YUL’s Information Literacy program focuses on assisting students in cultivating the finding, retrieving, and analysis skillsets. Partnering with faculty members, YUL offers three IL instruction approaches to assist students with critical research processes. They offer Supplemental Drop-In Workshops that students can enrol in, Integrated Course Instruction that is delivered within the context of a specific course, and Embedded Instruction in which librarians and faculty members collaborate to develop specific assignments and learning tools to support a course curriculum.

Richard Leblanc (left), a professor in the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies, found that his students were challenged by filtering search results and narrowing down pertinent research information when writing their Masters of Law and Masters of Financial Accountability research papers.

In 2011, Leblanc collaborated with business librarian Sophie Bury and law librarian Yemisi Dina to integrate IL tutorials and laboratory sessions into three of his courses. “I wanted to foster a collaborative approach to information literacy by developing IL sessions with YUL’s librarians because I realized their specialized and interdisciplinary knowledge would be of great benefit to my students,” Leblanc explains. “Sophie, Yemisi and I worked together to hone in on information literacy teachings that specifically related to my students and their research papers. We developed sessions that informed students on such topics as: proper searches and citation methods of business and professional databases; academic integrity practices; and case law and legislation.”

After his students participated in the IL sessions Leblanc noticed their papers were far better researched and prepared. “One of the best outcomes of the IL sessions was that the students felt comfortable engaging in the research process because they knew whom to turn to for consult and advice.”

Each year 91ŃÇÉ« librarians collaborate with faculty members and students, developing course-specific library research sessions for an average of 700 classes and assisting approximately 25,000 students.

“YUL’s Information Literacy program has grown dramatically since its inception,” says University Librarian Cynthia Archer, “and I believe that’s because faculty members have recognized that students need to develop this skillset in order to be successful in their research – both in the context of the university environment and once they enter the workforce.”

For more information about or how to integrate research related skills into curriculum please contact your designated .

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Cultures meet here in Canada, says Agnès Whitfield. Literary translation is an essential means of sharing heritages, yet it is a field too often overlooked and undervalued.

That situation is about to improve with the launch of the first volume in a new series called Vita Traductiva. A joint initiative of the Research Group on Literary Translation in Canada at 91ŃÇÉ« and , a small Quebec press Whitfield and her husband, artist Daniel Gagnon, have taken over, the series will be published in French and English, and focus on literary translators and translating around the world.

Cover illustration for Vita Traductiva, by Daniel Gagnon

“One of our goals is to bring into English or French important studies on translation from other languages,” says Whitfield. “These kinds of opportunities for international exchange are sadly lacking.”

“Another issue for translation scholars is getting research circulating quickly,” says Whitfield. “Traditional presses have long wait times, library budgets are declining and scholarly books are expensive.”

For this reason, the international peer-reviewed series will be published via the Internet on Open Access sites for scholars, as well as in traditional book form.

Agnès Whitfield

These days, “if a librarian in Canada wanted to organize an exhibition on Romanian culture, she would have a difficult time,” says Whitfield. She wouldn’t know where to find Romanian works translated into English or French, or works written by Canadian writers of Romanian origin, or how the translations were done.

On a broader level, the new series is important because “literature provides a rich source of knowledge about human activity and aspirations, and literary translation plays an essential role in building understanding between communities with different languages and cultures,” argues Whitfield. “Vita Traductiva aims to make an important contribution to the creation, promotion and dissemination of such vital cultural knowledge.”

Following her 2009 study, Whitfield helped found , an international research group based at the University of Oslo, focusing on the different voices in the translation process. Those voices will be expressed in Vita Traductiva.

The name is a reference to the Latin term vita activa (active life) to reflect the active, empirical orientation of the collection and its aim to generate and share more knowledge about translation – particularly between smaller countries – and greater intercultural understanding and respect, says Whitfield.

As series editor, she plans to solicit essays on literary translation and translators from scholars all over the world. Such international reach will be guaranteed with editorial and advisory boards representing 15 countries – from Finland to New Zealand, Portugal to Turkey. Whitfield also draws on 91ŃÇÉ« expertise; English Professor Priscila Uppal and humanities and translation studies Professor Susan Ingram are on her editorial and advisory boards.

