Wednesday, April 18, 2018

Lana Button, Children’s Author and Educator, on the Power of the Picture Book Read-Aloud

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Please join us in the H.T. Coutts Education and Kinesiology, Sport & Recreation Library on Wednesday, May 9th at 9:30 AM for a presentation by author and early childhood educator Lana Button, showcasing her newest picture book, My Teacher’s Not Here!

Lana’s lively presentations show her determination to spread the word that people are never too old for a picture book! In this 50 minute talk, Lana explores the challenge of choosing just the right words when writing, compares writing genres and techniques, and discusses the editing process. She shares the magic of picture books by examining cross-curricular themes, dialogue and delivery, and classroom applications. Through her books, she engages her audience in conversation about the social challenges of low self-esteem, empathy, self-regulation, and bullying. The audience will leave inspired about reading, writing, and making their schools kinder places to be.

Lana Button is the author of the Willow picture book series: Willow’s Whispers, Willow Finds a Way, and Willow’s Smile. A former actress in film, TV, and on stage, Lana’s passion for children and desire to inspire others led her to authoring picture books. The Willow series titles have won several awards and been translated into French, Chinese, and Japanese.

Lana Button will be visiting as a part of the TD Canadian Children’s Book Week touring author series coordinated by the Canadian Children’s Book Centre.

Register for the event here!

Check out:
Lana Button’s website: http://www.lanabutton.com/index.html
Teaching Guides for the Willow series: http://www.lanabutton.com/docs/willow_teaching_guide.pdf Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lana.button.5
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lanabutton/ 
Twitter: https://twitter.com/LanaButton
Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/lana-button-0517aa38

Thursday, April 12, 2018

Reduce Exam Anxiety with Classical Music

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Research shows that listening to calming music while studying helps people relax and perform better during exams. To help you get through a stressful exam period, you can listen to music online from the University of Alberta Libraries’ collections. 


Naxos Music Library is the world´s largest source for online classical music. It also offers streaming access to more than 136,000 CDs with more than 2 million tracks from many popular composers and genres of music including jazz, blues, ballet, contemporary instrumental, and orchestral music, as well as relaxing nature sounds. You can also find music from favorite composers like Bach, Mozart, and Handel in Music Online: Classical Music Library. You can search for music by time period, genre, and instruments.
Music Online: Classical Music Library,
Alexander Street Press
If you want to stream live and recorded classical music concerts featuring music from composers such as Brahms and Strauss, you have access to hundreds of recordings in Digital Concert Hall from the Berliner Philharmoniker. Medici.tv also provides you with streaming videos of classical music concerts, ballets, and operas from concert halls and stages all around the world.

Stay relaxed and good luck with your exams!













Monday, April 9, 2018

The Art of Medicine - On Now at the Scott Library

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Eye-popping artwork is brightening the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library for the month of April. For the fifth year in a row the Scott Library is partnering the Faculty of Medicine (FoM) to present projects created by second year medical students as a part of their Patient Immersion Experiences (PIE).


PIE is an initiative wherein medical students are paired with patient mentors to learn how the process of illness and treatment has affected their lives. Students are then tasked with creating an original piece of artwork inspired by what they’ve learned.


This wonderful exhibit, which includes paintings, sculptures, photographs and more will be at the John W. Scott Health Sciences Library until April 29, 2017. The Health Sciences library is located on the 2nd floor of the Walter C. Mackenzie Health Sciences Centre.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

Announcing the Winners of Images of Research 2018

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Drum roll please….

We are so pleased to present the winners of the Images of Research competition for 2018. Out of 100 eligible entries, a panel of judges chose the winners and semifinalists; all will be on display in Cameron Library from April 5 to 30, 2018.

Images of Research exhibition

Location: Cameron Library, main floor
Date: April 5 - 30, 2018

First Place $800

Augmented Phobia


Augmented Phobia

Anna Chakravorty
Master's - Arts, Visual Communication, Design

"Most people who suffer phobias (around 60–80%) never seek treatment and of those who do seek treatment, approximately 25% either refuse exposure therapy when they hear what it entails or drops out of therapy. One of the reasons for this refusal data could be that the main feature of exposure is confronting the feared stimuli, which some people may find too frightening. New efforts are needed to increase the number of phobia sufferers who benefit
from exposure therapy. Augmented reality systems give users a feeling of presence and reality judgment that can be exploited to treat some psychological disorders. My master's research focuses on understanding the human interaction with the technology and to determine if augmented reality can help people to overcome their phobias. To answer this, a series of testing would involve where the stimuli would render from basic shapes and forms to more real objects to a stage where the patient would be able to hold and interact with the stimuli. This would help people to expose themselves to their fears as well as act as a self-therapy."

