UNews - Wendy Merkley

Canadian Research Knowledge Network brings top library resources to the U of L

caroline.zentner — Mon, 23 Jan 2017 22:44:08 +0000

Being able to access top scholarly journals is probably something that many students and researchers take for granted. But librarians like Wendy Merkley know the value of those resources goes far beyond what first meets the eye.

On its own, the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge simply can’t afford to subscribe to all the journals it needs. The U of L is one of more than 70 institutions that are members of the Canadian Research Knowledge Network (CKRN), a consortium of academic libraries across Canada that joined forces to have more bargaining power with the vendors and publishers of research material.

“That buying power was instrumental in giving academic institutions of a smaller size access to collections of materials online that we would never have been able to purchase had we gone and tried to do it as one institution,” says Merkley. “CRKN, as with many library consortiums, really formed to increase the availability of research materials for all institutions. We have access to literally thousands of journals online through CRKN.”

The CRKN was first known as the Canadian National Site Licensing Project, which started in 1999. It became the CRKN, a non-profit organization, in 2004. The research material accessible to U of L faculty and students through CRKN is costly but the resource materials it brings are used thousands of times every year. The U of L directs some of its Research Support Fund towards the cost of membership in the CRKN.

“I think faculty here would say that the packages we can access through CRKN represent the key and critical resources that researchers are looking for. They also represent a large portion of the journals that our researchers are publishing in,” she says. “The money that we get through the Canada Research Support Fund is really critical to enabling us to continue to support those collections. If it were to disappear, we would have to cancel subscriptions.”

Belonging to the CRKN is key when new programs are being developed or additional courses are being planned to enhance a program. Without the benefits of the CRKN, the U of L couldn’t support the growth of programs or sustain current ones. The CRKN also helps the U of L recruit both faculty researchers and students.

“When we’re looking for new faculty to join our institution, one of the selling points is having access to the range of resources that most researchers now require to continue to do their research,” says Merkley.

The Research Support Fund supports a portion of the costs associated with managing the research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, such as salaries for staff who provide administration support, training costs for workplace health and safety, maintenance of libraries and laboratories, and administrative costs associated with obtaining patents for inventions.

��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library’s Native American art installation to reflect Blackfoot heritage in surroundings

trevor.kenney — Fri, 05 Dec 2014 17:40:50 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library is embracing the ‘library as place’ concept, recognizing that library users should see themselves mirrored in their surroundings. To that end, the library is celebrating the installation of three pieces of Native American art and the redevelopment of the Blackfoot Digital Library website.

Grant Spotted Bull's Medicine Wheel series is one of three new pieces of Native American Art to be installed in the U of L Library.

“Our university is located on traditional Blackfoot land and it is important that we respect and honour this heritage,” says Wendy Merkley, associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ librarian. “Our students should feel comfortable and welcomed when they come into the library, and that their culture is valued as an integral part of the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ community.”

The pieces of art installed in the library include Medicine Wheel, Ten Grandmothers Quilt and Medicine Bundle.

Medicine Wheel – Artist Grant Spotted Bull

Spotted Bull, of Blackfoot heritage and born and raised on the nearby Blood Reserve, is a fourth-year bachelor of fine arts student at the U of L. His piece is a four-painting series that tells the story of colonialism and its effects on First Nations people.

Ten Grandmothers Quilt

The quilt is a collection of 10 key messages from 10 ceremonial women from southern Alberta and Montana. Their messages are about how to live and raise your children in a positive way. The words they share are not their own, but the words of women from many generations before. Collectively, they say to listen and to care for one another through mistakes, through growth and through change. Just as importantly, they advise to always be self-sufficient and to help one another by sharing.

