ABQLA and You
Jennifer Hoyer
The Association des Bibliothècaires du Québec/Québec Library Association has just started up a student chapter here at McGill. We’re looking for ways to help McGill students get more connected to the Montréal and Québec library scene, whether for the short term while in school or with a long-term career in mind. Our parent ABQLA chapter hosts events, as well as an annual conference, with the aim of helping librarians develop themselves professionally and get to know other local librarians.
Our goal is to plan similarly helpful events for students, tapping into the knowledge of professionals in this city. So far in the semester we have hosted a local school librarian, who gave an enlightening talk on what it looks like to be a school librarian in this province, and we coordinated a tour of the Bibliothèque Nationale. We would also like to get to know our library school neighbours at the Université de Montréal; we’ve met up for drinks, and we hope to do more with them in the future.
Membership in the ABQLA isn’t mandatory to take part in our student chapter activities, although it has other benefits such as a local jobs mailing list. We hope to help McGill students connect with Montréal librarians, and if you have any suggestions about how we can do that we would love to hear from you.
Sincerely,
Jennifer Hoyer