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When I was 16, a friend of mine asked me if I’d heard of NaNoWriMo. It turned out that there was this event going into its second year called National Novel Writing Month, where the goal was to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Both of us were writers and at 16, my only real time concern was being in my last year of high school, so we decided we would both sign up and attempt this challenge.
NaNo (as it’s known to us Wrimos) was small back then, at least compared to today; its inaugural year in July 1999 featured a whole 21 participants. By the time I heard of it, I was one of 5000, and the event was being reported in the L.A. Times and the Washington Post. I won that year with a terrible novel about vampires, a talking cabbage, and a hellhound named Fluffy, because when you need to write 50,000 words in a month, reality is the least of your concerns. I’ve participated every year since, in both the original NaNo and in the spinoff Camp NaNoWriMo, which began in 2011 and allows me to choose my own wordcount goal rather than sticking to the 50K. I’ve also won every year, sometimes legitimately, sometimes by cheating... I mean, rebelling.
In past years, there’s usually been one or two news articles or blog posts questioning NaNo and whether it’s ruining the sanctity of the written word. They usually point out that a novel written in 30 days probably isn’t very good, and also such a singleminded focus on length won’t improve that. This is true. A novel written in 30 days will be awkward and ungainly, full of run-on sentences, illogical actions, and plotholes you can drive a truck through. Characters change names, appearances, and occasionally gender. Authors forget how to English (or whatever their language is), as proved by the hilarious NaNoisms thread that pops up every year for participants to chronicle their worst typos and brainfarts. At the end of the month, you have a novel that is certainly not in any state to be published, or even shopped around to agents.
That’s not the point. The point of NaNo is to get yourself writing. It’s to train yourself to sit down in your chair, put your hands on the keyboard, and write some words. Sometimes that’s only a sentence. Sometimes you drag out the first few (hundred) words and your muse finally engages and you’re off flying, words spilling out so fast your fingers can’t even keep up. Either way, you’re doing something many people say they’ll do but never carve out the time to actually do it.
In the 18 years I’ve been participating in NaNoWriMo, I’ve written almost 1 million words. I’ve written halves of novels, full novels, short stories, novellas, 104K in a month, 50K in 6 days (Surgeon General’s Warning: not recommended unless you like uncontrollable tremors). Whether I finish a full novel or rebel by rewriting older stories (or by writing blog posts), NaNo has taught me to just put my head down, stop complaining, and get it done.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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If you’ve turned on the news lately, you may have heard of 16-year-old Greta Thunberg, the Swedish environmental activist who’s been making waves with her passionate speeches. In August 2018, Greta began to protest climate change by sitting outside of Sweden’s national legislature, the Riksdag, with a sign reading Skolstrejk för klimatet (school strike for the climate). Her protests have inspired countless similar protests throughout the world, and Greta herself has been invited to speak on many global stages, including here in Canada.
All hope isn’t lost, though. Many people all over the world, including youth activists like Greta Thunberg, are working towards reducing our carbon emissions, pollution, and plastic garbage. This past spring and summer, the #trashtag challenge went viral, encouraging people to clean up an area near them and post before and after photos. Much better than throwing slices of plastic cheese onto your baby.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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At LSC, we endeavor to ensure that Canadian libraries have unparalleled access to Canadian content, whether that be materials by Canadians, about Canadians, or what is important to Canadians. Part of that commitment is improving access to materials by Indigenous Peoples. Thanks to some recent initiatives, we now have additional tools to help with that.
Back in June BookNet Canada announced a research project they had undertaken, to generate a list of materials specifically dealing with Canadian Indigenous topics. As a starting point, they used BISAC codes to isolate the sales data on materials associated with Indigenous or Native American/Canadian headings. They were then able to see how these materials have sold compared to other English language materials. Happily, from 2016, there have been consistent gains in sales for Indigenous themed material. Next, they pulled just the data from Junes 2018 to 2019, identified the top sellers and broke down the results into Fiction and Non-Fiction categories for Adult and Juvenile. The resulting four lists they are calling the Bestselling Indigenous Books in Canada.
They are quick to point out that only two of the forty items were not written by Canadian or Indigenous authors. They also point out that Canadian publishers are responsible for most of the items on the list. This is all to say, this list represents a collection of books in which Indigenous Peoples are telling their own stories, a critical and foundational aspect of decolonization.
