Red River College (RRC) has a growing reputation as one of Canada’s greenest employers, thanks especially to its Sustainability Initiatives: http://blogs.rrc.ca/redgreen/

As an integral part of the College, the Library is no exception and practices sustainability in its everyday operations, such as purchasing environmentally friendly products whenever possible for its own supplies. These include paper products with recycled content, refillable pens, Enviro-Stik pencils, and recycled paper clips.

And, the Library also goes beyond what is required.  How does RRC Library uniquely practice sustainability? By:

• “Ever-greening” its collection; i.e. weeding to make room for new materials.  The old materials are not just thrown out to the landfill.  Far from it!  Once removed, they are made freely available for anyone to pick up from our freebie display.  Leftover items are picked up by the College’s Recycling team. 
• Practicing responsible printing – by staff and students with a bias to “keep it green and leave it on the screen”.
• Saving non-confidential photocopier/printer waste sheets that are blank on at least one side, for use as scrap paper by students and staff.
• Responsible recycling or disposal of video tapes, batteries, electronic equipment, etc.
• Inviting users to bring their own (ear)buds.   
• Launching its recreational reading book exchange program.
• Scrolling information on strategically placed screens for all to see instead of printing handouts.
• Featuring green themes in its window display, such as the recent “Prepare for Spring!”
• Creating curriculum-based, sustainability-related research guides, such as
  • Greenspace Management http://library.rrc.ca/subjectguides/greenspace/page_01.htm;
  • Prairie Restoration/Naturalization http://library.rrc.ca/subjectguides/prairie/page_01.htm; and 
  • Solar Car http://library.rrc.ca/SubjectGuides/solarcar/default.htm.
• Refreshing the air and milieu with plants – all provided by Library staff.
• Undertaking a composting pilot project at its Exchange District Campus location that collected 157.5 lbs. by weight and 205 liters by volume, over one calendar year, Jan. 26/12 to Jan. 25/13.

For further information about greening libraries:

• American Library Association: http://www.ala.org/tools/green-libraries
• Canadian Library Association’s Feliciter v. 58 no. 1 (2012) theme on “Greening Libraries”: http://www.cla.ca/Content/NavigationMenu/Resources/Feliciter/PastIssues/2012/Feliciter1_Vol_58_web.pdf
• Toward a Greener Library (University of Notre Dame):
  http://green.nd.edu/sustainability-in-action/toward-a-greener-library/  
• Greening the Library (Queen’s University): http://library.queensu.ca/library/about/vision/projects/green

RRC Library has many smoking-cessation related items in its collection, including many self-help books. Check out some of the items that are currently on display in the Notre Dame Campus Library window display.

Mid-January is the perfect time to revisit your New Year’s resolutions. If you’ve already let them slip, don’t worry too much as it is never too late to begin a life altering change to any bad habit. If one of your resolutions is to quit smoking, this is a good time to start as National Non-Smoking Week (NNSW) is January 19 to January 25.

National Non-Smoking Week is a yearly event in Canada. Since 1977, it continues to be observed on the third full week of January. Canada is a world leader in tobacco control. Smoking is at an all-time low in Canada and the number of Canadians that smoke on occasion has dropped to 17%. As well, the rate of Canadians who smoke on a daily basis is even lower at 14%.

Despite this achievement, tobacco use continues to be the most important cause of premature death in Canada. It is a leading cause of preventable lung disease, including lung cancer, and is also a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease. It has negative effects on nearly every organ of the body and is responsible for more than 37,000 premature deaths every year in Canada.

Not to mention… smoking is a very expensive habit. Are you a millionaire? Maybe not… then why not quit today?

“Weedless Wednesday” is on 22 Jan 2014

The Wednesday of National Non-Smoking Week is termed “Weedless Wednesday”.

Quitting smoking may be easier said than done, right? A great suggestion is to take advantage of “Weedless Wednesday” to kickstart the process of quitting smoking.

Top Tips for Quitting Smoking

According to the Canadian Centre for Tobacco Control (CCTC) some of the top tips for quitting smoking include:

• writing a “break-up letter” to tobacco
• keeping track of when and why you smoke each cigarette
• making it public, by declaring your intentions to your family and friends
• using the 4-D method when you feel a craving for a cigarette:
  1. take deep breaths,
  2. drink water,
  3. distract yourself, and
  4. delaying. (Realize that the craving will pass)
• managing stress in ways other than with cigarettes
• rewarding yourself
• reminding yourself of all the good that you’re doing by quitting

Reference: http://www.alive.com/posts/view/219/let_national_non-smoking_week_help_you_quit_smoking

The Library has Smoking Cessation Resources

RRC Library has many smoking related items in its collection, including many self-help books on the topic of quitting smoking.

Check out some of the items that are currently on display in the Notre Dame Campus window display.

Online Resources

• National Non-Smoking Week
• Let National Non-Smoking Week Help You Quit Smoking
• Quit Smoking—and Improve Your Overall Quality of Life

In the June 15^th Winnipeg Free Press, it was discussed (http://tinyurl.com/n6f3f7r) that some government emails are irreversibly deleted. Keeping digital records is important because they provide evidence of how government conducts its business.

Good recordkeeping requires a lot more effort than just ensuring crucial records are not deleted, whether intentionally or not. Essentially, digital records need to be maintained so that they can be accessible and usable over time. Physical artifacts may exist for thousands of years, and paper records could stay for decades, but digital records do not have such robustness. Digital carriers have short longevity, both media and file format obsolete in fast fashion (see Chamber of Horrors), digital data is vulnerable to damage (see Atlas of Digital Damages), can be altered with great ease, all of which could render digital files unreadable in a few years. Stated simply, digital records won’t survive benign neglect.