Medicine Bundle – Artist Gordon Monroe

Monroe is a member of the Blackfeet Tribe in northern Montana. He was born in 1946 in Browning, MT on the Blackfeet Reservation. He started work as a sculptor in 1965, and started teaching art at the Blackfeet Community School in 1972. His works centre on themes of dancers, ceremonies and traditional scenes, creating Medicine Bundle in 1979. It was purchased in 1980 by the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge, through efforts led by professor Alfred Youngman of the Faculty of Fine Arts.

The library is also marking the redevelopment of the Blackfoot Digital Library website. Since 2006, the U of L library has been involved with the Blackfoot Digital Library, helping to gather and digitize artifacts, documents, audiovisual and archival materials. In addition, the library has been a leader in preserving oral histories by digitizing existing interviews and collecting new videos of Elders sharing their knowledge and stories.

“The Blackfoot Digital Library wouldn’t exist without the U of L Library stepping in to give it a permanent home,” says Adrienne Heavy Head, Blackfoot Digital Library liaison. “The digital library is unique in that it is the only indigenous library that focuses on one group of indigenous people and is also created by those people.”

Library brings Herbarium to life

trevor.kenney — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 20:40:58 +0000

For more than 30 years, botanists and botany students have been visiting the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge to study a unique collection of more than 20,000 preserved plant specimens from Waterton Lakes National Park and environs. Now, thanks to a partnership between Herbarium collection curator Dr. John Bain in the Department of Biological Sciences and the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library, these invaluable specimens have been digitized and will soon be widely available via the Internet.

The majority of the Herbarium's specimens date from the 1970s and 1980s.

"In 1982, former ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge professor Job Kuijt's A Flora of Waterton Lakes National Park was published – after which he deposited in the Herbarium all plant specimens he collected and pressed during his documentation of the flora," says Bain. "It was this abundant and diverse flora found in Waterton Lakes National Park that was, in part, the reason for the park's designation as a World Biosphere Reserve in 1979 and a World Heritage Site in 1995."

Unlike other materials the library has previously digitized, pressed plants pose a slightly different challenge due to their relative fragility and the fact that the specimens must remain on-site in the Herbarium. To facilitate the digitization process, specialized equipment was purchased and located in the Herbarium. Quinn Daviduck, a summer research assistant, was hired to create high-resolution digital images for each and every plant specimen in the collection.

The next step in the process is to catalogue and describe each specimen using appropriate metadata (e.g., locational data, flowering times, ecological and distribution data) in order for the content to be more effectively searched or browsed online.

"In undertaking this project," says Bain, "the library is ensuring that an important natural history collection housed at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge will join similar collections around the world in being widely accessible."

An official launch of the Herbarium Digital Collection was held on Monday, Dec. 19 at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library.

For more information, contact Associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian, Information Systems & Technical Services, Wendy Merkley at wendy.merkley@uleth.ca.

This story first appeared in the December 2011 issue of the Legend. If you'd like to see the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

Encore system creates more user-friendly searches

trevor.kenney — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 19:24:14 +0000

By NICOLE EVA-RICE

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library has acquired a new library catalogue that promises to open a whole new world to users.

Encore is a new search interface that brings together results from books, articles and local digital collections in one location. Previously, the library catalogue searched only for books, while journal articles needed to be searched in the databases. This one-stop search box makes the process much more user-friendly.

While not every database can be searched through Encore, it does bring up many relevant articles based on the keywords used from the main interdisciplinary databases held by the library. This 'one box' way of searching reflects the preferences of many of today's users, who are used to the simplicity of sites like Google and Amazon.

A nice feature of Encore is the many refinement options (such as year and subject) provided to the searcher, based on their initial results, that narrow down their search field. Users can also add their own tags to create meaningful categorizations, allowing people to denote items appropriate for projects, classes or otherwise. These tags are then also searchable. For example, an instructor can label certain books with a specific class name and then tell students to search by that class name to bring up the relevant list of assigned books.

"We are excited to present this innovative new feature to the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge community," says Wendy Merkley, associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ librarian, Information Systems & Technical Services. "Many libraries are moving toward these next-generation catalogues and most patrons find them much more user-friendly and intuitive than the old-style library catalogues."

