Skip to main content
Ingenium Logo

You are leaving IngeniumCanada.org

✖


This link leads to an external website that Ingenium does not control. Please read the third-party’s privacy policies before entering personal information or conducting a transaction on their site.

Have questions? Review our Privacy Statement

Vous quittez IngeniumCanada.org

✖


Ce lien mène à un site Web externe qu'Ingenium ne contrôle pas. Veuillez lire les politiques de confidentialité des tiers avant de partager des renseignements personnels ou d'effectuer une transaction sur leur site.

Questions? Consultez notre Énoncé de confidentialité

Ingenium The Channel

Langue

  • Français
Search Toggle

Menu des liens rapides

  • Ingenium Locations
  • Shop
  • Donate
  • Join
Menu

Main Navigation

  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners

Ingenium celebrates #LibraryShelfie Day from home in 2021

Share
5 m
Jan 26, 2021
Categories
Agriculture
Categories
Aviation
Library and Archives
Rail Transportation
Road Transportation
Social Science & Culture
Media
Article
Profile picture for user Adele Torrance
By: Adele Torrance
Ingenium
A tight shot of a bookshelf, crowded with a plant, photographs, a stereo speaker, and some books visible on these shelves.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Adele Torrance
The author’s bookshelves at home, which she feels are quite messy compared to a typical library shelf!

Happy #LibraryShelfie Day 2021!

Founded in 2014 by the New York Public Library, Library Shelfie Day is celebrated on the fourth Wednesday of January. It’s a day for bibliophiles to pose and promote the things they love on social media, along with the hashtag: #LibraryShelfie!

Once again, Ingenium staff wanted to share some “shelfies” with you. This year we’re doing things a little differently than we did last year. Two of the photos below show the realities of our library staff’s home work environments. Ingenium’s two library locations have been closed to the public since the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, but we continue to answer questions from the general public by phone (343-548-4368) or by email (library@IngeniumCanada.org). The Library catalogue is always available online, for those who want to plan a future visit when we are able to reopen safely.

In certain urgent cases, library staff have been able to provide Ingenium colleagues with access to the collections, but in general we have been limiting the circulation and use of library materials as a precautionary measure to fight the spread of COVID-19. When a book or piece of trade literature is consulted by staff, the piece is isolated for a period of time as indicated in the recommendations made by the REopening Archives, Libraries, and Museums project.

Below you’ll also find some “shelfies” taken in the home offices of a few of our library-loving Ingenium colleagues. It’s interesting to see what books our staff have purchased for themselves; some are reference books bought at some point in their career, and kept at home to use outside of office hours. Other books reflect personal pursuits and interests. These classics have come in useful during the pandemic, both as reference tools and as sources of inspiration.

Remember that these shelfies serve as reading recommendations as well. Join the fun and share your own recommendations with us on social media, using the hashtag: #LibraryShelfie

A woman sits at a wooden kitchen table in front of a window. She is working on a laptop computer and there are brochures for cars spread out on the table.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Catherine Campbell
Librarian Catherine Campbell’s home office

“This is my home office! There is no shortage of trade literature to catalogue, and these automobile brochures from companies such as Renault, Humber, and Holden are just the tip of the iceberg. When my eyes are tired from staring at the screen or trying to figure out the publication dates of the catalogues, I can just feast my gaze on the river view, and look forward to my next walk. The only thing missing is my colleagues.”

~ Librarian Catherine Campbell

A laptop computer, library materials, index cards, a keyboard, and a mouse are spread out on an ironing board positioned in front of a window.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Sylvie Bertrand

Library Services Officer Sylvie Bertrand’s improvised standing work desk is an ironing board in front of a window. She has been cataloguing aviation-related trade literature while working from home.

“Improvisation is the new ‘buzz word’ during this pandemic and working from home. An ironing board will do the trick! I can work standing or sitting, with a nice view from my window.”

~ Library Services Officer Sylvie Bertrand

A woman smiles as she sits in front of a tall bookshelf while holding the book, La vie cachée des fleurs. Plants are visible on top of the bookshelf.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Renée-Claude Goulet

Science Advisor, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Renée-Claude Goulet

“My personal library is rather eclectic, but it does contain a few reference books! This year is the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, so I have been coming up with ways to teach people about the fascinating science behind our food. Naturally, I reached for La vie cachée des fleurs, which belonged to my grandmother and is where she kept old newspaper clippings and hand-written notes on garden care. It's been providing a lot of inspiration, with full-page images of, well, plant reproductive parts — the starting point of all our fruit, and of many of our vegetables (which are technically fruit if they came from a flower)!”