In addition to this, the UN General Assembly has designated 2019 as the International Year of Indigenous Languages. This resolution came about as “40 per cent of the world’s estimated 6,700 languages were in danger of disappearing— the majority belonging to indigenous peoples.” They hope to raise awareness of these languages and the cultures they represent internationally. You can see the full scope of their initiative here.
To support this Year of Indigenous Languages, LSC has put together a list of recent and prominent Indigenous materials. This list of 101 items is a mix of Fiction and Non-Fiction, Adult and Juvenile, English and French. The items are all by Canadian Indigenous authors, again ensuring that people are telling their own stories. These items would form a powerful foundation to an Indigenous collection, and satisfies two of the UN’s five key action areas: “Increasing understanding, reconciliation and international cooperation”; and “Elaborating new knowledge to foster growth and development.”
LSC is committed to helping libraries decolonize and increase the representation in their collections. Indigenous languages are part of that commitment. We list Southern Cree, Inuktitut and Ojibway among the languages available through our World Languages program. We are constantly looking out for new materials from new and existing publishers, in Indigenous languages. As demand for this material grows, so will supply, and LSC will be there to help libraries build the best collections for their customers.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Yours, Fictionally |
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One of the reasons my bookclub fellows and bookworm friends keep me around is for the book recommendations. They know I have the inside track on what is currently popular, but also what is coming. And that is a great perk of working in libraries: knowing months in advance what books are to be published. But who do librarians turn to for reader advisory? That’s where Loan Stars comes in.
Loan Stars, for those who don’t know, is an amazing reader’s advisory program. Run in conjunction by BookNet Canada and the Canadian Urban Libraries Council, this service aggregates the recommendations of working library professionals into monthly lists. And unlike some commercial lists, which focus on bringing existing books to the public’s attention, Loan Stars is focused on the future. Their monthly lists consist of the most recommended items that will be published within the following month.
How does it work? Anyone working in a library in Canada can sign up for a free CataList account. Then, so long as you are logged in, you will see a “recommend” button next to eligible titles. Click the button, and that’s it. At the end of every month, the super computers and clever folk at Loan Stars tally the results, and the ten books with the most recommendations are added to one of two lists: adult and juvenile.
This is a fantastic way to get the word out about books that people haven’t heard about yet. At LSC, we swim in the galley proofs that are sent to us by publishers, and from my days in libraries, I know the case is true there too. And it is a (nerdy) thrill to have the inside track on a book that no one else will be able to read for months. I’m sure we’re all the same, when you read a good book, all you want to do is tell people they should read it. Loan Stars is one of the best ways to tell colleagues across Canada what they should keep an eye out for, or get the jump on and order in advance.
We all use things like the New York Times Best Seller list, or Canada Reads to build our collections, but those are reactive lists, and much of the demand for those items is driven by patrons. Loan Stars gives you the chance to get ahead of the rush on items no one has heard of yet, but will want. What I like about it is, it’s not just the best sellers. Those books are going to be popular regardless, they barely need our help. These are recommendations coming directly from staff; their actual opinions, not just what they think will be popular but what they think should be popular.
What’s on their lists for August? Some choice morsels include:
Now, you’re asking yourself, “how do I read these monthly lists?” There are two ways. One is to sign up for the Loan Stars monthly email, which has the lists delivered direct to your inbox. However, if you want to be able to see the list and immediately purchase the items on it, LSC creates an Slist version of every Loan Stars list, so you can view and add the items to your cart in our catalogue. Here are the links to the most recent Adult and Juvenile Loan Stars lists for August, and you can find older lists under the “Special” heading in the Slist page.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Yours, Fictionally |
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June is Pride month. And every library deserves to have the best and latest materials created by, celebrating, and helping to create more allies of the LGBTQ+ community. This week's blog is a combination of efforts from our Selectors, who keep an eye out all year long for new material, and thankfully the amount being made is increasing every year. There are, happily, too many to talk about. We can however, bring attention to a few.
is a great starting point for anyone curious about queer and trans life, and helpful for those already on their own journeys! In this quick and easy guide covers topics like sexuality, gender identity, coming out, and navigating relationships through informative comics, interviews, and worksheets.
Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up With Me by Mariko Tamaki follows Frederica Riley as she dates, then breaks up with, then dates again her high school dream girl Laura Dean. Except Laura might not be the best influence on Frederica. Kiss Number 8 by Colleen Venable is about Mads, who is so caught up in her personal discovery that she is less interested in Adam than she is in Cat, that she fails to notice that her dad is hiding something big--so big it could tear her family apart. Finally, On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden takes place in two different time periods. In one, a ragtag crew travels to the deepest reaches of space, rebuilding beautiful, broken structures to discover the past. In the other, two girls meet in boarding school and fall deeply in love, only to learn the pain of loss.