The first volume of essays will appear this summer and two more in the fall.

The summer volume will focus on the translation of Polish, Czech and Romanian literature for Canadian audiences – and vice versa – and how to find works by Canadians of Polish, Czech and Romanian heritage.

The fall volumes, edited by European colleagues, are based on proceedings of recent Voice in Translation conferences. The first highlights the challenges of capturing narrative voice when translating between Arabic, Polish, English, Finnish, German, Spanish and French.

Whitfield with Voice in Translation group in Copenhagen

The second will probe the role of authorial and editorial voices in translation. It will include a piece by Whitfield on how small Canadian English presses edit and revise translations.

As a new international peer-reviewed publication series, Vita Traductiva is a perfect fit with 91ŃÇɫ’s strategic goal to improve its participation in emerging international research networks and enhance its reputation as a research-oriented university, says Whitfield.

She has played a leading role in compiling previously unavailable bio-bibliographical data on eminent Canadian Francophone and Anglophone literary translators as editor of Writing Between the Lines. Portraits of Canadian Anglophone Translators (Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006) and Le Métier du double. Portraits de traducteurs et traductrices francophones (Fides, Collection du CRILCQ, 2005), shortlisted for the Canadian Federation of the Humanities Raymond-Klibansky Prize. (See YFile, April 11, 2006) She was also the editor of L’écho de nos classiques (Éditions David, 2009) on the international translations of two great Canadian novels, Gabrielle Roy’s Bonheur d’occasion (The Tin Flute) and Hugh McLennan’s Two Solitudes.

Whitfield is former president of the Canadian Association for Translation Studies and was bilingual joint chair in Women’s Studies at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University in 2009-2010.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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Led by Professor Colin Coates (left), Canada Research Chair in Canadian Cultural Landscapes and professor of Canadian Studies at Glendon College, the project is expected to cast light on the impacts of an earlier period of economic “globalization” as a way of better understanding the challenges of current practices. It is one of eight projects across Canada that has been granted funding in the 2011 Digging into Data Challenge.

Fourteen teams representing Canada, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States have been awarded grants to investigate how computational techniques can be applied to “big data” to change the nature of humanities and social sciences research. Each team represents collaborations among scholars, scientists and librarians from leading universities worldwide.

Coates, who is also the director of the Robarts Centre for Canadian Studies at 91ŃÇÉ«, is one of the principal investigators on the project titled Trading Consequences, which received $125,000 in funding. The project will examine the economic and environmental consequences of commodity trading during the 19th century and employs information extraction techniques to study large corpora of digitized documents from the 19th century. This innovative digital resource will allow historians to discover novel patterns and to explore new hypotheses through structured query and a variety of visualization tools.

"Our team of environmental historians is excited to be partners with the Universities of Edinburgh and St. Andrews in the Trading Consequences project. Canadian economic development has historically been defined by commodity flows, and it is important to understand the environmental impacts of this commerce in the past, just as it is today. The focus on Canadian data will test the techniques created through this collaborative project for mapping the scope and impact of international trade in the 19th century," said Coates.

“91ŃÇÉ« is proud to receive recognition in the 2011 Digging into Data Challenge,” said Robert HachĂ©, 91ŃÇɫ’s vice-president research & innovation. “These important research projects advance knowledge as researchers work collaboratively and internationally to find new ways to analyze, search for and store data using digital and electronic technologies.”

“The Digging into Data Challenge is an international initiative that enables Canadian researchers to take advantage of the huge digital resources now available and to develop close partnerships with overseas universities,” said Chad Gaffield, president of the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). “These exciting projects cross both disciplines and national borders; they lead to new insights into human thought and behaviour.”

The successful cohort of projects received a total of nearly $5 million in funding from eight international research funding agencies. SSHRC’s contribution of $869,117 will support Canadian researchers from eight of the fourteen teams.  

For more information, visit the Ěý·É±đ˛ú˛őľ±łŮ±đ.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91ŃÇɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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