~ Science Advisor, Canada Agriculture and Food Museum, Renée-Claude Goulet

A woman smiles as she stands in front of her bookshelf at home. She is holding up the book Material Culture by Henry Glassie.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Sharon Babaian

Curator of Marine and Land Transportation Sharon Babaian

“Henry Glassie's Material Culture, which is made up of a series of case studies, is a standard text for many students of material culture. For me, it's much more than that; I look to it for inspiration whenever I need to think about the many meanings of an artifact. There's poetry in the way he relates to and thinks about makers and users, materials and techniques. The simplest object is imbued with great meaning by the human act of creation and adaptation. He makes his readers look at all human-made objects with fresh eyes, helping them to find new meanings even in mass-produced objects.”

~ Curator of Marine and Land Transportation Sharon Babaian

A woman peaks out from the side of the photograph, with only one eye and half her face visible. The rest of the photograph shows a full bookshelf, and a black-and-white photograph of a boy in a kilt standing beside a bicycle.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Fiona Smith Hale

Chief Knowledge Officer Fiona Smith Hale

“My shelfie books are both about nature and the study of nature. The first book I plan to read is Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer. This was one of the books on my Christmas wish list, and is top of my 'to read' pile. It is stacked on top of the second book I plan to read, The Invention of Nature: Alexander von Humboldt's New World by Andrea Wulf. I read and loved Ms. Wulf's book, The Brother Gardeners, so I have high hopes for this book. It's also on the book club list that my sons and I started this year (a COVID thing that I hope carries on beyond.)”

~ Chief Knowledge Officer Fiona Smith Hale

A woman stands beside the top of a wooden dresser that is acting as a bookshelf. The book Right Stuff, Wrong Sex is turned to the camera so the cover is on display.
Photo Credit
Ingenium | Erin Gregory

Curator of Aviation and Space Erin Gregory

“My make shift bookcase (the top of a guestroom dresser) has a few new editions to my collection, but also a new copy of an old favourite, Right Stuff, Wrong Sex. It's the incredibly interesting story of the first female could-be astronauts in the American human space flight program.”

~ Curator of Aviation and Space Erin Gregory

Tags
#LibraryShelfie, Library Shelfie Day, New York Public Library, libraries, bibliophiles, books, bookshelves
Author(s)
Profile picture for user Adele Torrance
Adele Torrance
Follow

 Adele Torrance is the Archivist at Ingenium - Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation.

More Stories by

Profile picture for user Adele Torrance
Adele Torrance
Ingenium
Colour photograph showing white boxes on a vertical bay of archival shelves.  A label on the closest box says: “Creagan Collection AH0075.5. Airmen 1914-1918 Canadian & British. Drawer Two: 2 of 2.”

Archives Awareness Week 2022 - no tours yet, but try…archival shelf bingo!

A variety of audio-visual formats, including film, audio, and different kinds of video cassettes, from the Les Harris Fonds are spread out on a table.

View from above: Capturing the experience of flight on film

Three women are visible in separate windows in a virtual meeting screen.

Coffee, cats, and metadata: Archivists working from home

Image is a black-and-white photograph showing the first Canadian contingent of troops standing at attention before a train car.

Remembering in black and white: Wartime photographs just released in Ingenium’s Digital Archives

A black-and-white photograph showing a line of CF-100 jet aircraft in front of two hangars.

Spice up your Zoom meetings with an image from Ingenium’s Digital Archives!

Image is a black-and-white photograph showing employees standing on and around a steam locomotive. There are about 40 men

Archives Awareness Week: Digital Archives portal expands railway and aviation collections

A scan of the damaged cover of a catalogue. On the page behind, you can see handwriting in pencil showing through.

Uncovering the age-old angst of love

Ingenium staff take a group “shelfie” in the new Ingenium Centre Library and Archives.

Ingenium celebrates Library Shelfie Day!

A large front desk and open area near the entrance to the new Library and Archives at the Ingenium Centre.

Ingenium’s new Library and Archives now open to the public

Screen shot of Explore page on Ingenium's Digital Archives portal.

Happy birthday to Ingenium's Digital Archives

Hudson Strait Expedition Personnel of Base "C" - October 1927

The Hudson Strait Expedition: Looking beyond the prism of provenance

Screen capture of the Digital Archives welcome page.

