with-game.html Congrats – great creative initiative."
November 9, 2015
Judith Logan, Reference Librarian at Robarts, is the focus of recent kudos for a new tutorial video, "Five Ways to Improve Your Article Searches", from long-time student Laura Coulman: "just want to give you high praise for your new little search pointers video ... it's excellent (and I've been here for 5 years! my search skills were immediately improved!"
October 29, 2015
Gerstein's Dana Kuszelewski was once again thanked by a patron for her help with the patron's research questions. A card and small gift were left in Dana's mailbox, which read:
'Dana, Thanks again for your support with my research questions. I am thrilled to now have my doctorate! Look forward to seeing you soon'.
October 28, 2015
A participant in the Open Robarts alternate reality game, part of Open Access Week programming at UTL, shared about his pleasurable experience. Kudos go to the team at the Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office:
"I ventured to the course reserves for the first time in my life this week! I discovered new areas U of T (namely, I exited the library the wrong way, and wondered where I was for several minutes before realizing that, no, I hadn't entered a new dimension). This was a really great adventure; I got to meet new librarians and see new parts of the library system. Thank you for all your hard work.”
October 26, 2015
The Scholarly Communications and Copyright Office and the Bora Laskin Law Library were congratulated on their recent Copyright in Canada Conference 2015 by Leah Theriault from the U of T Faculty of Law’s Centre for Innovation and Policy, who wrote that the event was “the model of a successful conference.”
October 21, 2015
The librarians at E.J. Pratt Library were warmly thanked in a note from Liz Passmore, a U of T undergrad: "Pratt librarians are awesome! A librarian saw me looking at the map by the main staircase and asked if I needed any help. When I told her I was looking for the course reserves she not only took me there but found me the book I needed and loaned it out to me, even though I think she was in the middle of a task (and there were other staff there she could have passed me off to). I'm really grateful to be able to work with such awesome people!"
October 16, 2015
At the recent Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto Professional Practice Day, Jesse Carliner (Reference Librarian & Acting Communications Librarian) and Nich Worby (Government Information & Statistics Librarian) facilitated a workshop on Data Visualization which received positive reviews. Nearly 2/3 of attendees confirmed they would definitely be incorporating this new knowledge into their professional practice and responded to an evaluation of the workshop with comments such as “Excellent and very useful presentation. Best Professional practice workshop I’ve attended” and “Fantastic workshop presentation! Best Professional Practice day yet! The speakers were very good, engaging as well. Very Useful". The Professional Practice Day organizers also expressed warm thanks: “Jesse and Nich, thank you thank you thank you and thank you again for being involved.”
October 16, 2015
Originally prepared for the Dentistry Library Newsletter for October, an article entitled "A Compass for the Lost & Learning: Library Testimonial" speaks volumes about the quality of assistance received by Graduate Prosthodontics student, Bryce P. Adamson:
The Post-Graduate experience is not what I expected. Unlike my Undergrad training, there is no “Welcome to School” package with a print-off of my courses, textbooks, exams, and a map of the campus. Midway through first term, a staff member gave me a supportive pat on the back and said, “Welcome to your self-serve education.” My three major roles here are as a Student, a Presenter, and as a Researcher. Our friendly Faculty of Dentistry Librarians have been
instrumental in helping me with these roles and becoming a better Resident in the process.
In some ways, I feel I’ve only scratched the surface of what our Librarians can help me accomplish. Thanks to their lessons I no long feel lost in the literature. Ask them for some direction and find your path in the stacks!
October 16, 2015
The Engineering & Computer Science Library received some nice kudos from students for their reference service and the Engineering Personal Librarian service:
"I am really pleased to hear from you, and I will be looking forward to learn from you the best efficient ways for better research. I had signed up for a library workshop, and I hope we will meet soon.
THANK YOU for your support."
"I am currently in the chemical engineering program. I thank you for the useful resources and offer of guidance and advice. I have been in to the engineering library in Sanford Fleming several times looking for references help. The guidance I have received by the on-call librarians at that section has been exceptional in guiding myself to find academic resources. I'm currently working on a group engineering project that will involve significant research. If I have any concerns or need some guidance, I will be sure to send you an email for some help. Thank you so much for your time and concern for the success of students. Much thanks."
"It is great to hear from you, and I'm so glad to know this personal librarian program. I am doing my PR [Project Requirement] project right now, and I did ask a few questions from the librarian from the Engineering library, which turned out to be really useful. As an international student, I really appreciate the help offered by the librarians. Thank you for your email!"
October 7, 2015
The Fisher Library recently received kudos for its expert use of social media for engagement with special collections. User Services Librarian, Esther Jackson, from The New York Botanical Garden, recently wrote in an email to the Fisher Library to say, “I am a big fan of your library’s [Instagram] account.” Esther first heard about the Fisher’s Instagram account from the blog of Sara Werner, former Digital Media Strategist for the Folger Shakespeare Library. Sara had high praise for the Fisher Library’s Instagram account: “They’re one of my favorite library Instagram accounts—if you’re curious about what a special collections library can do with Instagram, I recommend following them.” See her full blog post.
October 5, 2015
The founder of Science Literacy Week, science educator and communicator, Jesse Hildebrand, took the time to personally thank Heather Cunningham of Gerstein, among three other librarians from across the city who he felt were 'directly responsible for the success of the inaugural project'.
