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McGill Fortnightly Review

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In addition to digitizing the McGilliad we have also recently put online the full run of 18 issues of the McGill Fortnightly review.

McGill Fortnightly review was founded by F.R. Scott and A.J.M. Smith as an independent undergraduate journal after it was announced that the Students’ Council couldn’t support the publishing of the McGill Daily Literary supplement which is detailed in the first issue editorial. The student publication ran from 1925-1927 and featured modernist poetry and prose.

Front page of the The McGill Fortnightly Review first issue from 1925. http://mcgill.worldcat.org/oclc/428073817

Front page of the The McGill Fortnightly Review first issue from 1925. http://mcgill.worldcat.org/oclc/428073817

 

Read more about the  McGill Fortnightly review in Ken Norris’ 1980 English thesis “The role of the little magazine in the development of modernism and post-modernism in Canadian poetry” which is available online in our institutional repository, eScholarship.

You can download all of the issues from our catalogue or you can see the original by visiting the Rare Book and Special Collections reading room during opening hours.

Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892.

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Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892. Cadastral map showing in detail land owners’ homes and locations. Hand coloured and mounted on cloth backing. Full size is 89 x 169 cm and folds down to 30 x 22 cm.  Folded and fully bounded with gilt title on cover, illustrated floral end papers.

Cartographic Mathematical Data: Scale approximately 1:3382. 1.87 in. to 1 mile. .69 in. to 1 arpent.

Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892. Cadastral map showing in detail land owners' homes and locations. Hand coloured.

Close up of Mount Royal Park. Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892. Cadastral map showing in detail land owners’ homes and locations.

folded G3452 M65 1892 R54. Map Room – Rare Books & Special Collections. McGill Library.

Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892.

Map of the Island of Montreal prepared by J. Rielle in 1892. Cadastral map showing in detail land owners’ homes and locations. Click on the image to view it larger. 

folded G3452 M65 1892 R54. Map Room – Rare Books & Special Collections. McGill Library.

You can download the map from our catalogue or you can see the original by visiting the Rare Book and Special Collections reading room during opening hours.

Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877

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When this map of the Montreal harbour came to us it’s small 11 x 15 cm cover hid a map that measured over 96 x 31 cm when unfolded. Too delicate to weigh down we shot this with our Betterlight 8K medium format camera. With a full image size of 9426 × 3352 pixels when you extract a JPG from the PDF you can get some really nice detail.

You can download the map from our catalogue or you can see the original by visiting the Rare Book and Special Collections reading room during opening hours.

Harbour Commissioners of Montreal., & Kennedy, J. (1877). Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

Close of Lachine Canal from the Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

Harbour Commissioners of Montreal., & Kennedy, J. (1877). Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

Harbour Commissioners of Montreal., & Kennedy, J. (1877). Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

Harbour Commissioners of Montreal., & Kennedy, J. (1877). Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

Cover of Plan of the wharves in the harbour of Montreal, 1877. Montréal: Printed by] the Burland Desbarats Co.

New digital exhibition: Our friend, the Sun

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Screen Shot 2014-12-16 at 1.16.28 PMA gloomy winter day seems the perfect time to launch a digital exhibition about the therapeutic effects of the sun. The digital exhibit delves into the visual culture of Heliotherapy, an ancient practice of total bodily exposure to sunlight, and Phototherapy, an electric light therapy pioneered in the 1890s. How heliotherapeutic and phototherapeutic practices were disseminated and popularized within the history and visual culture of light therapeutics during the early twentieth century will be explored using illustrated texts and objects from the Osler Library‘s collection – so too will themes of pleasure and discomfort, ancient and modern, and the natural and artificial.

Take a break and learn more at http://digital.library.mcgill.ca/sun/

Promo slide for Olser exhibition

Coming soon: McGill Daily

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Last month we started an ambitious project to digitize all of the back issues of the McGill Daily, the student newspaper founded in 1911. Starting in January the plan is to start collecting the +60,000 files into PDFs and run optical character recognition to make the papers fully searchable. Next up will to upload them to the Internet Archive and then create a digital collection that features more of our digitized student publications. Our hope is to preserve and create a searchable index to part of McGill student history. We hope to follow up by adding the publications that preceded the Daily, namely the McGill (University) Gazette 1873-1890, the McGill Fortnightly 1892-1898, the McGill Outlook 1898-1907 and the (McGill) Martlet 1908-1911.