Ingenium’s Digital Archives opens museum vaults to the curious

Related Stories

Spliced image, from left to right: a seismometer on mars, a heap of red rhubarb stalks with green leaves, a copper roof of the Canaian Parliament

3 Things you should know about marsquakes, the value of urine, and the chemistry of rhubarb

A dirty glass slide of a stromatolite with a dirty cotton swab at the bottom; a close-up on a bee with a green head and thorax on a yellow flower; a false colour 3D view of the surface of Venus showing volcanoes and lava flowing towards the foreground.

3 Things you should know about how native bees are important pollinators, how saliva is used to clean artifacts, and active volcanism on Venus

Ahh, ice cream, the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. I do wonder if this young boy knew he was actually eating mellorine. Anon., “De la crème glacée synthétique.” Photo-Journal, 16 April 1953, 3.

Do they or do they not buy some? Only their grocer knows for sure: A brief look at a lower-cost imitation of ice cream sometimes known as mellorine

A spliced photo, from left to right: Shaun the Sheep in front of a model of ESA’s European Service Module, a top view into a red bucket containing thousands of light-brown, rod-shaped pellets, and a toddler wearing a wool hat and wool sweater holds a grownup’s finger.

3 things you should know about why wool keeps us warm, and about its surprising uses in the garden and in space.

A large impact crater viewed from the rim, a woodern spoon full of small yellow grains, a close up of a forearm being tattooed.

3 things you should know about the untapped potential of millet, the permanence of tattoos, and asteroid airbursts

A promoter of Sure Food, the food chemist James Pearson (right), at the facility of Wentworth Canning Company Limited of Hamilton, Ontario. Anon., “La viande, synthétique, produit canadien, pourrait sauver de la famine les peuples affamés d’Europe.” Photo-Journal, 5 February 1948, 3.

“It smells like meat. It even looks like meat.” The long forgotten tale of a synthetic meat / meat substitute / meat analogue / meat alternative / imitation meat sometimes called Sure Food

Three images side by side: a toilet bowl expelling a cloud of droplets, a gloved hand holding a test tube containing a small plant, and an infrared view of Jupiter's volcanic moon Io showing spots of volcanic activity covering the moon.

3 things you should know about flushing the toilet, artificial photosynthesis, and volcanic activity on Jupiter's moon

A typical wild and free bullfrog. John J. Brice, editor, A Manual of Fish-Culture: Based on the Methods of the United States Commission of Fish and Fisheries, with Chapters on the Cultivation of Oysters and Frogs (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1897), 258.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 4

A typical advertisement of Giant Frog & Sea Food Limited of Montréal, Québec. Anon., “Giant Frog & Sea Food Limited. La Patrie, 18 October 1952, 53.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 3

Three of the innumerable American bullfrogs found on the frog farm of Harold Lee, Casitas Springs, California. Anon., “Nature – Frog Farm.” Pix, 6 January 1951, 30.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 2

A typical advertisement of Canadian Frog’s Industries Company of Montréal, Québec. Anon., “Canadian Frog’s Industries Company.” La Patrie, 16 November 1952, 86.

“Is a frog game or fish? There is the rub.” A brief look at the history of ranaculture in Canada and Québec, Part 1

A spliced, three-part image features: a view of the Apollo 11 ascent module flying above the grey Moon on the left, honeybees on a honeycomb in the centre, and a hand holding a fanned-out deck of cards.

3 things you should know about how mathematics is used for space exploration, how honeybees are masters of geometry, and the uniqueness of a shuffled deck of cards.

Footer

About The Channel

The Channel

Contact Us

Ingenium
P.O. Box 9724, Station T
Ottawa ON K1G 5A3
Canada

613-991-3044
1-866-442-4416
contact@IngeniumCanada.org
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • Channel

    • Channel Home
    • About the Channel
    • Content Partners
  • Visit

    • Online Resources for Science at Home
    • Canada Agriculture and Food Museum
    • Canada Aviation and Space Museum
    • Canada Science and Technology Museum
    • Ingenium Centre
  • Ingenium

    • Ingenium Home
    • About Ingenium
    • The Foundation
  • For Media

    • Newsroom
    • Awards

Connect with us

Subscribe to our newsletter to receive the latest Ingenium news straight to your inbox!

Sign Up

Legal Bits

Ingenium Privacy Statement

© 2023 Ingenium

Symbol of the Government of Canada
  • Browse
    • Categories
    • Media Types
    • Boards
    • Featured Stories
  • About
    • About The Channel
    • Content Partners