Seed Fund

The UVic Libraries and Kula: Library Futures Academy Seed Fund is designed to support initiatives and projects that will explore and advance UVic Libraries’ strategic priorities.

Listed below are the 2025 Seed Fund recipients.

Graphic narrative storytelling

A workshop for librarians

Tina Bebbington

Gareth Gaudin, a professional comic artist, filmmaker, and teacher, will visit UVic to prototype and conduct a workshop on graphic storytelling in order to teach staff about new modes of knowledge transmission through graphic narratives.

Impact

This workshop will provide a creative and engaging learning experience that supports librarian professional development in the field of graphic narrative storytelling while fostering a sense of community and collaboration.

Geospatial data

Interdisciplinary workshops

Daniel Brendle-Moczuk

This project will hire a graduate student to create a series of interdisciplinary, tiered geospatial data workshops at UVic Libraries so that students and faculty can incorporate more geospatial work into their research.

Project goals

Experiential Learning

Provide hands-on learning opportunities for UVic students, particularly a graduate student who will develop the workshops.

Knowledge Advancement

Enhance the understanding and skills related to geospatial data among students and workshop attendees.

Interdisciplinary Collaboration

Foster partnerships between UVic Libraries and various departments, such as Environmental Studies and Geography.

Impact

These workshops will create a sustainable and impactful learning environment that enhances geospatial data skills and fosters community engagement.

Unlocking the past

AI-powered discovery for Victoria's historical press archives

Corey Davis

This project will help develop an open-source retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipeline using historic newspapers held by UVic Libraries.

Background

RAG is a powerful approach that blends information retrieval with generative AI to produce accurate, context-aware responses grounded in authoritative source material, making it especially well-suited to cultural heritage and archival collections.

Impact

UVic Libraries can position itself as a leader in practical, ethical applications of AI in digital preservation regionally, nationally, and internationally.

The proposed RAG pipeline can serve as a template for other institutions looking to responsibly use LLMs with digitized collections. It will also raise the profile of UVic’s digital initiatives by contributing back to open-source communities and showcasing this work at major conferences.

Paper and pigment

Locating book arts in the physical environment

Heather Dean | Dr. Mary Elizabeth Leighton | Jacob Maddison | Christine Walde | Juls Macdonell

This project will explore the material aspects of historical and contemporary book arts by grounding book history research and learning in the physical environment.

Background

Encountering textual objects for the first time, students and members of the public often ask: how were these objects made? And what were they made from?

Providing insight into how such objects have been created over time, and how they are made today, this transdisciplinary project explores the art and science of paper and pigments.

Project goals

The project has three objectives, which will be realized over the course of the 2025-2026 academic year:

Papermaking

We will plant, grow, and harvest flax, which we will then make into paper. This work will be undertaken in collaboration with the Campus Community Garden, students, faculty members, librarians, and archivists.

Inks and Pigments

Students (including, but not limited to, ENSH 301) will learn about historical and contemporary ink/pigment making through a workshop with local artist Caitlin ﬀrench. We will learn about how pigments have historically been made, as well as the ways that pigments can be created from local resources (such as grapevine, willow twigs, oak galls, and acorn caps).

Outreach

Learning and research taking place throughout the year will be shared more broadly with the local and scholarly communities through a collaboratively curated digital exhibition and community outreach events.

Impact

The project will build on, and complement, processes experienced in the Book Arts Lab and objects held in Special Collections and University Archives and the Legacy Galleries. In addition, to support this work, we will develop a teaching kit with complementary mineral and parchment samples supporting learning during and after this project.

Collections-based teaching

Establishing a community of practice at UVic

Heather Dean | Caroline Riedel | Christine Walde | Lara Wilson

Background

UVic Libraries Special Collections and University Archives and University Art Collections’ holdings are an important asset for learning and research, both locally and internationally.

These collections help UVic reach strategic goals in the areas of dynamic, experiential learning, as outlined in the Impact Action Plan and UVic’s Strategic Plan:

“Our organization centres learning and creates an environment in which all students can succeed, contributing to scholarship and society.” (Impact Action Plan)
“Supporting collaborative approaches to innovation in our research, knowledge mobilization, experiential learning programs and operations.” (UVic Strategic Plan)

Project goals

This project will build further momentum around collections-based teaching by establishing a community of practice of interested archivists, curators, faculty, and librarians, who are, or are interested in, teaching with the libraries’ distinctive collections, to share their knowledge, experience, and practical approaches to collections-based pedagogy.