One might think about printing out and keeping paper records instead. This is definitely not an ideal solution—the benefit of digital format such as links, searchability, and certain functionalities will be lost. Digital records need to be refreshed and migrated on an on-going base. Till today, migration is the most commonly used digital preservation method followed by emulation. Neither of them is straightforward and can be costly. For example, when files are transferred to a different format, errors could be introduced. When it comes to proprietary software, when the vendor is out of the market, support is likely to be discontinued.

Digital preservation is at its infancy. Strategies and methodologies are yet to be developed! One thing is certain–we need to consciously and actively maintain our digital records to avoid leaving a black hole in our society’s collective memory.

Check out some of the items that are currently on display in the Notre Dame Campus window display

Please join the Red River College Library in a respectful observation of May 17th, the International Day Against Homophobia.

May 17 is symbolic due to its significance in the improvement of the status of gays and lesbians. In removing homosexuality from its list of mental illnesses on a May 17, the World Health Organisation put an end to over a century of homophobia in the medical field.

Homophobia is all the negative attitudes that can lead to rejection and to direct or indirect discrimination towards gay men, lesbians, and bisexual, transsexual or transgender people or toward anyone whose physical appearance or behaviour does not fit masculine or feminine stereotypes.

The theme of the International Day Against Homophobia 2013 campaign is “Fight the Homophobia Web Virus”.  For more information visit http://www.homophobiaday.org

Also, keep in mind that the The Pride Winnipeg Festival is coming up soon.  “Pride Week” is a multi-day celebration with many events for all segments of the LGBTT* community, all leading up to the main PRIDE DAY celebrations which will occur on Sunday June 2, 2013.

Do you want to learn more?  The RRC Library has many LGBTT* themed items in its collection. Check out some of the items that are currently on display in the Notre Dame Campus window display.

Bruce Locken, the MALT “Library Support Worker of the Year” 2013

The Manitoba Association of Library Technicians (MALT) has recently awarded Bruce Locken (Library Media/Circulation Clerk)  the “Library Support Worker of the Year” award for 2013.

The intent of the award is to recognize a library support staff member who has demonstrated outstanding professional achievement or leadership in their library, or in the library community at a local, regional, provincial or national level.

Bruce, who has served RRC for 25 years at both the Exchange District Campus and the Notre Dame Campus was recognized for his excellence in custom service, efficiency, cheerfulness and  his sense of humour.  Over the years he has developed excellent working relationships with faculty and staff who have come to rely on him for their frequent media bookings and to provide assistance by troubleshooting equipment problems in classrooms .

Aside from his regular duties as Media/Circulation Clerk, you may have also have spotted Bruce in a daffodil hat and vest, and selling bunches of daffodils in support of the March “Daffodil Days” fundraiser for the Canadian Cancer Society.    Library Staff are also more than familiar with Bruce’s efforts to coordinate one or more of the RRC Library Christmas Cheer Board hampers each year .

We all feel that it is a privilege to work with Bruce, and we’d like to congratulate him.  He is a very worthy recipient of the MALT Library Support Staff of the Year award!

Many of us use search engines.  In fact, a search engine is often the first place a user heads to when they begin their online session. However most people are not experts and they probably use a search engine in its simplest form.

I’m here to tell you that Search Engines will do much more than you think, and we have posted a handful of really cool tips below that we just know you will love!

Please note that in these instructions we are primarily referring to Google.  However these tips will work in other search engines such as Bing.

Let’s get started!

Searching an Explicit Phrase:

Lets say you are looking for content about the Winnipeg Jets.  Instead of just typing Winnipeg Jets into the Google search box, you will likely be better off searching explicitly for the phrase “Winnipeg Jets”.  To do this, simply enclose the search phrase inside quotation marks.

Example: "Winnipeg Jets"

Excluding Words

Lets say you want to search for info about Justin Trudeau, but you want to exclude the results that may be included that have info about Justin Bieber. Simply use the minus (-) sign in front of a keyword you want to exclude from your search results.

Example: Justin Trudeau -Bieber

A Site Specific Search

Often, you want to search a specific website for relevant content.  Even if the site doesn’t support a built-in search feature, you can use Google to search the site for your term. Simply use the “site:hostname.com” modifier.

Example: Winnipeg Jets site:winnipegfreepress.com

A Synonym Search

Let’s say you want to include a word in your search, but you also wish to include results that contain similar words or synonyms.  To do this, use the tilde (~) character in front of the word. For example, you could search for “Winnipeg Jobs” and then also search for “Winnipeg Employment” and get two different results.  However if you search for “Winnipeg ~employment” you should get all results for Winnipeg and all synonymns of employment included.

Example: winnipeg ~employment

Searching for a Specific Document Type

Performing a Filetype Specific Search

If you’re looking to find results that are of a specific type, you can use the modifier “filetype:”.  For example, you might want to find only PDF files related to the Red River College:

Example: Red River College filetype:pdf

Searching for This OR That

By default, when you do a search, Google will include all the terms specified in the search.  If you are looking for any one of one or more terms to match, then you can use the OR operator.  Please note that the OR has to be capitalized.

Example: "winnipeg jets" OR "manitoba moose"

Conclusion

There are dozens of tips which can be used with Google, but this is all for now!  We will post more in a future blog entry.