Category Archives: Updates

How to access audio & visual materials through the McGill libraries’ website.

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Yeah, you just read it. McGill Libraries can be more fun than you think! As a McGill student, you have access to a vast range of resources, most of which are offered through the libraries. One of these resources is audio and visual material, which could be anything from films, documentaries, animations, and theatrical releases to literary adaptations, and music labels including standard, classic, and jazz.

Finding Films Online

McGill Libraries offers a variety of streaming services and databases where you can access films and other visual materials. These platforms provide a wide range of content suitable for both academic and recreational purposes. Here’s how you can access them:

  1. Sofia Discovery Tool: Use the Sofia Discovery tool to search for films and audiovisual materials. You can filter your search results by format to find specifically what you’re looking for, such as DVDs, streaming videos, or CDs.
  2. Kanopy: Kanopy offers a vast collection of films, including documentaries, indie films, and classic cinema. You can stream these directly from the library’s website.
  3. NFB Campus: The National Film Board of Canada provides access to a wide range of Canadian films and documentaries. McGill students can stream these through the library’s subscription.
  4. Criterion-on-Demand: This service provides access to a large collection of feature films, documentaries, and more. It’s a great resource for both entertainment and study purposes.
  5. Music Online: For music lovers, the library offers access to streaming services that include a wide array of genres. Platforms like Naxos Music Library and Alexander Street Press cover classical, jazz, and world music.

Accessing Audio Materials

Whether you’re studying music, learning a new language, or just enjoying some tunes, McGill Libraries have you covered with a variety of audio resources:

  1. Naxos Music Library: This is a comprehensive collection of classical music available for streaming. It includes thousands of albums from various classical music labels.
  2. Music Online: This platform offers a wide range of audio content across different genres and periods, perfect for both casual listening and academic study.
  3. Language Learning: For those looking to improve their language skills, McGill Libraries provide access to audio language courses and materials through various databases.

How to Get Started

  1. Visit the Library Website: Start by visiting the McGill Libraries’ website and navigate to the audiovisual section.
  2. Use the Discovery Tools: Use tools like Sofia, Kanopy, and other specific databases to find the audio and visual materials you need.
  3. Log In with Your McGill Credentials: Most of these resources require you to log in with your McGill credentials. Make sure you have your login information handy.
  4. Explore and Enjoy: Once logged in, you can start exploring the vast array of materials available. Whether for study or leisure, there’s plenty to discover.

For more detailed information and to explore the full range of audio and visual resources available, visit the McGill Libraries’ Audio-Visual Guide.

Understanding Periodicals: Finding Journals at the McGill Libraries

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Periodicals are publications released at regular intervals (weekly, monthly, quarterly) that provide current information on various subjects. Periodicals can commonly refer to anything from scholarly journals, professional or trade magazines, popular magazines, to newspapers. For students and researchers, periodicals are vital resources for staying up-to-date with recent developments, finding in-depth analyses, and accessing peer-reviewed research.

Types of Periodicals

  1. Scholarly Journals: These are peer-reviewed publications containing articles written by experts in academic or professional fields. They include citations and bibliographies and are aimed at researchers, scholars, and professionals.
  2. Popular Magazines: These are generally written for a general audience and contain shorter articles on various topics. They include advertisements and are not typically peer-reviewed.
  3. Trade Publications: These focus on news, trends, and practical information for professionals in a specific industry.
  4. Newspapers: Provide daily or weekly news and articles on a wide range of topics, including current events, politics, and culture.

Which one to use completely depends on your research purpose, but as a university student, you will rely heavily on journals while doing research.

Finding Journals at the McGill Libraries

The McGill Libraries offer various tools and resources to help students and researchers locate periodicals. The Sofia Discovery Tool, sometimes referred to as WorldCat, is a comprehensive search tool that allows users to find articles, books, media, and more across McGill’s collections. If you are looking for a specific journal, you can search using the title. Include double quotes around the title of the journal for better results (ex. “Journal of Canadian Studies”). Under Format, select Journal, magazine to see only journals in the results list. For journals that are available online, under Format select eJournal/eMagazine. To find periodicals related to a specific subject, you can use keywords, titles, or subjects and then filter the results to show only articles or journals using the same filter as previously (Under Format, select Journal, magazine). Here also you can filter the search to only view journals that are available online.  For more specialized searches, using databases might be more effective​.

In addition, the McGill Libraries provide access to numerous databases, both multidisciplinary and subject-specific, and subject guides curated by liaison librarians, offer tailored recommendations for databases, journals, and other resources relevant to specific fields of study. 

Accessing and retrieving Periodicals

  • Online Access: if McGill has online access, periodicals will be available to access electronically. Once you locate the desired article or journal via Sofia or a database, you can access it online if it has the Access journal link.
  • Print Access: If a journal is only available in print, you can retrieve it from the library’s physical collections. The library also offers scanning services and interlibrary loans if a specific article or journal issue is not available at McGill. Make sure to note the library branch and call number since you will need that information to locate the print journal.