Impact

UVic Libraries and Art Collections support learning across faculties, including:

Education
Fine Arts
Humanities
Social Sciences
Sciences

However, those teaching these classes do not often have an opportunity to learn what is taking places beyond their sessions or disciplines.

A collections-based teaching community of practice would create an important venue to develop a holistic perspective of collections-based learning on campus, and for instructors to learn from one another, to foster collaboration and team-teaching, and to develop new and innovative transdisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to teaching with distinctive collections.

Rare book cataloguing workshop

Laura Doublet

Internationally renowned expert Deborah J. Leslie, Senior Cataloger, Folger Shakespeare Library will lead a three-day rare book cataloguing workshop with assistance by Laura Doublet, Head, Metadata, UVic Libraries.

Background

Cataloguing rare books requires specialized knowledge not covered in mainstream cataloguing courses. This involves additional considerations for the physical handling of the book, but also, the book is catalogued as if it is an object itself. Different cataloguing standards and vocabularies are applied.

Project goals

This workshop will use pre-selected hand-press era books from UVic’s Special Collections to focus on the cataloguing principles and practices of rare book cataloguing. Participants will receive instruction on applying Descriptive Rules for Rare Materials (Books) (DCRM(B)), including:

Transcription
Collation
Physical description
Distinguishing between editions and impressions
The application of genre terms and copy-specific description

Impact

Rare book cataloguing is seldom offered to a Canadian audience outside of library and information schools. This course would provide an opportunity for library professionals across the nation to explore the world of rare book cataloguing and learn how to accurately describe these items.

Additionally, UVic’s rare book collection and the Metadata Unit will greatly benefit from this specialized training, which would facilitate improved access to UVic’s rare and unique collections.

UVic Libraries will establish itself as a leader in metadata knowledge production, fostering partnerships with the rare books cataloguing community. This course also offers an opportunity to engage with Special Collections and the Farallon Book Arts Lab, while also identifying potential books for digitization and enhancing metadata through LENS@UVicLib.

Partners

Special Collections and University Archives
Metadata Unit
Deborah J. Leslie (or another expert on rare book cataloguing)
Collection Management Services

Open Science Community of Victoria

Monique Grenier

This project will support the development of the Open Science Community of Victoria (OSCV).

Background

Open Science encompasses a set of practices and represents a research reform movement dedicated to ensuring that research is treated as a public good. By promoting and normalizing open research practices, Open Science aims to democratize knowledge, fostering a more equitable, accessible, and collaborative scholarly environment.

Open Science Communities (OSCs) are grassroots learning communities where students, researchers, and research support staff adopt open practices, learn new tools, and connect with like-minded individuals. The Open Science Community Victoria (OSCV) joins a global network of 50 communities and is the second OSC in North America.

Project goals

OSCV is a collaborative initiative between UVic and Royal Roads University (RRU). This cross-institutional, multidisciplinary community will organize activities and events. The inaugural gathering will feature short talks by founding members and a cross-disciplinary panel discussion.

As detailed in the OSCV Master Plan and as the community grows, OSCV will also organize workshops, meet-ups, hackathons, mentoring programs, and lectures to facilitate learning and collaboration.

Impact

As highlighted in the Roadmap for Open Science (2020), Open Science offers numerous societal benefits:

Engagement: Enhances public dialogue, understanding, and confidence in science.
Diversity and inclusion: Leverages diverse knowledge systems and perspectives.
Knowledge transfer: Accelerates sharing and re-use of scientific information.
Synergies: Builds connections with global and domestic open data movements, embraced by governments worldwide. These benefits integrate closely with advancing quality education (SDG 4) and industry, innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9)

Partners

Cassandra Larose, the Scholarly Communication Librarian at RRU, is collaborating on this initiative during its inaugural year.
A OSCV steering committee, comprising librarians and faculty members from both institutions, will oversee and guide the activities of the community.
Given the collaborative nature of OSCs, OSCV will actively seek out local, national, and international stakeholders who are committed to open research practices.