Heather Cunningham was also mentioned in this article about Science Literacy Week in University Affairs magazine.
September 30, 2015
Bobby Glushko, Head of Scholarly Communications and Copyright at UTL, received high praise in an email from Charlie Keil, Principal at Innis College, for his copyright work supporting the Cinema Studies Institute at Innis College:
Dear Bobby:
"Off-group, let me just say that the way you’ve handled this from the get-go has been, to my eyes, exemplary. I am more impressed than ever by your helpfulness, your desire to work toward solutions, and your refusal to simply hide behind either legal terminology or 'admin-speak.' It really pleases me when members of the university community go the extra mile, and you are certainly one of them."
September 24, 2015
The Health Science Research program sent a note of much thanks to Mindy Thuna, Coordinator, Resource Sharing & Instruction and Liaison Librarian:
"With Health Science Research (HSR) launching as a new second year course in the undergraduate medical curriculum, we want to acknowledge the enormous contribution Mindy Thuna has made to the course. Being part of a committee that builds a course from the ground up is very different from joining an active course committee where one’s role is primarily that of a consultant.
Membership on this committee requires not only expertise in research and education, but many hours of work. Mindy’s attendance at our bi-weekly course committee meetings, together with her additional work reviewing and developing content for the “Finding the Evidence” theme (which included the development of 4 excellent e-modules and exam questions) has been invaluable. Mindy also supported the team developing the “Critical Appraisal” theme.
Thank you for your support of Mindy's commitment to professional excellence and to the advancement of undergraduate medical education. We are deeply appreciative of Mindy contribution to building this important new course at UME and to her ongoing commitment to its growth."
September 21, 2015
In a recent UTM Department of Management profile, on former student Arnav Gupta, he offers his praise for Li Koon Chun Finance Learning Centre (a joint venture of IMI and the University of Toronto Mississauga Library), which was a space that helped to spark his passion for Finance:
“Just the fact that there was a space that was focused entirely on giving students resources to help them learn about the world of finance - that was the most beneficial thing for me,” he says. The experiential-based learning facility also allowed Gupta to stay abreast of the fast-paced world of financial markets...The centre also functions as a hub for students who are looking to navigate their way through university life. “Our mandate isn’t just about finance; it’s the full spectrum of information needs, and some of those might be very academic. Some of them may be kind of informal,” says Helen Kula, IMI’s embedded librarian."
September 18, 2015
Brock Silversides, Director, Media Commons received a wonderful letter of thanks from newly-minted PhD graduate, Paul Babiak:
"Now that my thesis has been successfully defended and submitted and I can breathe a sigh of relief after the rigours of these past ten years of unremitting effort, my attention is turning with gratitude to all those without whose support and encouragement I could never have succeeded.
At the top of the list come Media Commons and Media Archives, on whom, as you know, I have (for several years now) had a threefold reliance. In my teaching and research I have relied (and continue to rely) heavily on the resources of Media Commons, the extent and readiness to hand of whose collection - especially of the TV series which are the primary subject matter of my two courses - have been a major advantage to me. The same is true of the materials in Media Archives, which have repeatedly enabled me to present my students with unique and provocative learning opportunities...I owe a strong personal debt of gratitude to your staff - particularly to Mike Hamilton, to Joan Links, to Guy Ziebert, and to Rachel Beattie, as well as to Don Sklepovich - not only for their patient helpfulness, their courteousness, and their supportiveness, but for their knowledge and their expertise.
...my thanks to you personally, and through you to Mike, Joan, Guy, Rachel, Mark and all of the temporary staff who have assisted them throughout the years. I couldn't have done what I've managed to do without you and your facility. And I hope you'll accept my most humble and heartfelt expressions of gratitude."
September 17, 2015
A sincere thanks was sent for Amanda Wagner, Graphic Designer in the Robarts Information Commons:
"I would like to extend my sincerest gratitude to Ms. Amanda Wagner for her support with my thesis journey. As a part-time Master's of Arts student at OISE, it was very difficult to not only learn about the research in the field, but concurrently immerse myself with Microsoft Word's features.
I hired an editor to help me format my thesis in compliance with UofT's requirements; however, post-submitting my thesis, I received news that the format was not approved. At that moment, I felt terrified that I would not be able to graduate simply due to a formatting error not found from my editor. I felt hopeless and extremely anxious.
The thesis review committee subsequently referred me to Ms. Amanda Wager for her immediate support. Her kindness, her genuine and her prompt nature relived my anxiety. She was kind enough to 'use her magic' and help re-structure the formatting to be in compliance. As such, my thesis was approved for the formatting.
I would strongly suggest that OISE and the School of Graduate Studies as an entity require that all students take a Microsoft Office course as part of their thesis requirement so that students feel empowered to be able to resolve formatting issues on their own as well.
Most sincerely,
Rochelle Gour"
September 4, 2015
Catherine Duff and Perry Hall at Reader Registration at Robarts Library received a note of thanks from Massey College. Each year, Reader Registration assists incoming Southam Journalism Fellows at Massey with library access, and Massey administrator Anna Luengo wrote:
"As always, we appreciate your generosity and good service.Thanks so much for looking after our fellows."