Since that is still many months away I’ll tease you with just the front page of the first issue.

Searching the first issue of the McGill Daily (1911).

Searching the first issue of the McGill Daily (1911).

The McGilliad

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The McGilliad was a periodical published by the Arts Undergraduate society of McGill University from 1930-1931. According to the first issue editorial the periodical was started because some sutdents

… feel the need for some forum where they (the students) can exchange their intellectual and emotional experiences, where they can present to their fellow-beings their clarified conception of some bewildering phenomenon or some haunting passion. And it is to fill this need that the “McGilliad” makes its appearance.

The first year they published two issues in March and April of 1930 under the editorial direction of A. M. Klein.

In November 1930 publication resumed under the direction of David Lewis. In the last issue of our collection, Volume 2 Issue 5, the editorial happily announced that the Students’ Council had “definitely taken the journal under its jurisdiction. The “McGilliad” is now a legal student activity, resting on a basis of sound and lasting security.”

You can read and download all seven issues from our catalogue or you can see the originals by visiting the Rare Book and Special Collections reading room during opening hours.

The McGilliad. Vol. 1 no. 1

The McGilliad. Vol. 1 no. 1 – 15 cents a copy

The McGilliad. Vol. 1 no. 2

The McGilliad. Vol. 1 no. 2 – 20 cents a copy

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 1

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 1 – 25 cents a copy

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 2

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 2 – 25 cents a copy

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 3

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 3 – 25 cents a copy

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 4

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 4

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 5

The McGilliad. Vol. 2 no. 5 – 25 cents a copy

New digital exhibition: Writing in Company

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The new digital exhibition Writing in Company: Forms of Collaboration in Artistic Works and Scientific Knowledge 1700-1914 features 52 carefully selected page openings from across the McGill University library rare and special collections and aims to demonstrate the essentially collaborative nature of printed works. It calls into question the commonly perceived equation, “one work = one author.”  Forms of collaborative practices are expressed in stage performance scripts, musical score interpretations, the serialized novel, and even in institutional protocols for collective expeditionary works.

The physical exhibition was originally on display from April to August 2014 in the lobby of McGill’s Rare Books and Special Collections. It was curated by graduate students Stéphanie Favreau (UQAM) and Adina Ruiu (Université de Montréal), and made possible by the collaboration between Interacting with Print and Rare Books and Special Collections of the McGill Library.

This project afforded the opportunity to digitize about 12 items in full and add them to our library catalogue, bringing to light items from the Pauline Donalda Collection, consisting of a donation of music scores and related printed works, which this McGill trained singer offered  to McGill University in the 1940s. To see and download the full version of each item you can click on the images to go to the record in our catalogue. 

Last two pages of the manuscript music score with Gabriel Fauré's autograph signature, 13 septembre 1902. Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924, composer. La fleur qui va sur l'eau : op. 85, no. 2 / Gabriel Fauré ; [poésie de] Catulle Mendès. MSG 994 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University - Manuscript Collection

Last two pages of the manuscript music score with Gabriel Fauré’s autograph signature, 13 septembre 1902.
Fauré, Gabriel, 1845-1924, composer. La fleur qui va sur l’eau : op. 85, no. 2 / Gabriel Fauré ; [poésie de] Catulle Mendès.
MSG 994 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University – Manuscript Collection

Der Kaiser und die Hexe, title within decorative border and engraved frontispiece. Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 1874-1929. Der Kaiser und die Hexe / von Hugo von Hofmannsthal; mit Zeichnungen von Heinrich Vogeler. Berlin : Verlag der Insel bei Schuster & Löffler, 1900. Colgate 6 I57 H64 1900 Rare Books/Special Collections - Colgate Collection

Der Kaiser und die Hexe, title within decorative border and engraved frontispiece. Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 1874-1929. Der Kaiser und die Hexe / von Hugo von Hofmannsthal; mit Zeichnungen von Heinrich Vogeler. Berlin : Verlag der Insel bei Schuster & Löffler, 1900.
Colgate 6 I57 H64 1900 Rare Books/Special Collections – Colgate Collection

 

Title page. Gounod, Charles, 1818-1893. Faust : opéra en 5 actes / de J. Barbier et M. Carré ; musique de Ch. Gounod ; partition chant et piano arrangée par Léo Delibes. Paris : Choudens, [186-?] M1503 G711 F42 C4 1860z Marvin Duchow Music - Rare Books