Jacob's Room to Choose by Sarah Hoffman is the sequel to Jacob's New Dress. In this encouraging story about gender expression, Jacob and his classmate Sarah both get chased out of the bathrooms they try to use because they don't dress the "usual" way. This starts a conversation at the school the many forms of gender expression and how to treat each other with respect.
And there is Antoni in the Kitchen. This cookbook comes from Montreal chef and one of the stars of of the Netflix smash hit Queer Eye, Antoni Porowski, and is all about the way to find success in the kitchen with stylishly accessible, few-ingredient recipes.
Even Weirder Than Before is the debut novel from Newfoundland author Susie Taylor. Daisy’s simple life is thrown into cataclysm when her father suddenly leaves and her mother breaks down. Add to that her increasingly confused feelings towards girls, and the drama of past boys that keep coming in with the tide. Our rep Michael Clark saw Susie read an except from the book recently, and it is a deeply personal, deeply funny book, which is garnering a lot of attention.
This is but a scant few of the LGBTQ+ items available through LSC. Slists are available at numbers 41996, 41997, and 41998, and our selectors would be happy to discuss themes and put lists together for you, upon request. Please feel free to reach out to Rachel, Sara, Stef, and Angela for more.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Happy Pride. |
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Ah Easter, that most transitory of holidays. It zig-zags its way through early spring like the bunny that is its most prominent symbol. Brightly-coloured eggs, cheerful bunnies, and little yellow fluffball chicks all remind us of a fresh new beginning, as winter fades and the new season begins. And frankly it can’t come soon enough, even if Easter is late this year. Easter’s date is determined by a lunisolar calendar rather than a strictly solar one, meaning that it falls on the first Sunday following the first full moon of spring. Depending on the cycles of the moon, that means Easter can be any Sunday between March 22nd and April 25th.
What’s the significance of the moon? Like Christmas, Easter was originally a pagan celebration named for a Germanic goddess called Ēostre or Ostara. Feasts were held in her honour during the Old English month that corresponds to April, welcoming in spring. Germanic traditions have remained attached to the celebration as it moved through the years, such as decorating eggs and the Osterhase (Easter hare) bringing treats to well-behaved children. Other celebrations, like sword dancing and “heathen pastries” (as Jacob Grimm called them), have not, at least here in North America.
In the Jewish traditions, Easter and Passover fall within the same general timeframe, though they aren’t related. Passover by Grace Jones offers a factual breakdown meant for young readers, and Around the Passover Table by Tracy Newman and Pippa’s Passover Plate by Vivian Kirkfield convey the meaning of the holiday through fictional stories.
In Australia, given that rabbits are an invasive species, there’s been a push to make the Easter bunny an Easter bilby, one of the few native Australian animals that probably doesn’t want to destroy humans. Probably. Those interested in learning more about the bilby can check out Bilby: Secrets of an Australian Marsupial by Edel Wignell.
For those who don’t want the actual responsibility of owning a rabbit, many places open their petting zoos around Easter, where you can not only interact with rabbits, but sheep, goats, ponies, and even llamas or alpacas. Many cities and communities offer Easter egg hunts, and for those of us without children, there’s the traditional Tuesday hunt for half-price chocolate. Whether taking the kids out or getting together with the family for a feast (lamb is traditional), Easter is a season for new beginnings and new plans.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy!
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There is little Canadians like to talk about more than the weather. And for good reason: those of us in Ontario have seen snow squalls with 50km/h winds, +10 degree weather and everything melting, showers, and a freezing rain system that shut down universities, major roads and even some libraries. All within the past two weeks! Of course we want to talk about this craziness!
According to a 2014 report from Influence Communications, news stories in Canada were 229% more likely to focus on the weather than anywhere else in the world. The biggest reason behind this is that we are an enormous country with varying climates; where the Maritimes might get a blizzard, southern Ontario might be completely clear and Vancouver probably has rain.
Regular weather doesn’t usually get that much attention, but we do love reading and talking about extreme weather and natural disasters. With the advent of social media, we’re able to get weather updates in real time from both professional meteorologists and storm hunters, and from people all over the country. Of course, this also means every time Toronto gets a snowstorm, someone brings up the army digging them out (dear rest of the country: get over it).