-
Amanda Wagner of the Info Commons was praised in an email to her supervisor from a postdoctoral advisor at U of T:
September 1, 2015
Gerstein library staff recently received a note in their 'Questions and Suggestions' box from an appreciative patron:
"Hi, I've been studying for actuarial exams in Gerstein since Fall 2010. This year, I have achieved the Associateship in Casualty Actuarial Society and became an Associate Property & Casualty Actuary. Just wanted to say thank you for the fantastic study environment and all the free resources. The staff is simply amazing and my experience here is unparalleled. Thank you again Gerstein. I'll definitely come back and take my wedding pictures here :)"
August 18, 2015
Elizabeth Ridolfo, John Shoesmith, and the collection at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book library received a glowing note of thanks from Nouman Ashraf, a senior research fellow and instructor at Rotman:
"In my leadership courses here at the Rotman School of Management, I emphasize the centrality of identity and experience in a leader’s stance or orientation for practice. Pedagogically, this requires experiential immersion into experiences that our students (many of them managers and executives themselves) may not have come across before. In assembling such experiences for the upcoming Fall term, I wanted to simply share with you just how impactful including the resources from the Thomas Fisher continue to be to my teaching effectiveness. In my experience, central resources are often underappreciated by faculty. I am sincerely grateful that we are able to tap into the richness of this important treasure. In particular, I am grateful for John and Elizabeth's attention to detail and absolutely superb follow up and follow through in planning this exceptional learning experience"
July 24, 2015
UTL's impressive and expansive collection was praised by a professor of Political Science here at the university:
"I work on democratization and authoritarianism in the developing world - focusing on many lesser known countries such as Guinea Bissau and Mozambique in Africa; Bangladesh in Asia; and Belarus and Moldova in the former Soviet Union. I also draw on significant Russian language material. In my nine years as a professor at the university, I cannot remember a SINGLE time when a cited volume was not in the collection. Such easy access has given an unimaginable boost to my research and
productivity. The U of T's library collection, the product of decades of acquisitions, is a major source of attraction for the university. The quality of material here compares quite favorably to that of Harvard University and Berkeley where I have studied in the past."
-
July 7, 2015
Christina Santolin, of Reference and Research Services received the following feedback from a visiting lecturer:
"I had some complicated issues with my Refworks account. Christina took the time to look at my computer and provide me with very thorough and individualized assistance with my issues. She solved a problem that I had spent endless hours trying to correct. She was easy to communicate with and spent all the time required to solve the issue. I really appreciated her support and expertise with RefWorks. I just wanted to let her department know what a help and an asset to my research she has been!"
June 15, 2015
Long Service Awards at Gerstein and the Science Libraries:
These members of the science libraries staff have had long and robust careers, and are celebrating impressive university service milestones this year:
25 years
Andrew Sorcik, Gerstein
35 years
Margot Froud, Dentistry
Carla Hagstrom, Gerstein
Vidya Mahadeo, Gerstein
40 years
Bonnie Horne, Gerstein
Dana Kuszelewski, Gerstein
June 19, 2015
Jermaine Poyser, Caretaking staffer at Robarts Library, received a glowing letter of appreciation from a U of T visitor after helping her when she missed her train home due to a recent TTC outage. The visitor wrote:
"this gesture of human kindness, generosity, compassion, attentiveness is rare and beautiful and I want him to know that it was appreciated."
Follow this link to the Human Resources & Equity page to read the full story: http://www.hrandequity.utoronto.ca/about-hr-equity/news/2015n/utsbsrd.htm
-
Juliya Borie, Cataloguing Librarian and Selector, received a lovely note of appreciation from a faculty member for her collection development activities:
"The Robarts Library is truly amazing! I did not check the catalogue because I would not have believed that the book could already be there!"
May 11, 2015
Pat Serafini, Reference Librarian at the OISE Library, received this message of appreciation from a faculty member:
"You're the best bloodhound in the business! Thanks for this. There is only one problem for you now - you have proved yourself so skillful that you have officially been deemed the point person for such matters in the future."
April 29, 2015
The TSpace team (Sean Xiao, Courtney Bodi and Mariya Maistrovskaya) received this feedback from a UTL colleague in relation to the collection of TSpace user guides they created:
"Hello TSpace folks!
I just wanted to say EXCELLENT job on these new user resources. I am directing my faculty to them and using them to keep informed myself. They are so clear, well-designed and user-friendly. Thanks so much.
-- Nalini Singh, Reference Librarian, Faculty of Information Inforum"
April 24, 2015
Judith Logan, Reference Librarian at Robarts Library, received this note of appreciation recently:
"Yesterday I was in Robarts speaking to one of the librarians. She was so helpful and really pleasant! She really helped me out and was very patient and extremely helpful! What a great librarian! Thank you very much Judith Logan!"
April 23, 2015
The ITS team received this congratulatory note from a web design colleague on campus regarding the new UTL website design:
"A friend had sent along the majestic https://alpha.library.utoronto.ca/ site with its beautiful UX. Magnificent! Congratulations to all on the UTL development team for designing and developing such beautiful work."
April 10, 2015
A graduate student recently took the time to express his appreciation for the Map and Data Library team:
"I recently visited the Map and Data Library at Robarts seeking data in conjunction with a project I am undertaking for a fellowship I hold with the University.
I wanted to let you know that I was extremely impressed with the professionalism, courtesy and enthusiasm of the three people at the MDL who dropped their tasks to assist me. Despite showing up at the MDL out of the blue, I immediately received assistance from both Berenica and Marcel, who showed me how to locate information that I had failed to find myself while canvassing the online data repository. Kevin then took not an unsubstantial chunk of time to teach me how to use ArcGIS ab initio, and how to display exactly the data representation I sought. In my years at U of T, I have often made use of library services at the University and it has occurred to me in passing that there must indeed be many great people behind the veil so to speak. It was a true pleasure to get to know some of them (however briefly) at the MDL."
