Ingenium celebrates #LibraryShelfie Day from home in 2021

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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

“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