It’s not too late to celebrate Data Privacy Week!

Data Privacy Week is the last week of January each year. It began as just one day – January 28th – but has since expanded into a full week and is celebrated around the world. According to the Office of the Privacy Commission of Canada website, “January 28 … commemorate[s] the 1981 signing of Convention 108, the first legally binding international treaty dealing with privacy and data protection.” We celebrate Data Privacy Week to emphasize the importance of valuing and protecting personal information.


Photo by Privecstasy on Unsplash

McGill Library has a Privacy Resources Guide that provides information, links, and tools related to digital privacy. You can also check out the virtual Redpath Book Display from last year: Privacy, Surveillance, and Big Data. All of the books and videos in the display are available through the library.

McGill is an official Data Privacy Week Champion and McGill IT Services is offering some virtual events and a contest over the next couple of weeks. See the calendar here.

Cupid Strikes Again: Love Data Week

In the darkness and cold of winter, the only thing we have is each other (and SOUP). While us mortals scuffle through the snow and start the winter semester, a little flying baby has other plans. From the top of the Arts Building a heart-shaped arrow is drawn with chubby little fingers… cupid has struck the Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Suddenly we are pawning over statistics, excel, charts, and more. From this adoration, Love Data Week was born. 

Love Data Week is back for 2022! 

This year, there is a full week of events catered to all. Whether or not you have been bitten by the love(data) bug, there are introductory workshops, intermediate tutorials, and an exciting panel. Data is for everyone. All workshops are remote, but still a ton of fun.

You can register for individual workshops, or as many of the 11 offered that you want to come to.

A little cupid told us that an exciting event this year is the The Pandora Papers for Data Lovers. This is a panel from the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists about the process of working with these papers that expose the shadow financial system that benefits the world’s most rich and powerful. You can register here to attend on February 16th, at 12PM EST.

Wonderful librarians and staff have super worked hard to bring #LoveDataWeek2022 so come, bring friends, and show love <3

Join us for a romantic week with data and maybe even fall in love…

Canada Reads 2022 at McGill

Canada Reads has just announced their 2022 longlist of titles for the Battle of the Books competition. From this list five books will be chosen by five different celebrities who each champion a book. Panelists vote out a book each day until only one winner remains.

The Humanities and Social Sciences Library has many of the books included on this year’s longlist. Click the links on each book for more information on how to borrow.

Driver by Marcello Di Cintio

Washington Black by Esi Edugyan

What Strange Paradise by Omar El Akkad

Book of Wings by Tawhida Tanya Evanson

Satellite Love by Genki Ferguson *

Everyone Knows Your Mother Is a Witch by Rivka Galchen

Five Little Indians by Michelle Good

Scarborough by Catherine Hernandez

All the Quiet Places by Brian Thomas Isaac *

Dominoes at the Crossroads by Kaie Kellough *

Velvet Was the Night by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Life in the City of Dirty Water by Clayton Thomas-Müller *

From My Mother’s Back by Njoki Wane

We Two Alone by Jack Wang *

The Spoon Stealer by Lesley Crewe **

* Available through the BAnQ or les Bibliothèques Montéal

** This book can be requested via InterLibrary Loan


Follow CBC Reads

The five final books and the celebrity champions will be revealed on January 26th, 2022 and the debates are set to take place from March 28th – 31st, 2022. You can watch or listen on CBC Radio OneCBC TVCBC Gem and on CBC Books