Fall has come and gone! From welcome back events to volunteering at Indigenous graduation, our staff have been busy these last few months.
For the second year in a row our branch participated in the UBC Library Crawl where we welcomed visitors with tea, desk buddies, and snacks. Our Acting Head, Kayla Lar-Son, couldn’t help but have a tea party with our puppet collection. Did you know our puppets can be taken out on loan for children’s story time, education, and more?
Our welcome back tea trolley was such a hit that even faculty started sending over treats for students! These apples came from Keremeos and were given to our branch from Assistant Professors Popcorn Cardinal-McTeague and Warren Cardinal-McTeague.
On October 11th Kayla gave a keynote speach on AI and Indigenous Ways of Knowing and Being at the 2024 IT4K12 Conference.
We set up our annual Orange Shirt Day window and book displays to support community learning about residential school history. For remote patrons, Karleen Delaurier-Lyle (Information Services Librarian) and Stephanie Hohn (Student Librarian) collaborated with Brooke Xiang (Communications Specialist – UBC Department of English) on a reader’s advisory of 10 Texts by Indigenous Authors for OSD.
At Xwi7xwa, we are serious about Halloween! Of course we handed out candy, but we also gave out small pumpkins for dorm rooms with frightening hən̓q̓əmin̓əm̓ stencils.
It wouldn’t be Halloween without a little horror so our King Rat and library Hosts set up some of their favourite spooky suggestions.
Shortly after his first shift the King Rat took control of our Acting Head…and brought his family for the rest of us! Even the cartoon versions of us dressed up for the occasion.
On November 1st we celebrated Musqueam Day, the day Musqueam won their court case in the Supreme Court of Canada in 1984. For more information and suggested readings see here.
Branches of UBC Library created several events from November 2nd-8th for Climate Action Week. Xwi7xwa collaborated with Wendy Traas (Education Library) on the Climate Change & Indigenous Peoples event (November 6th). This interactive event featured our Indigenous Peoples Giant Floor Map and asked participants to engage with climate action possibilities. It also featured K-12 educational resources from Education Library.
On November 7th our team participated in Irving K. Baber Learning Centre’s EDI Scholars-in-Residence event, Land as Teacher: Decolonial Practices in EDI; organized by Allan Cho (Community Engagement Librarian) and Corrina Sparrow (EDI Scholar). Participants learned about UBC’s historical timeline in relation to unceded Musqueam lands and ended with a meal and discussion at UBC Farm.
November 8th was Indigenous Veterans Day so we created a display to honour our veterans.
We celebrated Métis Week (November 10th-16th) and Louis Riel Day (November 16th) with brain break activities and a selection of library materials.
Taya Jardine (Indigenous Metadata Librarian) traveled to Palm Springs for the 2024 International Conference of Indigenous Archives, Libraries, and Museums. Jardine accepted the Guardians of Culture & Lifeways for Library Institutional Excellence Award on behalf of Xwi7xwa Library.
We ended the season off on November 30th with Fall Indigenous Graduation! Congratulations to all our Indigenous graduates as well as their families, friends, and communities that supported them in reaching this day. Photo from FNHL Longhouse instagram – find & follow them on their socials!
After this season we are saying goodbye to our Métis student librarian, Stephanie Hohn, who is graduating from UBC’s iSchool. We are also saying goodbye to our Public Services Assistant, Barbara Reid, we look forward to staying connected with them and their important community work at VPL. Lastly, a huge goodbye and thank-you to Jack Standing (Métis), who accepted a 6 month contract as our Public Services Assistant while working toward his Library Technician Diploma at Langara College.
In 2025 we are welcoming Jesse Carson who will be joining the team as our Archivist. As well as Hailey Causton, our new public services student librarian.