April 10, 2015
Students really appreciate the research consultation service provided by the library. When asked "What did you find valuable about your research consultation?” two graduate students recently responded in this way:
"Everything! the one on one experience, the amazing help in terms of search terms, dates, etc. everything was fantastic. Nich was great!"
"Jesse was terrific at providing advice on how to optimize my own research abilities outside of the particular area of interest that I specified for this one consultation. I was struggling on how to broaden my research scope and he was invaluable in helping me to navigate the online search options that U of T has available, as well as offering information on how to extend my search when I reach potential dead ends. While he was extremely helpful in providing information directly related to my scope for the paper I am embarking on writing, he also was able to provide me with a list of tricks and tips to aid in my research going forward."
March 31, 2015
The Scholarly Communication and Copyright Office, along with Course Reserves, received this thank you message from Professor Carol Percy of the English Department:
“Thanks to all of you. Especially with the proliferation of e-resources and shifting of copyright, you guys are the very best for us and our students.”
March 30, 2015
Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library received this recent note from a patron recently:
I went to an event at Robarts library and [saw] the Richard Charles Lee Library. Very impressive. My new hangout. Loving Canada more and more.
-
March 13, 2015
Richard Hydal, Electronic Resource Management/Web Design Associate with ITS, received this recent note of gratitude for his support of the Hospital Library and Archives, Hospital for Sick Children:
"I have spent time this morning working with Richard to resolve a blocked IP issue. The U of T library sites were not accessible to anyone coming in from the SickKids network.
Richard contacted me...took the details of the problems we were having, had me test a few things to clarify the issue, explained clearly why the problem might be occurring and steps he would be taking to investigate, and contacted me throughout the process to let me know about next steps. He patiently answered all my questions. The issue was resolved quickly.
In all our interactions, Richard’s manner was friendly but professional. It really was a pleasure dealing with him to resolve the problem."
-
March 6, 2015
Today, former students brought in flowers as a thank you to the Engineering & Computer Science Library. They said they spent a lot of time at ECSL and wanted to acknowledge the team for contributing to their time at U of T. Really brightened their day!
-
March 4, 2015
Judith Logan, Reference Librarian, received a pleasant note of thanks from a research associate at Trinity College, for her assistance in using U of T's research databases:
"Yesterday I was on the 3rd floor of Robarts, attempting to do some "fancy" copying from one of the data-bases in the library, and could not figure out all the steps. I want to commend Judith Logan's ceaseless kindness and usefulness to me, despite the fact that I bothered her with my ignorance multiple times, and she unfailingly responded with cheer and help. What a fine staff person you have in her!"
-
March 5, 2015
Marnee Gamble, Special Media Archivist, along with her colleagues at University of Toronto Archives and Records Management Services, received this note of appreciation for assisting visiting historian Dr. Catherine Gidney (St. Thomas University, New Brunswick) with her research:
“Please accept this book, Tending the Student Body: Youth, Health, and the Modern University, as a token of my appreciation for the help provided by the archival staff and for a lovely place to work. Marnee was particularly helpful in finding photographs.”
-
March 5, 2015
Tys Klumpenhouwer, Records Archivist, and Loryl MacDonald, University Archivist, received this note of gratitude for records management advice they provided to the School of Graduate Studies:
“I wanted to send a thank you note for all your help over the past couple months with the filing project at SGS. Tys and Loryl have both been extremely helpful answering my many questions and helping to move the project along.”
-
Marcel Fortin, Geographic Information Systems (GIS) & Map Librarian with the Map and Data Library was thanked in a letter to Chief Librarian Larry Alford, from Patricia Eastman, Area Manager for Toronto Public Library.
"Dear Mr. Alford,
I am writing to express our thanks for the workshop provided to Toronto Public Library staff by Marcel Fortin of the Map & Data Library.
A small group of our staff had consulted Marcel regarding a community mapping initiative that they have undetaken as a part of an innovation project. Marcel provided them with valuable insight and feedback, and offered to do a half-day workshop for a group of Toronto Public Library staff.
...Marcel's enthusiasm and expertise in the area of GIS and digital mapping was invaluable in providing the group with a practical experience with the capabilities of this technology. We now have more information upon which to develop our own plans regarding its potential use for Toronto Public Library.
It is fabulous to have a resource such as the University of Toronto Libraries in our community and we greatly appreciate staff like Marcel who are willing to share their expertise."
-
Alex Kodorski, Nicholls Fellow at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, received this glowing review recently:
"I would like to share my experience and feedback on one of your valuable employees. Her name is Alexandra Kordoski.
On Wednesday I went to the Fisher Rare Book Library for my assignment. I have a very specific theme for my essay, which is very narrowed and very hard to find some material on it. When I met librarian A.Kordoski I was offered so much help with my search, and besides that (because we couldn't find a lot on my essay at that moment) librarian Alexandra took my email and the following day she sent me an email with the list of the most recommended books on my topic. I could see how much effort this person had put in order to help me, and her email message reflects a lot of research.
I just wanted to share my experience at this lovely library, and to thank whoever hired Alexandra Kordoski. She's very helpful!"