Those who prefer the old system need not fear; a link to it can be found on the Encore results page, entitled classic catalogue.

The library welcomes comments and suggestions about the new system. To provide feedback, contact library staff via the Comments and Replies link from the self-serve menu on the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library home page (www.uleth.ca/lib).

This story first appeared in the September issue of the Legend. To view the full issue in a flipbook format, follow this link.

New faces in ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Library are all about service

trevor.kenney — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 18:02:52 +0000

The ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Lethbridge Library continues to be an innovative campus leader, and it's reflected in the new personalities they bring into the fold.

A year ago, new ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian Alison Nussbaumer was introduced, bringing a fresh approach to the highest post in the library's administration. This fall, two more new faces have been added to the mix in associate university librarians Brenda Mathenia and Wendy Merkley. And while their responsibilities may be unique to their positions, their philosophies are remarkably similar.

"One of my goals is to make sure our public service is at the top, that we're putting our users first," Mathenia says.

As the Associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian for Client Services and Facilities, Mathenia's group is often the first contact for people using the library. As such, customer service is at the forefront of her efforts.

A Michigan native, Mathenia has a wide and varied background, having worked in primarily academic settings throughout her career. A cartography and geography undergrad, she earned her first master's degree in urban geography.

After working in that field however, she soon found that the information aspects of her job, finding information, helping others find it and use it appropriately, led her back to library school.

"I've always been very inquisitive and liked to know a lot about a lot of things," Mathenia says, calling herself a jack-of-all-trades.

"Librarianship is the perfect discipline to go into because you can dabble in all manner of subject areas."

She was given that latitude in her last job, at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Nevada-Reno. For four years she worked primarily in the sciences but also managed a branch library and dabbled in major collection development.

"I've had my fingers in a lot of different things in the library and it's served me really well and been very good experience," she says.

"I like to help people navigate the world of information. It's always been easy for me, so I like to share those skills and make it easier for other people."

Merkley, a Manitoba native who worked previously in the Lethbridge public system, is all about simplifying the search for information. The difference is that her work is done behind the scenes as the Associate ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian for Information Systems and Technical Services.

"There have been major changes in how technology is being used in the library world, and this is a really good time with two new AULs and a relatively new ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ Librarian, we're looking at how do we integrate some of these new things into what we're doing," Merkley says.

Her journey to librarianship was also non-direct. An English undergrad at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Manitoba, she worked in the faculty library while completing her degree.

"I would love to say it was a great passion and I always knew what I wanted to do, but it really came from that experience," Merkley says. "I really enjoyed the atmosphere of a library and the people I worked with and it just seemed like a logical thing to do."

From there she moved to Alberta and completed her master's degree at the ��Ѹ��Դ��߿�Ƭ of Alberta before coming to Lethbridge and entering the public library system. Positions in Lethbridge and then later in Calgary set up a three-year stint in the United Arab Emirates (2005-2008).

"I call it my running away period," she laughs, noting that the pull of her daughter, a third-year kinesiology-psychology double major at the U of L, was a major influence in her return.

"It was tremendous. You learn an awful lot about yourself when you go in and have to adjust to being a stranger in a strange land."

Her route to the U of L was delayed by a one-year stint implementing video conferencing services for rural Alberta libraries but saw this role as too good to pass up.

"In the end, it's about facilitating that process of helping people find information," she says. "We strive to find a happy medium between simplicity and still allowing people to do the kinds of research they need to do that sometimes requires a more elaborate search strategy."

She's enthused about the new technology being implemented and how it can reshape the way the library helps its clients.

"It's really exciting and I'm really looking forward to it. That's one of the reasons I've stayed in library so long, because it's such a changing environment."

UNews - Wendy Merkley

Canadian Research Knowledge Network brings top library resources to the U of L

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