Of course, bad weather brings with it dangerous conditions and storm safety is important to know, especially for kids. In July, Beech Street Books will release a series of books on disasters and storm safety, focused specifically on Canada. Books in the series include Snow and Ice Storms, Tornadoes, and Floods. Although spring is approaching (allegedly…) natural disasters can occur at any time of year.
Although our winter weather gets a lot of attention, our summer weather can bring both thunderstorms and tornadoes, mostly in the stretch between Saskatchewan and Quebec. Manitoba has the distinction of Canada’s first (and so far, only) F5 tornado, Elie in 2007. I was in Toronto during the 2009 tornado outbreak that saw two tornadoes touch down in Vaughan; although I was safely in North York at the time, I still remember just how black the sky was and how strong the lightning and winds. And last year, Ottawa was surprised by a disastrous tornado that they are still feeling the effects of.
We all saw Twister and, bellowing tornadoes and flying cows aside, the movie had some decent storm science in it. DOROTHY was based off the 1980s TOTO project, and storm chasers really do exist (and run tours). Tornado science has continued to improve, and in 2003 scientists in South Dakota were able to deploy instruments to study the interior of a tornado for the first time. This increased knowledge can help meteorologists and weather scientists predict dangerous storms sooner, potentially saving lives.
Unfortunately, we can’t talk about the weather and natural disasters without also touching on climate change. Climate change brings unpredictable weather, which means an increase in extreme conditions. Recent evidence indicates that our trouble with the dreaded polar vortex over the past few years can be attributed to climate change; specifically that the increasing warmth in the Arctic is upsetting the jet stream, causing it to kink – and bring that cold Arctic air down to the rest of us.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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LSC is proud to announce that we can now provide educational toys and low-level makerspace equipment to Canadian libraries.
We all know how important books and reading are for babies and young children. I don’t need to go into detail about how books are essential for teaching children communication, listening and early literacy skills. Board, Picture and Early Reader books are the stepping-stones to learning and growing.
However as important as books are, there are other ways to help children learn. Libraries are changing. Gone are the days when a library was simply an information collection point. Now, libraries are community hubs. A common place for all members of the community to come together, to access unique and imagination-spurring resources. And libraries are starting to branch out and introduce educational toys to help enhance those literacy skills and teach key concepts such as colours, shapes, numbers and sounds etc.
We know that not all children learn the same way and having a diverse toy collection in a library is an excellent way to help support children of all abilities and families of all income levels. Toys in a library can focus on auditory, fine motor, gross motor, language, social, tactile, thinking, and visual skills development.
LSC is a co-op, and we serve the needs of our clients. So when a client came to us needing help, we listened. They wanted toys that fulfilled certain aged-based skills and educational outcomes. They also needed help cataloguing and processing these unusual items. This is the sort of challenge to which LSC is uniquely suited to provide assistance.
Our Selection team immediately set about sourcing educational toys and low-level makerspace equipment. Our cataloguing department put their expertise to work in creating MARC records that will be of value to patrons. And our processing department scoured our suppliers, finding just the right containers to house the toys.
Like all LSC products, libraries have a choice to receive the items direct, or have them catalogued and/or processed by us. For processed items, you can chose between a transparent tote making for easy stacking on shelves, or a transparent backpack that can be hung (and kids love to sling over their shoulder). If a library wishes to provide LSC with branded bags or containers of their own, we will process the material in these containers. All processed material is photographed to show all components.
The totes can come with a component and skill level checklist inside the container, so patrons and library staff alike can easily check to make sure everything where it should be. For the bags, we have developed a luggage tag that attaches to the bag, featuring the item picture, list of components, and the item barcode.
Another great toy for toddlers is The Counting and Sorting Farm. Soft round stalls have numbers printed on the bottom with the same number on the stuffed farm critters. These little animals fit inside the little stalls and help teach children to count, match and sort.
Having accessible toys, games, puzzles and soft books to use both in and out of the library is just another step in helping your library community and the children within it connect, grow and learn more than ever before.
The toys and makerspace equipment available to us is growing, and our Selectors are ready to source new materials at the request of a library. ARPs, based on skill level or material types, can be set-up so that your experiential learning areas are constantly refreshed with new items that we have the expertise to pick and provide.
As we develop this service, we will create regular Slists referring to new items that we have added to the catalogue. Currently, if you wish to purchase toys and makerspace equipment from us, please contact Sara Pooley directly. For the time being, please refer to our 2018 Selections for the types and skills available.