-
Reg Matson, Computer Systems Specialist, Information Technology Services, received a note of gratitude from a thankful PhD student after lengthy efforts, and success, in accessing a sought-after article from an online scholarly database:
"Hi Reg, just a note of gratitude for your time and for walking me through this. The support you guys provide is off the charts and means a lot!"
-
Jesse Carliner, Reference Librarian at Robarts, was lauded in a recent email by an OISE PhD student:
"I contacted the reference desk with technical questions about how to do an in-line APA citation with 3 or more authors, how to both in-line cite and reference a population count of a US city from the US Census Bureau, and how to retrieve an obscure report.
I had the good fortune of speaking with Jesse Carliner on your reference desk. He was not only cheerful, but provided accurate information that addressed, and resolved, each of my issues.
It is terrific for graduate students to access people of the calibre of Jesse Carliner."
-
The Map & Data Library received this kind note recently:
"I came to the Map & Data Library with questions about NVivo 9. Berenica (Vejvoda, Data Librarian) asked me to bring my PC over to troubleshoot it. Both she and Shvai expertly specified what the problem was and showed me the solution.
The Ed Commons and U of T Library support are phenomenal, and this is another example of that!"
-
The Richard Charles Lee Canada-Hong Kong Library was the subject of a wonderful tweet from an iSchool student recently, that garnered three 'favourites' from other twitter users:
"Having a nice lunchtime read at @rclchkle – beautiful, quiet, comfortable space – a #UofT hidden gem w/ amazing views"
-
Jesse Carliner, Reference Librarian at Robarts, received a bright note of thanks from a student recently:
"Thank you so much for the information! This is actually the first time I have asked a research question at the reference desk. I have never found writing a research essay to be this easy! Thank you!"
-
Berenica Vejvoda, Data Librarian with the Map & Data Library, received a wonderful endorsement in recent feedback from Nevena Dragicevic, Policy Associate with U of T's School of Public Policy and Governance:
"You are an invaluable source of knowledge of all-things data. Thank you!"
-
Pat Serafini, Reference Librarian at OISE received some lovely feedback from one of our instructors for some instructional sessions that Pat held for them:
"Thank you so much for your great library workshop this morning. You did an amazing job--particularly given the additional challenge of how exhausted my teacher candidates were!
I really appreciated your tremendous depth of knowledge and organization, that made it possible for you to be so fluid and responsive to the needs of the group. It was so helpful that you were able to make sure they were all comfortable doing effective searches on their individual topics.
Not an easy job I asked of you, I realize, but you handled it all beautifully, without missing a beat!
Many many thanks--"
-
"You guys are awesome! The library is one of the best things @ U of T. XOXOXO"
-
A beaming review for Robarts Library Information Desk staff: "Your front desk help staff are super friendly and extremely helpful. One that stood apart from the rest and worth mentioning is Abdi. He directed me to where I needed to go and did it with a smile on his face!"
-
Judith Logan, Robarts Library reference librarian, advised the Association of Political Science Students over several months about organizing their first undergraduate research colloquium. They expressed a hearty thanks in the recent colloquium's program:
"And finally, a very special and heartfelt thanks to Ms. Judith Logan, who has provided valuable advice, many “aha!” moments, comforting support, and time, in order to assist us in organizing the first of, what we hope to be, many colloquiums to come."
-
Jennifer Wentworth, Robarts Library reference librarian, received a warm thanks by email from a student seeking information on course reserves: "Thank you very much for the information - very helpful. I have to say I am very impressed with the University of Toronto library system and the help they offer students."
-
The Media Commons Library received a glowing review in an email sent to Director Brock Silversides recently: "I’ve been reflecting on my time at the University of Toronto a lot recently, as I have occupied several roles at U of T (MA student, PhD student, teaching assistant and instructor). As a student in Performance Studies and instructor of Cinema Studies, using the Media Commons has been crucial for my research and work. On the brink of the new term, in which I am teaching two courses, I’ve been able to correspond and interact with the Media Commons staff over the past few months quite frequently, and I find that they are, and always have been, without a doubt, the most helpful staff at any library.
I just wanted to express this to you, because I think outstanding work should be recognized. Mike, Guy, Joan, Charlotte and the rest of the team are always efficient, extremely helpful, kind and cordial. Thank you for overseeing and coordinating this team—it really makes a difference"
-
The Map & Data Library received a lovely note after a recent patron visit: "I just discovered the Map & Data Library on the 5th - a new and exciting world, and the librarians there, like all U of T librarians, were so knowledgeable and helpful (especially Jordan and Sarah)! Thanks!!
-
On many occasions I have called or visited your helpdesk and invariably have been dealt with respectfully and efficiently. Most importantly, some of my most difficult IT problems were solved. Your staff do a great job. Many thanks"
-
-
Robarts Library reference librarian Christina Tooulias-Santolin received a glowing review for offering great library instruction sessions from Dr. Tom Socknat of Woodsworth College:
"Dear Mr. Alford,
I am writing to express my gratitude for the valuable library instruction and assistance our students receive from your librarians. Again this year one of your reference librarians, Christina Tooulias-Santolin, visited two of my first-year classes and presented students with some very practical, helpful tips on how to search the library catalogue and make use of the various services offered. Since then the student feedback has been extremely positive and they all agree that her sessions were informative, enjoyable and much appreciated. Information literacy is an important part of our program and we value this kind of professional assistance but too often I think we fail to give credit where credit is due."
