Some things I was up to this past week:

1. I registered for the Indigenous Mapping Workshop which will run Nov. 16-18;
2. had meetings pertaining to servers and surveys;
3. attended regular meetings including that of the University Library Advisory Committee, Leddy Library Department Heads, my bi-weekly meeting with Library Admin, and the WUFA Grievance Committee
4. uploaded another batch of ETDs to the repository
5. uploaded another batch of final edits to the OSSA Conference repository
6. ordered books that have gone missing from the library (including Steal Like an Artist natch) as well titles to support the School of the Environment
7. discussed APCs, video streaming, and the potential structure of the new Leddy Library website with various colleagues;
8. and did an evening shift of our LiveChat Research Help service.

I don’t think I’ve said this publicly but the weekly updates from the CARL e-alert newsletter are excellent and are put together so well. From last week’s alert, I learned of this amazing project:

Community members living in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside (DTES) have been the focal point of countless scholarly research studies and surveys over the years. Up until recently, this research has remained largely out of reach to participants and community organizations, locked away in journals and other databases that require paid subscriptions to access. Community members have said they would benefit from access to that data for evaluating program and service effectiveness, for example, or for grant writing.

The recently launched Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal (DTES RAP), a project led by the UBC Learning Exchange in partnership with UBC Library’s Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, is designed to change that.

The DTES RAP provides access to research and research-related materials relevant to Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside through an easy-to-use public interface. The portal was developed in consultation with DTES residents and community organizations through focus groups and user experience testing, and in collaboration with a number of university units.

New Downtown Eastside Research Access Portal takes collaborative approach to Open Access (UBC)

I love that this collection is centred around the needs of those who have been studied and not the needs of the researcher.

And not to center my own work but (BUT) I was hoping to explore similar work during my last sabbatical but for a variety of reasons, it did not come to pass.

No Weeknote update next week because I’m taking a staycation!