Title page. Gounod, Charles, 1818-1893. Faust : opéra en 5 actes / de J. Barbier et M. Carré ; musique de Ch. Gounod ; partition chant et piano arrangée par Léo Delibes. Paris : Choudens, [186-?]
M1503 G711 F42 C4 1860z Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

Le sphinx, music score "14e tableau. Napoléon", and lithograph on opposite page. Fragerolle, Georges, 1855-1920. Le sphinx : épopée lyrique en 16 tableaux / poëme et musique de Georges Fragerolle. Ombres et décors de Amédée Vignola. Paris : Enoch : Flammarion, [1896?] (Paris : Charles Verneau, imprimeur lithographe) M1523 F8 S65 1896 Rare Books & Special Collections - Rosalynde Stearn Puppet Collection

Le sphinx, music score “14e tableau. Napoléon”, and lithograph on opposite page.
Fragerolle, Georges, 1855-1920. Le sphinx : épopée lyrique en 16 tableaux / poëme et musique de Georges Fragerolle. Ombres et décors de Amédée Vignola. Paris : Enoch : Flammarion, [1896?] (Paris : Charles Verneau, imprimeur lithographe)
M1523 F8 S65 1896 Rare Books & Special Collections – Rosalynde Stearn Puppet Collection

 

 

Histoire aussi intéressante qu'invraisemblable, page 8 and illustration on opposite Quatrelles, 1826-1893. Histoire aussi intéressante qu'invraisemblable de l'intrépide capitaine Castagnette, neveu de l'homme à la tête de bois / par Manuel ; illustrée de 43 vignettes sur bois par Gustave Doré. Paris : Librairie de L. Hachette et cie, 1862 (Paris : Ch. Lahure et cie) PQ2337 L52 H57 1862 Rare Books/Special Collections - Napoleon Collection

Histoire aussi intéressante qu’invraisemblable, page 8 and illustration on opposite
Quatrelles, 1826-1893. Histoire aussi intéressante qu’invraisemblable de l’intrépide capitaine Castagnette, neveu de l’homme à la tête de bois / par Manuel ; illustrée de 43 vignettes sur bois par Gustave Doré. Paris : Librairie de L. Hachette et cie, 1862 (Paris : Ch. Lahure et cie)
PQ2337 L52 H57 1862 Rare Books/Special Collections – Napoleon Collection

 

At the height of her career, Yvette Guilbert becomes an author, telling her life story and writing about the pedagogy of singing and of the stage. We can retrace this demonstration of emotional expressions back to Charles Le Brun. Guilbert, Yvette, 1865-1944. L'art de chanter une chanson / Yvette Guilbert. Paris : B. Grasset, 1928. MT892 G85 1928 Rare Books & Special Collections

At the height of her career, Yvette Guilbert becomes an author, telling her life story and writing about the pedagogy of singing and of the stage. We can retrace this demonstration of emotional expressions back to Charles Le Brun.
Guilbert, Yvette, 1865-1944. L’art de chanter une chanson / Yvette Guilbert. Paris : B. Grasset, 1928.
MT892 G85 1928 Rare Books & Special Collections

A later example of the small café-concert music score, this piece replaces the illustration on the cover page with a photograph of the artist. Stretti, R., composer. Un Mari à l'essai : chansonnette / paroles de Delormel et Garnier, musique de R. Stretti Marvin Duchow Music - Rare Books

A later example of the small café-concert music score, this piece replaces the illustration on the cover page with a photograph of the artist.
Stretti, R., composer. Un Mari à l’essai : chansonnette / paroles de Delormel et Garnier, musique de R. Stretti
Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

Cover. Ouvrard, Eloi, 1855-1938 composer. Les prédictions : chansonnette comique / paroles de Queyriaux et Chicot, musique de E. Ouvrard. Marvin Duchow Music - Rare Books

Cover illustration: smiling sorcerer with an owl on his shoulder surrounded by images of some of the predictions mentioned in the texts.
Ouvrard, Eloi, 1855-1938 composer. Les prédictions : chansonnette comique / paroles de Queyriaux et Chicot, musique de E. Ouvrard.
Marvin Duchow Music – Rare Books

 

Title page. Recueil de ces messieurs. Amsterdam [i.e. Paris] : Chez les frères Westein, 1745. PQ1268 R43 1745 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page.
Recueil de ces messieurs. Amsterdam [i.e. Paris] : Chez les frères Westein, 1745.
PQ1268 R43 1745 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