-
Gerald Romme, GIS Analyst in the Map & Data Library received a lovely thank you note for a recent course offering: Introduction to Python for ArcGIS.
"Thanks for the great course this week. I didn't have a chance to fill out the feedback form, but am already applying the tools you introduced.
Just what I needed to feel comfortable using the python window in Arc."
-
P.J. Carefoote, Rare Book Librarian at the Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, was graciously acknowledged at a reception held in the Regis College Library on October 29. P.J. was formally thanked for cataloguing the Regis collection of 1,400 rare books. The books were placed in Fisher in 2006, so that they could be housed in the proper environmental conditions. All of the books can now be accessed in the U of T Library Catalogue and may be viewed in the Fisher Reading Room.
P.J. was thanked by Jack Costello, S.J., the President of Regis College and Professor Gordon Rixon, S.J. Acting Chief Librarian, Mary Reynolds then presented him with a beautiful framed lithograph from The Saint John’s Bible. An exhibition of some of the rare books from the Regis collection (catalogued by P.J.) was on view for attendees of the reception. The exhibit, entitled “Engaged Collecting: Culture Transforming Mission,” was curated by Gordon Rixon, S.J. It ran in the Regis College Library from September 2 to October 31.
-
The Fisher Library recently received this email from the Director of Special Collections at the Claremont Colleges Library, in California, thanking them for the prompt and courteous service provided by manuscripts archivist, Natalya Rattan:
“I wanted to call to your attention the excellent service of one of your librarians, Natalya Rattan. Yesterday I sent a general query regarding the James Gale papers (looking for letters for an essay I’m writing), and she not only replied today, she also sent me scanned copies of three letters for my research. I was very pleased to get them! They pretty much changed a major point in my essay.
I emailed my thanks to her and I wanted you to know, too, how much I appreciate her prompt attention and kindness.”
-
Robarts Library was the subject of this recent note from a visiting scholar:
"We returned with the firm resolution to spend every month of July in Toronto, grazing in green meadows of the incomparable Robarts, where in my 7 months I only once looked for a book which wasn’t available!"
-
Robarts Library was the subject of this recent note from a visiting scholar:
"We returned with the firm resolution to spend every month of July in Toronto, grazing in green meadows of the incomparable Robarts, where in my 7 months I only once looked for a book which wasn’t available!"
-
The OISE Library received the following note from a faculty member regarding the Syllabus Service, and also the wonderful customer service provided by our fantastic GSLAs Tania, Navroop and Luisa:
"I can't thank you enough for this wonderful service - the students will be grateful as well! I always tell my students, "The Librarians are worth their weight in gold for your scholarly work." - and you have proved that once again! Thank-you! :-)
-
Gerstein's own Dana Kuszelewski recently received a lovely thank you card from the students and staff of the 2014 Summer Mentorship Program (SMP) in the Health Sciences!
This year, at the request of the Summer Mentorship Program in the Health Sciences, Dana provided library instruction to 57 eager high school students. The purpose of the Program is to introduce high school students from cultural backgrounds which have typically been poorly represented in post-secondary education to careers in the health sciences and to experience university life.
The card thanked Dana for her time, dedication and commitment to the students of the program as well as her library orientation sessions that were so helpful in giving these students the tools and information to successfully navigate our vast library system!
Good work as always, Dana! The staff, as well as the patrons, are so glad to have you at Gerstein!
-
Anita Sit from Gerstein Course Reserves recently received a lovely note from one of the professors she was preparing a course reading list for.
"Wow! thank you so much Anita! that is so reassuring to know how amazing and supportive U of T Libraries is, esp. for a new Sessional like myself! I hope to meet you in person soon'."
We know that UTL Course Reserves staff have been working very hard during the last few weeks in preparation for the upcoming Fall term, and it's great to receive some kind words from the professors we are working hard for!
-
Gerstein's Debra Labern recently received a lovely kind note from a patron she had assisted in regard to finding a particular journal CD for his systematic review:
"Last week, I was unable to find a periodical in the Library here at Sickkids, but noticed it was available on CD at the Gerstein Circulation desk, so I walked to campus with the hope that I would be able to complete my systematic review.
When I arrived, I was told the CD was missing. That could easily have been then end of my search, but the young woman who was helping me, Debra, went above and beyond the call of duty by pulling out every drawer of CDs, thumbing through hundreds to see if it had been improperly filed.
The search was ultimately unsuccessful, but I left feeling like Debra had provided outstanding service where most people would have washed their hands of the situation by saying, "It's not here." Please pass along my thanks!'"
-
A card with the following inscription was recently received from one of the OISE Library's regular patrons:
"To all the wonderful Librarians and Library Technicians - thank you SO much for a great year. I enjoyed my time in that space. Thanks for being so skilled, helpful & welcoming."
-
The OISE Library received the comment below from a patron about the outstanding customer service he had recently received from Robyn Lewis. Robyn works at the OISE Library as both an SLA and a GSLA.
"I dealt with Robyn at the front desk and found her manner helpful, patient and heartfelt. She is a fantastic person to deal with the public."
