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Improve Your Writing With This Book Display

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From completing job application to finishing up assignments for courses, most of us have hit one of the busiest times in the semester. With the opportunity to apply new skills first-hand to current projects, now is the perfect time to acquire new study and writing skills! To help with this, our March book display, “Writing Success,” is sure to come in handy.

Whether you’re looking for grammar tips or step-by-step guides, this book display has all the tools you need to elevate your writing.

Below are a few picks from the March book display. For the full collection, check out the in-person display at the McLennan-Redpath Library.

A Mind For Numbers by Barbara Oakley

Whether you are a student struggling to fulfill a math or science requirement, or you are embarking on a career change that requires a new skill set, A Mind for Numbers offers the tools you need to get a better grasp of that intimidating material.

English Grammar For Dummies by Wendy M. Anderson

Graceless with grammar? Perplexed by punctuation? Have no fear! This second Australian edition of English Grammar For Dummies explains everything from basic sentence structure to the finer points of grammar. Packed with expert advice, this book will help you to communicate more effectively and make the right impression every time.

How to Take Smart Notes by Sönke Ahrens

The key to good and efficient writing lies in the intelligent organisation of ideas and notes. This book helps students, academics and nonfiction writers to get more done, write intelligent texts and learn for the long run. It teaches you how to take smart notes and ensure they bring you and your projects forward.

The Study Skills Guide by Jacqueline Connelly and Patrick Forsyth

The Study Skills Guide covers the essential skills that lead to success at university. With advice on how to work efficiently and achieve great results, this comprehensive guide offers practical and proven ways to cope with the challenges you will face.

How to Write a Thesis by Rowena Murray

This invaluable book covers issues such as working out the criteria for your thesis, writer’s block, writing a literature review, making notes into a draft and much more. 

Library Vocab 101: What is a Catalogue Record?

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When using the McGill Libraries, it can be useful to know what the various terms on the website mean in order to become more efficient in your work. However, terms such as “Catalogue” and “Catalogue Record” may come up – but what exactly do these words mean?

What is the library Catalogue?

The library catalogue is the collection of all the materials available through the McGill Libraries, whether it be books, articles, movies, or any other resources. For a better searching experience, the Sofia Discovery Tool allows you to browse the library catalogue for materials in our collection, as well as materials in other libraries worldwide.

What is a Catalogue Record?

Now that we have a better grasp on what the catalogue is, it’s time to turn to catalogue records. When you search something in the catalogue, all the results that come up are individual (catalogue) records.

To see more information on a particular record, simply click on it. This will show you all of the metadata within that catalogue record, such as the author, date of publication, and ISBN number. Each search result is its own individual catalogue record, with information on the selected record stored within it!

If you have any questions about how to use the library or more, contact hssl.library@mcgill.ca

Add Colour to Your Collection With This Book Display!

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Though we are often told not to judge a book by its cover, we may have to make an exception for January’s Redpath Book Display.

This month, the main floor of Redpath received a colourful twist with our “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” book display. Featuring all types of genres from romance to mystery, fantasy and history, this display will be sure to catch your eye with all seven colours of the rainbow!

Below are a few picks from the January display. For the full collection, check out the in-person display at the McLennan-Redpath Library, or the Virtual Book Display!

Moonflower Murders by Anthony Horowitz

Farlingaye Hall is a beautiful hotel in Suffolk on the east coast of England. Unfortunately, it is also the site of the brutal murder of Frank Parris, a retired advertising executive. Stefan Codrescu, a Romanian maintenance man, is arrested after police discover blood spatter on his clothes and bed linen. He is found guilty and sentenced to eight years in prison. It appears to be an open-and-shut case, but there is more to it than meets the eye.

The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois by Honorée Fanonne Jeffers

To come to terms with her own identity, Ailey embarks on a journey through her family’s past, uncovering the shocking tales of generations of ancestors—Indigenous, Black, and white—in the deep South. In doing so Ailey must learn to embrace her full heritage, a legacy of oppression and resistance, bondage and independence, cruelty and resilience that is the story—and the song—of America itself.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James

James deftly chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters – gunmen, drug dealers, one-night stands, CIA agents,  even ghosts – over the course of thirty years as they roam the streets of 1970s Kingston, dominate the crack houses of 1980s New York, and ultimately reemerge into the radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Along the way, they learn that evil does indeed cast long shadows, that justice and retribution are inextricably linked, and that no one can truly escape his fate.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

A series of mysterious events gets Flavia’s attention: A dead bird is found on the doormat, a postage stamp bizarrely pinned to its beak. A mysterious late-night visitor argues with her aloof father, Colonel de Luce, behind closed doors. And in the early morning Flavia finds a red-headed stranger lying in the cucumber patch and watches him take his dying breath. For Flavia, the summer begins in earnest when murder comes to Buckshaw: “I wish I could say I was afraid, but I wasn’t. Quite the contrary. This was by far the most interesting thing that had ever happened to me in my entire life.”

Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff

At age twenty-two, Lotto and Mathilde are tall, glamorous, madly in love, and destined for greatness. A decade later, their marriage is still the envy of their friends, but with an electric thrill we understand that things are even more complicated and remarkable than they have seemed. With stunning revelations and multiple threads, and in prose that is vibrantly alive and original, Groff delivers a deeply satisfying novel about love, art, creativity, and power that is unlike anything that has come before it. Profound, surprising, propulsive, and emotionally riveting, it stirs both the mind and the heart.

Truly Devious by Maureen Johnson

Shortly after Ellingham Academy opened, Albert Ellingham’s wife and daughter were kidnapped. The only real clue was a mocking riddle listing methods of murder, signed with the frightening pseudonym “Truly, Devious.” It became one of the great unsolved crimes of American history. True-crime aficionado Stevie Bell is set to begin her first year at Ellingham Academy, and she has an ambitious plan: She will solve this cold case.

Welcome to Night Vale by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor

Located in a nameless desert somewhere in the great American Southwest, Night Vale is a small town where ghosts, angels, aliens, and government conspiracies are all commonplace parts of everyday life. It is here that the lives of two women, with two mysteries, will converge.