Getting Help

If you need assistance finding or accessing periodicals, McGill Libraries offers various support services, including chat, email, and in-person help from librarians. They can guide you through the search process, recommend resources, and help with any technical issues.

For more detailed guidance and resources, visit McGill Library’s Journal Finder and explore their subject guides​.

Asian-Authored Books to Read This Spring

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The following booklist was compiled by Pranjal Malik and Olivia Melanson to help celebrate Asian Heritage Month here at the Libraries. The list strives to be geographically diverse, covering a wide scope and many different voices.

Yellowface, R.F. Kuang

“What’s the harm in a pseudonym? Bestselling sensation Juniper Song is not who she says she is, she didn’t write the book she claims she wrote, and she is most certainly not Asian American – in this chilling and hilariously cutting novel from the #1 New York Times bestselling author R. F. Kuang in the vein of White Ivy and The Other Black Girl.”

Beauty is a wound, Eka Kurniawan

“One afternoon on a weekend in May, Dewi Ayu rose from her grave after being dead for twenty-one years. So begins Beauty Is a Wound, an epic, sweeping, compulsively readable novel, combining history, satire, family tragedy, legend, humor, and romance in a sweeping polyphony. […] The bravura resilience on display here makes Beauty Is a Wound a luscious yet astringent product of the art blossoming since the fall of Suharto.”

No One Can Pronounce My Name, Rakesh Satya

“In a suburb outside Cleveland, a community of Indian Americans has settled into lives that straddle the divide between Eastern and Western cultures. For some, America is a bewildering and alienating place where coworkers can’t pronounce your name but will eagerly repeat the Sanskrit phrases from their yoga class. […] When Harit and Ranjana’s paths cross, they begin a strange yet necessary friendship that brings to light their own passions and fears”

Exit West, Mohsin Hamid

“In a country teetering on the brink of civil war, two young people meet […]. They embark on a furtive love affair, thrust into premature intimacy by the unrest roiling their city. When it explodes, turning familiar streets into a patchwork of checkpoints and bomb blasts, they begin to hear whispers about doors – doors that can whisk people far away, if perilously and for a price.”

The Wrong End of the Telescope,  Rabih Alameddine

“Mina Simpson, a Lebanese doctor, arrives at the infamous Moria refugee camp on Lesbos, Greece, after being urgently summoned for help by her friend who runs an NGO there. Alienated from her family except for her beloved brother, Mina has avoided being so close to her homeland for decades. But with a week off work and apart from her wife of thirty years, Mina hopes to accomplish something meaningful […]”

The Startup Wife A Novel, Tahmima Anam

“Newlyweds Asha and Cyrus build an app that replaces religious rituals and soon find themselves running one of the most popular social media platforms in the world. The platform creates a sensation, with millions of users seeking personalized rituals every day. Will Cyrus and Asha’s marriage survive the pressures of sudden fame, or will she become overshadowed by the man everyone is calling the new messiah?”

Minor Feelings, Cathy Park Hong

“Asian Americans inhabit a purgatorial status: neither white enough nor black enough, unmentioned in most conversations about racial identity. In the popular imagination, Asian Americans are all high-achieving professionals. But in reality, this is the most economically divided group in the country […] Poet and essayist Cathy Park Hong fearlessly and provocatively confronts this thorny subject, blending memoir, cultural criticism, and history to expose the truth of racialized consciousness in America.

Counterfeit, Kirstin Chen

“Ava Wong has always played it safe. As a strait-laced, rule-abiding Chinese American lawyer with a successful surgeon as a husband, a young son, and a beautiful home, she’s built the perfect life. But beneath this façade, Ava’s world is crumbling. […] Enter Winnie Fang, Ava’s enigmatic college roommate from Mainland China. […] But the shy, awkward girl Ava once knew has been replaced with a confident woman of the world, dripping in luxury goods, including a coveted Birkin in classic orange.”

A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini

A breathtaking story set against the volatile events of Afghanistan’s last thirty years-from the Soviet invasion to the reign of the Taliban to post-Taliban rebuilding-that puts the violence, fear, hope and faith of this country in intimate, human terms. It is a tale of two generations of characters brought jarringly together by the tragic sweep of war […]”

Frankenstein in Baghdad, Ahmed Saadawi

“From the rubble-strewn streets of U.S.-occupied Baghdad, Hadi, a scavenger and an oddball fixture at a local café, collects human body parts and stitches them together to create a corpse. His goal, he claims, is for the government to recognize the parts as people and to give them proper burial. But when the corpse goes missing, a wave of eerie murders sweeps the city, and reports stream in of a horrendous-looking criminal who, though shot, cannot be killed.”

Convenience Store Woman, Sayaka Murata

“Keiko Furukura had always been considered a strange child, and her parents always worried how she would get on in the real world, so when she takes on a job in a convenience store while at university, they are delighted for her. For her part, in the convenience store she finds a predictable world mandated by the store manual, which dictates how the workers should act and what they should say, and she copies her coworkers’ style of dress and speech patterns so that she can play the part of a normal person.”