-
Hyun-Duck Chung, Helen Kula and Christina Kim received a letter of commendation from the the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) Business Reference and Services Section (BRASS) Education Committee regarding their presentation at the June 2014 American Library Association conference:
"On behalf of the RUSA BRASS Education Committee, we would like to express our deepest appreciation for your stellar presentation at the RUSA BRASS preconference "How Business Librarians Support Entrepreneurs" at the ALA Annual Conference... you delivered an engaging interactive workshop on market research for 45 academic and public librarians from the United States, Canada, and Trinidad and Tobago. We received very positive feedback on your session, and the event was considered a great success. It would not have been possible without your time, energy, dedication, and willingess to share your expertise."
-
Robert Fysh, Supervisor of Multi-Media Production with the Information Commons, received a personal letter of appreciation from President Meric Gertler for his media production work for Convocation:
"Dear Robert:
Thank you for your excellent work on Convocation Plaza last month. Your outstanding commitment and collaboration was essential to the success of the project, and served to enrich the experience of our graduates and their friends and families.
Once again, I thank you for your time and considerable efforts in service to the University.
Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Meric S. Gertler
President"
-
Professor Manuel Curado, of Portugal's Universidade do Minho, recently wrote to Anne Dondertman to express his appreciation for her assistance and assistance provided by the Fisher Library for his research:
"I’m sending you an invitation to the public presentation of the first edition and the first critical edition of the great epic poem of the Portuguese physician Isaac Samuda, FRS. I acknowledge in the book your help as well as the courtesy of the Thomas Fisher Library. Without the most precious help of the Thomas Fisher Library this work would have been impossible. I’ll mention also briefly my debt to the previous collectors of the manuscript, namely the Canadian benefactor Prof. Ralph Stanton."
-
Chris Hyland, a Ph.D student in history from the University of Calgary, sent the following note of appreciation to Harold Averill this week:
"I just wanted to say thank you again to you and the staff at the archives. You made my experience at the archives very enjoyable, pleasurable. I appreciate the great service and advice. Your efforts will in part help me write a great dissertation. All my best, and perhaps I will come visit you again this fall or spring."
-
The University Archives received a lovely thank you note from an overseas researcher. The researcher, Suzanne Steel, is a doctoral student at the University of Exeter and is working on a France/UK collaborative project for the centenary of the Great War. The project is looking at the cultural and medical legacy of the maxillofacial surgeons of the Great War.
"Thank you for your amazing help. I can honestly say that this is my best archive experience ever. You and your staff went out of your ways to help me and to help Scott today. Please pass on my kind regards to your staff, I hope I'll be back sooner rather than later."
-
Gerstein Science Information Centre staff recently received the following notes of thanks:
“Your responses are very kind and professional. It’s great that this library is taking the suggestions of others into consideration. This library will only get better!"
-
King's College Circle's Resident Hawk Receives Lifesaving Care from Gerstein Staff
Contributed by Debra Labern
On the morning of June 23, Gerstein staff member Vincci discovered our resident hawk sitting on the ground with what appeared to be an injured wing. The bird couldn't fly away and had hopped up to a Gerstein window sill to escape witnessing students' many cameras.
Vincci and Carla, another Gerstein staff member, called the Toronto Wildlife Centre, left a message and waited for a call back. Luckily the TWC staff were in the area on another call, and after a couple of hours they came to pick up the bird and bring him back to their rescue and rehabilitation centre. Vincci was able to stay with the bird and keep him calm until help arrived. TWC staff said that 'he' was actually a 'she' and that the hawk looked to be approximately two years old, with a possible eye or wing injury.
Carla even filmed a video of the rescue which was retweeted by Vincci on Gerstein's Twitter page:https://twitter.com/GersteinLibrary
In case you ever come upon some injured wildlife on campus, please call the Toronto Wildlife Centre: 416 631-0662
Thank you Vincci and Carla for taking the time to help out the unofficial Gerstein mascot!
-
Jeff Heeney, of the Gerstein Library, received a very nice note of thanks for assisting a Montreal-based filmmaker with a scan of an out-of-copyright drawing by Frederick Olmstead, the famous landscape architect who designed Mount Royal Park in Montreal and Central Park in New York City.
-
UTL's participation in this week's Berkshire Conference on the History of Women has had the added benefited of bringing new researchers to the Fisher Library. One of the Berkshire participants in P.J. Carefoote's Women of Faith workshop at the Fisher Library (on women and religious texts), stayed after the seminar to do research on two of the manuscripts he had pulled for the occasion. She researches and writes about nuns as writers and printers at the beginning of the Renaissance and was taken with our Italian manuscript, “Rule for Benedictine Nuns” from about 1525; the other was our early 15th-century manuscript containing a Dutch translation of the revelations of St Brigid of Sweden.
-
A visiting faculty member wrote to Anne Dondertman this week to express his appreciation for support received from the Fisher Library:
"I've just received information requested about two books held in Fisher (unique in North America) and want to thank you and your staff Liz Ridolfo and John Shoesmith who found exactly what I had hoped for and provided scanned images of key parts of the volumes. Excellent and fast service!"
-
An OISE PhD student recently wrote to express her appreciation for the support that Teresa Pietropaolo-De Marco has provided:
“Thank you so much for your time!!
My dissertation is coming along and is partly thanks to you.”
-
February 18, 2014
Dear Library Colleagues,
The university recently announced the results of a survey of tenured and tenure track faculty. The survey provides insights into the general satisfaction of faculty at the U of T and also explores specific areas including the library.