This collection of burlesque stories, undated, brings together an edition of the Étrennes de la Saint-Jean, and the second edition of the Écosseuses ou les oeufs de Pasques, introduced as the second part of the Étrennes for the first time in 1757. Caption of the frontispiece: "Vers par rapport à ce présent Livre. De la Langue il est le soutien, / De plus, c'est qu'il y a du génie: / Commere, est-ce que ça n' vaut pas bien / Un compliment de l'Académie?" Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe, comte de, 1692-1765. Les Ecosseuses, ou, Les oeufs de Pasques : suivis de l'Histoire du porteur d'eau, ou, Les amours de la ravaudeuse, comédie : seconde partie des Etrennes de la Saint-Jean. A Troyes : Chez la veuve Oudot, et se trouvent à Paris, chez Duchesne ..., [1782?] PQ1961 C4 E4 1782 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

This collection of burlesque stories, undated, brings together an edition of the Étrennes de la Saint-Jean, and the second edition of the Écosseuses ou les oeufs de Pasques, introduced as the second part of the Étrennes for the first time in 1757. Caption of the frontispiece: “Vers par rapport à ce présent Livre. De la Langue il est le soutien, / De plus, c’est qu’il y a du génie: / Commere, est-ce que ça n’ vaut pas bien / Un compliment de l’Académie?”
Caylus, Anne Claude Philippe, comte de, 1692-1765. Les Ecosseuses, ou, Les oeufs de Pasques : suivis de l’Histoire du porteur d’eau, ou, Les amours de la ravaudeuse, comédie : seconde partie des Etrennes de la Saint-Jean. A Troyes : Chez la veuve Oudot, et se trouvent à Paris, chez Duchesne …, [1782?]
PQ1961 C4 E4 1782 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page from vol. 17 of a collected work on French theatre. Offenbach, Jacques, 1819-1880. La jolie parfumeuse : opéra-comique en trois actes / de MM. Hector Crémieux et Ernest Blum ; musique de Jacques Offenbach. Paris : Tresse & Stock, 1891 (Lagny : Imprimerie Émile Colin) PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page from vol. 17 of a collected work on French theatre.
Offenbach, Jacques, 1819-1880. La jolie parfumeuse : opéra-comique en trois actes / de MM. Hector Crémieux et Ernest Blum ; musique de Jacques Offenbach. Paris : Tresse & Stock, 1891 (Lagny : Imprimerie Émile Colin)
PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page. Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870. Monte-Cristo : drame en cinq actes et six tableaux / de MM. Alexandre Dumas et Auguste Maquet ; musique de M Varney ... [Paris] : N. Tresse, éditeur, Palais-Royal, [1848?] (Paris : Impr. de Boulé). PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University PQ2235 D43 N37 1890z Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Title page.
Dumas, Alexandre, 1802-1870. Monte-Cristo : drame en cinq actes et six tableaux / de MM. Alexandre Dumas et Auguste Maquet ; musique de M Varney … [Paris] : N. Tresse, éditeur, Palais-Royal, [1848?] (Paris : Impr. de Boulé).
PQ1222 C66 v.17 Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University
PQ2235 D43 N37 1890z Rare Books & Special Collections, McGill University

Showman’s patter : a description of books in the Osler Library

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We recently had the pleasure of digitizing over 300 pages of ‘amusing and instructive anecdotes about many of the outstanding items in the Osler Library of the History of Medicine by Dr. William Willoughby Francis (1878-1959), the first Osler Librarian who ran the library from its opening in 1929 until his death in 1959. This original typescript manuscript (with handwritten annotations) was transcribed from Dr. Francis’ recorded descriptions of choice items from the collection and provides a fascinating piece of library history.  The full volume is available for download through our catalogue.

Excerpt from page 2 of Francis, W. W. (1950). Showman's patter: A description of books in the Osler Library ; dictated by the author, 1950-1957.

Excerpt from page 2 of Francis, W. W. (1950). Showman’s patter: A description of books in the Osler Library ; dictated by the author, 1950-1957.

