Unlike other issues this year, the final issue of BCLA Perspectives doesn’t have one unifying theme; instead, it touches on a variety of topics from the library community. Several articles in this issue focus on unique programs being run in various libraries, from...
BCLA Perspectives
Volume 11 (2019)
Social Return on Investment for Public Libraries
This article examines a series of pilot reports developed with the Social Return on Investment (SROI) Toolkit. The toolkit was created by NORDIK research institute in partnership with Northern Ontario Libraries, and the reports were compiled between late 2016 and...
Children and Teen Services (CATS) Conference a Growing Success
For the past few years, the Children and Teen Services (CATS) Conference has been held in the Kootenays, and attended by libraries belonging to the Kootenay Library Federation. This year, we decided to extend our reach and make it a provincial conference. We...
Vulnerability and Collaboration in Libraries
At BCLA Connect, during our presentation and panel discussion, Collaboration: What is it and how do we build it?, Tamarack Hockin, Paola Ardiles, Stephen O'Shea and I discussed how trust is built through vulnerability. We asked the audience to do an exercise in...
Getting to Know…Ashley Edwards
Ashley is a Library Technician with the Learning & Instructional Services division at the W.A.C. Bennett Library at SFU. She graduated from the UFV LibIT program in 2009, and is a MLIS candidate in the University of Alberta online program. Ashley has...
Literacy in the Making: Bookbinding Workshops in Local Schools
For the last few years, I’ve been offering bookbinding workshops in local elementary schools. These workshops, with the support of the University of Victoria, and the UVic Library, have become quite popular: I do about 15 per year. I feel like ‘bookbinding’ is a...
Collaborative Service Model Redesign
Introduction In anticipation of a new building and entrance to the UBC Okanagan Library our Chief Librarian, Heather Berringer, set forth a challenge. We needed to develop plans for a first-floor renovation that accommodated the new entrance, that would continue to...
Field Trip! An academic librarian walks off some unconscious assumptions
A couple of years ago, SFU Library underwent a Liaison Librarian Redesign which involved reshuffled subject portfolios and, like many fellow librarians, I suddenly found myself with a new subject portfolio. It was a wrench to no longer be the Publishing Librarian...
Create, Build, Grow: Positive Connections through Intergenerational Library Programming
A “typical day in the office” is anything but typical for Charlene Fletcher. As the Seniors and Intergenerational Program Developer for Chinook Arch Regional Library System, her day often begins with a quick stop at the office to gather boxes of supplies and then...
Blended Learning in Canadian Libraries
Supported by a generous donation from Google.org, Surrey, Toronto, Hamilton, and Edmonton Public Libraries have partnered to enhance the reach and instruction of the Google IT Support Professional Certificate (GISC) hosted on the Coursera platform. GISC is a...