While the COACHE survey showed that tenure-stream faculty are in general very satisfied or satisfied with most aspects of their work at the U of T, they gave particularly wonderful feedback regarding perceptions of the Libraries. 87.1% were very satisfied or satisfied with library resources, compared to 79.8% at comparison institutions. This is a tribute to the work of all of you. The U of T libraries are among the best anywhere in the world because of the daily effort of each of you. I am delighted that the faculty recognize the difference you make to their own success as scholars and teachers. You will find more information on the survey at the link above.
Thank you so much for all you do to make this such a great library!!
With best regards,
Larry
Larry P. Alford
Chief Librarian
-
The following note of appreciation was received by Melissa, a Graduate Student Library Assistant in the Reference & Research Services department:
Dear Melissa,
I have always LOVED working with the University of Toronto Library--the reference librarians there are always so prompt and gracious! You helped me endlessly with *The Women's Great Lakes Reader*, as well as other books, and now your helping again. I am so grateful! Thank you!
I have already planned a trip to Canada this summer, although not Ottawa, but now it appears as if I will need to go there and transcribe and translate this document. I will contact the Archives to check, at any rate.
Thank you again for your help and advice. I really appreciate it!
-
The Petro Jacyk Resource Centre received a note of appreciation from a visiting researcher from the University of Nottingham, England:
"To the Staff at the Petro Jacyk Resource Centre:
A note of thanks for the warm welcome and for all the help you have given me accessing the fabulous Slavonic resources at the University of Toronto this past semester.
The Petro Jacyk Resource Centre is a wonderful place to work. The atmosphere is friendly and welcoming and the conversation truly stimulating.
The time I have spent in Toronto has been invaluable for my thesis and it is with great regret that I am leaving. I hope to have the privilege of returning one day to do some more research and of seeing you again."
-
“Since I started as an assistant professor in 1973, the U. of T. library system has been a great contributor to my work. Until two days ago (the last time I was at Robarts), I never changed my opinion. You run one of the top notch library systems, and I salute you for that.”
All the very best,
Shoukry Roweis
-
The OISE Library received a lovely note regarding the excellent customer service one of their users received from Teresa Pietropaolo-De Marco and other staff at the OISE Service Desk:
..just wanted to commend Teresa (and while I'm at it, your whole team); I've been really overwhelmed at how supportive and dedicated they are in terms of the service provided. I today took an earlier version of the book from the shelves (I'm the one who lost the text today), and not only did she offer to find the newer ediition from another library, but she then followed up as I was working (by which time, I'd realised that the earlier version had some flaws) to see if I still thought I could do with the earlier edition. I've come over from the UK, and this level of service is really unheard of. Just wanted to let you know.
-
Colin Rose, a PhD Candidate with the Department of History, recently expressed his thanks to the Map and Data Library staff in a message to Gerald Romme:
Your office has been extremely helpful over the last couple of years as I’ve learned my way around GIS in History, so thank you very, very much. It is wonderful to have such a great team over in the Map and Data Library.
-
Dana Kuszelewski, of the Gerstein Science Information Centre, recently received this glowing note of thanks from an instructor with the DEEP Summer Academy, a pre-university program providing advanced study in engineering, technology, business and science disciplines to highly motivated high school students from around the world:
On behalf of DEEP-S-biomed-3…thank-you so much for compiling and delivering such a helpful scientific literature session at Gerstein. We really appreciate the effort you put into discussing the credibility of different sources on walking on ice!
-
Michal Perlman, Associate Professor in OISE’s Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, recently sent the following note of gratitude for Teresa Pietropaolo-De Marco’s help on a large scale research project:
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Ms. Teresa Pietropaola De Marco for all of her wonderful assistance with our meta-analysis project. She was able to locate a number of documents we could not locate…which really enhanced our study. She was very clear in providing direction regarding how best to locate documents, and with respect to the services provided through UofT. This enabled us to make the most of the support offered through library service. In short, we are eager to express our gratitude to her and look forward to working with her in the future.
-
OISE Director, Mike Meth and librarian Monique Flaccavento were acknowedged with great appreciation for taking proactive steps to resolve an issue with an e-book before it was even noticed. Roy Gillis, Associate Professor in the Department of Applied Psychology & Human Development at OISE, wrote:
OISE library and IT staff are truly amazing! The problem has been noticed and fixed before I even opened the e-mail letting me there was problem.
Thanks so much for you exceptional efforts!
-
Gail Nichol and Bonnie Horne, Gerstein Science Information Centre librarians, and Bruce Gardham, Director of the Toronto Public Health Library (a member of the Health Science Information Consortium of Toronto – HSICT), are deserving of praise for their late-in-the-day rescue of valuable material for Gerstein’s collection. Early in the week of July 22 Bruce informed Gerstein about material to be discarded by Friday, July 26 from the library at the Province of Ontario’s Coroner’s Office in preparation for its move to a new location in Downsview. With the necessary arrangements made, on Thursday, July 25 Gail and Bonnie set off in haste for the Coroner’s Office with boxes, a laptop and an iPhone to check remotely via the UTL catalogue for items of interest to Gerstein and its collection. There they identified and packed up 12 cartons of books and journals from 1906 to the 1970s and arranged for them to be delivered to Gerstein the following week. Once searched in more detail, arrangements will be made for the items to be added to Gerstein’s collection. Thank you to Gail, Bonnie and Bruce for their 'in-the-nick-of-time' contributions to an important book and journal salvage operation which benefits the UTL collection.