 

Dr. Francis undoubtedly knew the collection as well as Sir William Osler (1849-1919) himself, being the primary editor of the Bibliotheca Osleriana, the annotated catalogue of Osler’s collection of approximately 8,000 historical medical and scientific works which Sir William donated to McGill in 1919.  Dr. Francis also grew up with the collection, for Osler was not only a close relative but a surrogate father to him. If you’d like to learn more about Dr. William Willoughby Francis 185 cm of textual records are held in the  the Osler Library of the History of Medicine archives. You can consult the fond guide here http://osler.library.mcgill.ca/media/pdf/p155.pdf

https://www.flickr.com/photos/sarahseverson/9373510808/in/set-72157634808175432

View from the second floor of the Olser Library.

Inside the books of the Internet Archive

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Internet archive has started to extract images with no known copyright restrictions from their millions of scanned books and post them to Flickr.

All of the images from "An alphabet of animals" (1865) at https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/bookidMcGillLibrary-PN970_S5_A5_1865-2023

All of the images from “An alphabet of animals” (1865) at https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/tags/bookidMcGillLibrary-PN970_S5_A5_1865-2023

Notably each image includes a variety of subject tags extracted from the books original metadata with information like the time period, book publisher or the author so you can search through the collection in many ways.

Image from page 9 of "An alphabet of animals" (1865)

Image from page 9 of “An alphabet of animals” (1865)

Most importantly they have included snippets of the text right before and after the pictures plus a link back to the full book in so you can see the image in context.

Full-book-An-alphabet-of-animals-1865

An alphabet of animals (1865) full book at the Internet Archive

These are just some examples from our Chapbook collection but there are (as of October 22, 2014) over 2.6 million more images up at their account.

With the algorithm for image detection isn’t always perfect, see

https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14781811284/in/photolist-owdDvf-oeVMQ7-owfhTY-oeM9Ch-owfhvJ-oeMmSg-oufeDh-owh6Lr-ovZWet-owh67v-oeMktz-owh5se-ovZUv8-owh4ct-oeMiox-oeN8rz-owfdj7-oeMqxm-oxQCWv-oeA6Ag-ovLz5F-ou1RiS-oexEwd-ou1JKb-oey11G-oxLfDc-ovJdWi-oxLcMR-oxuKCX-odoonG-odom4e-oeM4ZQ-oeHsin-oeGjkd-oeGy5M-owch9v-ovZ9rQ-ow5T7v-oeAZgZ-oezU7A-ou3YKS-oezTEd-ow45kU-ow44vN-oezcYC-oeyQMb-ovMCB8-ou2Tx9-ovQCLJ-ow1VTC

and

https://www.flickr.com/photos/internetarchivebookimages/14776265501/in/photolist-oxQCWv-oeA6Ag-ovLz5F-ou1RiS-oexEwd-ou1JKb-oey11G-oxLfDc-ovJdWi-oxLcMR-oxuKCX-odoonG-odom4e-oeM4ZQ-oeHsin-oeGjkd-oeGy5M-owch9v-ovZ9rQ-ow5T7v-oeAZgZ-oezU7A-ou3YKS-oezTEd-ow45kU-ow44vN-oezcYC-oeyQMb-ovMCB8-ou2Tx9-ovQCLJ-ow1VTC-ou1MJY-oey4kN-oey3Wm-ovLu7V-oexFsG-ovLt7Z-oewzNe-otH439-ovK2xi-ovwUVU-oefmAf-ovwU7u-ouRi5G-owCMrr-ouRgMm-ouSV3e-osJYdG-owwH1V

it’s a pretty great tool for discovery!

Found on the web: Digital archive of restaurant menus

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The New York Public Library recently released a digital archive of restaurant menus dating from 1851 to 2008. Not only have they digitized the historical menus they are in the process of crowdsourcing the transcriptions of the menus with 14,592 of 17,423 completed so far. This is opening up not only the menus but the data inside.

For example it’s now incredibly easy to find out that macaroni and cheese appears on 33 individual menus and shows up as early as 1890. It also raises question such as why did the dish’s popularity spike in 1919?

New York Public Library data on Macaroni And Cheese

New York Public Library data on Macaroni And Cheese

 

The NYPL is also offering up the data as a quick CSV download if you want to play with it and they have a public API of the menus (their first such effort) if that is your thing.

This digital archive represents a great open research resources for a variety of fields. For the design or marketing majors you could study the evolution of what the menu looks like. Or you could use it as a primary source in an economics paper on changing prices of a t-bone steak.

For more resources on food scholarship here at Mcgill you can check out the open access journal CuiZine: The Journal of Canadian Food Cultures or you can come visit our Rare Books and Special Collections reading room and ask to see the cookbook collection.