The 2018 SList is available here.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter, and to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Take care!
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According to Wikipedia, there are over thirty holidays, observances, and traditions celebrated world wide in the month of December. Some as ancient as Shabe Yaldā and some as new as Festivus. Most of them celebrating, in some manner, the shortest day of the year, and the turn away from the Bleak Midwinter. One holiday in particular nearly lapsed into obscurity until, a century and a half ago, it was rescued by some ghosts.
In 1819, Washington Irving (of Sleepy Hollow fame) wrote an account of Christmas celebrations, which were almost certainly fabricated. Irving was a notorious liar, who is also responsible for the myth that people before Columbus thought the Earth was flat. But Irving’s idea of a seasonal gathering which brought together people of all status, to celebrate a new year and enjoy the customs of the ancients caught the imagination.
Then came the ghosts. The Victorians were no strangers to ghost stories; they permeated much of their literature. As the Victorian age marched on and the Scientific Revolution began to take hold, spiritualism spiked. Charles Dickens wasn’t a spiritualist, but he did think of ghosts often. Not as the white sheeted frights of horror, but as the memories of those who have passed, especially in the last year (this being the Victorian era, and death common and indiscriminant). It was his belief that there was no better time of the year to consider the lessons ghosts might teach us then in the deep of the winter, when the trees were bare and the air cold, and candles danced shadows through long nights.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter. We also encourage you to subscribe to our new YouTube Channel. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Yours, Fictionally |
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I’ve been riding horses since I was thirteen. By the time I was seventeen, I had convinced my mom to go halves on a horse. I had visions of a trained show pony, preferably black as coal, who never spooked and did everything I asked. Instead, I got Riff Raff.
While he’s actually (mostly) named for the Rocky Horror Picture Show character, the name also fit him as an unwanted baby from Alberta, brought to Ontario to be sold to the African Lion Safari for food. At first, I didn’t want him either. He was unbroke, spooky, and somewhat ugly with his big heavy head and giant donkey ears. I wanted a horse I could get on and ride, not an uncut stallion terrified of the little white Shetland pony he shared a field with. I remember bringing him into the stall the first time (after spending 20 minutes catching him) and being really angry at him for his antsy behaviour.
Canada also has its own horse, called – shockingly – the Canadian (or French Canadian) Horse. Before their popularity waned in the 1970s, there were three types of Canadian Horses: the Canadian Heavy Draft or St. Lawrence; the Frencher (also sometimes called the St. Lawrence for maximum confusion); and the Canadian Pacer. The Pacer was known for being able to race on ice, which probably means it should replace the beaver as our national animal.
The Canadian Pacer is thought to have influenced a number of breeds in the United States, including the Tennessee Walker, a horse well-known for its unique gaited walk; the American Saddlebred; and the Standardbred. Riff currently lives in a small herd with a Standardbred mare named Elly and Elly’s daughter, Raina.
Standardbreds are best known for their harness racing, and Elly was in a few races in her youth, meaning she’s trained to pull a sulky or buggy. She didn’t do very well, possibly because she’s somewhat bad-tempered and uncoordinated. When leading Elly somewhere, watch your toes; she tends to fling her feet off to the sides. She and Riff are both approaching 20 years old, so she’s mellowed somewhat.
I’ve had Riff for 14 years now. Once he was gelded and given some attention, he blossomed into one of the sweetest horses I’ve ever known. When he's feeling good, he plays keepaway in the field: he waits until I get almost close enough to put his halter on, then trots off a good distance before turning back to watch me try to approach him again. He’s good-natured and patient, though that doesn’t mean he won’t buck me off if I deserve it. And he did, finally, grow into his ears.
To keep up to date with all of LSC’s latest offerings, please follow LSC on Facebook, on Instagram, and on Twitter. We also encourage you to subscribe to the weekly Green Memo, and we hope you check back each and every week on this site for our latest musings on the publishing world.
Enjoy! |
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Stef Waring 10 December 9, 2019 |
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Rachel Seigel 12 December 2, 2019 |
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Karrie Vinters 4 November 25, 2019 |
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LSC Library Services Centre 10 November 18, 2019 |
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Michael Clark 9 October 7, 2019 |
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Dale Campbell 1 June 24, 2019 |
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Sara Pooley 3 May 13, 2019 |
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Angela Stuebing 1 March 25, 2019 |