Second Place $600

Absorption Experience


Absorption Experience

Kim McCollum
Master's - Arts, Painting

“My research explores the relationship between textile work and abstract painting. This image is a digital collage that combines several photos of me learning to block print in India. These photos are mixed with digital paint and pattern to create an image that expresses the feeling of flow created when making something by hand. I wanted to visually capture the feeling of being so completely engrossed in the process of creating something that the creation and the creator become one. Making digital collages like this is the first step in my creative process. I combine digital painting with images of textile art to make connections between the two mediums and generate new ideas. My next step involves creating large-scale physical artworks inspired by my digital collages.  This involves using painted and hand-woven components to create woven paintings. Referencing the visual histories of both ‘high’ and ‘low’ art has potential to create new connections and break down barriers that limit the influence of certain work based on medium.”

Third Place $500

Learning to see through the hand


Learning to see through the hand

Ron Wigglesworth
PhD - Education, Secondary Education

"Rapid development of digital technology is inevitable and will call for continued changes in education. If kinaesthetic drawing amplifies a student’s sensibility and sensitivity to what is being observed, then might we benefit by utilizing our haptic senses more broadly in our increasingly-digitized schools? Becoming aware of what we do not see enriches our understanding of what we do see. Perhaps slow drawing by hand might offer a powerful enhancement to the current ocularcentric domination in the sciences. Pedagogical implications from drawing could enhance understanding and observation skills in many fields where the mediated image is used. My research asks: what drawing can still offer in an increasingly digital/digitized world?  

Digital technologies offer powerful tools, but the immediacy of a digital image does not guarantee quality nor assure learning. The drawing process changes the subject; undergoing a change in sensibility. Drawing requires thoughtful observation, discipline and practice, all of which are essential skills in ensuring learning success. Faster is not better. Drawing has the potential to slow down students scrambling in a digital world. Learning is a process, and drawing is a way of opening the eyes and a way of thinking and feeling. Thinking emerges from the process of drawing as new perceptions are created."

Honorable Mention $250

Sans Escher a graphic musical score


Sans Escher

William Northlich
PhD - Arts, Music

"Sans Escher is a graphic musical score. The aesthetic and design vision behind Sans Escher is musical indeterminacy, conveyed by abstract of conventional music notation. Such a graphic score may be observed as an independent piece of artwork, or as a musical score that may be performed by any number of players consisting of any instrumentation with the option of including additional staging and spatial designs, all of which may be determined by the ensemble. Precise elements of dynamics, articulations, length of musical passages, and pitch are also up to the discretion of the ensemble or individual player.

My doctoral research consists of the confluence of electronic music and improvisation, and how improvisatory methodologies are effective in representing performances of electronic music visually. Graphic scores are indispensable in visually representing unorthodox processes, gestures, sonic states, and aesthetic visions. Thus, audiences are able to make profound connections with related musical material by gaining insight into performative decisions, sonic results, and the composer’s inspiration."

Honorable Mention $250

The Girls of Enghelab Street


The Girls of Enghelab Street

Zohreh Valiary
Master's - Arts, Arts & Design

"An often-cited example of a country with a highly restricted society is Iran. Iranian women’s history is a labyrinthine road of darkness, patriarchy and suppression. After the invasion of Muslims, women started losing their equal rights, and the situation continued to be more or less the same until the end of the 19th century when some movements started to happen toward the emancipation of women. These movements, that still are going, on have a long way to go to reach the goal of equal rights and freedom for women in my motherland.

I based ""the Girls of Enghelab Street"" on the action of Vida Movahed, a young Iranian woman who, on December 27, 2017, stood on a platform in Enghelab street in Tehran, tied her white hijab (a symbol of protest against mandatory hijab created by Masih Alinejad, the founder of the online movement ""My Stealthy Freedom""), to a stick, and waved it at the crowd until the authorities arrested her. After Vida Movahed's action more women started doing the same to show their union and support for the movement. Twenty-nine women were arrested in the two months leading up to February 2018.

The aim of my research is to explore how visual communication design might provide a medium through which one can foster awareness and build empowerment in my target audience of young, educated Iranian women, aged eighteen to twenty-five."

People’s Choice


Politicizing Social Media


Politicizing Social Media $250

Jennifer Zeller
Master's - Arts, Philosophy

“Politicizing Social Media” portrays everyday social media users and some of their political opinions. If inappropriately phrased or posted in an unfitting format, these perspectives tend to be disregarded and considered irrelevant or unpolitical by academics. This has resulted in unbalanced, if not ignorant, academic discourses on social media as most scholars have only focussed on the political potentials of platforms such as Facebook, Twitter or Youtube – not their disadvantages or “unprofessional” contents. However, the original meaning of politics – from Greek polis – revolves around the ordinary people, not merely a political elite. Correspondingly, my research aims at constructing a philosophical and political theory of social media by analysing often disregarded, but nonetheless political contents and by using theories such as those from Hannah Arendt, Jürgen Habermas and others. Thus, I am in the middle of the picture with my books, trying to make sense of how politics are made on social media around me from a scientific point of view.”