Letters and ledgers

Tracing South Asian migration on Vancouver Island in historical archives

Aditi Gupta

This project will explore overlooked migration narratives by analyzing records from local repositories on Vancouver Island, Library and Archives Canada, the British Library, and the National Library of Scotland.

Project goals

By examining these hard to find local and international collections, this research highlights the migration patterns and uncovers narratives that have long remained underexplored, offering a richer perspective on historical migration trends and their lasting impact.

Focusing on South Asian migration and settlement on Vancouver Island during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the project utilizes rare archival materials, including letters, ledgers, and official correspondence from colonial and governmental archives.

Impact

Aligned with UVic Libraries' strategic priorities and Kula Academy’s mission, this project fosters collaborative engagement with local and global archives and deepens our understanding of migration history of communities on Vancouver Island.

Qualitative data support

Caitlin Keenan | Shahira Khair | Karen Munro

Background

As UVic Libraries becomes a more user-focused and data-driven organization, we collect more qualitative user data through consultations, surveys, and engagement activities. At the same time, our move to Springshare for more services such as chat help is generating more qualitative data.

Project goals

Support 15 UX Cafes throughout the 2025-2026 academic year

The goal of these cafes is to conduct targeted user research in a lightweight, longitudinal way. UX Cafes can be used to answer specific questions about user behaviour as well as to enhance our general understanding of the student experience through ongoing engagement.

Visitors to the UX Cafe are also invited to join our User Engagement Pool, thereby expanding our ability to conduct more substantive qualitative research over time.

Qualitative data analysis position

Hire a graduate student with qualitative data skills to analyze key collections of qualitative data and extract findings. Qualitative analysis is time consuming, and a dedicated position will help work through a high volume of data.

This position would be supervised by the Web Integration Librarian and would collaborate with the WIL and the Data Analyst to develop an Insights Repository, a database-type solution to store and retrieve insights from across these data collections that can be maintained over time.

Impact

This project will support the organization, analysis, and management of the UVic Libraries' growing collection.

Textbooks on a diet

Slimming down student expenses!

Inba Kehoe | Emily Nickerson | Caroline Winter

This project will develop an Open Educational Resource (OER) for UVic’s SENG 275 course. The professor will explore the addition of gamification elements and visual storytelling—such as points, badges, challenges, leaderboards, comics, etc.—into their software engineering and testing course.

Project goals

Introducing interactive, game-like and story-based components into the learning process will support students’ learning through humour and make it more enjoyable and effective.

Additionally, the comics may be used in future employee training modules for industry partners. This new OER will be highlighted in our Zero-Cost eTextbook list and in our OER by Discipline Directory. The final course integrated textbook will be published in the Libraries’ online eTextbook platform, PressBooks.

Impact

During the spring term, the course attracted over 110 students, with a waiting list—clearly a popular course offering.

This project aims to reduce financial barriers for students by providing a zero-cost textbook option and promoting equitable access to quality education (UN SDG #4).
It aligns with UVic Libraries’ strategic directions of Open and Engaged by offering differentiated instructional approaches, emphasizing librarian roles in curriculum development, promoting equitable access to resources, and providing experiential learning opportunities.
It also supports the Libraries’ strategic goal of advancing collaborative relationships with STEM faculty and students.

Decolonizing book history

Asian woodblock printing and book binding workshops at UVic Libraries

Ying Liu | Dani Johnson | Heather Dean | Dr. Lianbin Dai | Yi Wang

This project will integrate East Asian xylography printing techniques into the newly established Farallon Book Arts Lab at UVic Libraries.

Background

East Asian woodblock printing has been a crucial method of book printing for over a thousand years, influencing printing practices in Muslim countries and Europe by the 13th century.

Project goals

By incorporating the xylography printing element, the book arts lab will offer a more comprehensive view of global book printing history and the transmission of techniques.

The project will develop interactive workshops combining Asian rare books and materials from SCUA, modern equipment like laser cutting from DSC, and traditional Asian printing and binding tools.

Impact

These workshops will enhance the UVic curriculum and student learning experience while engaging local communities, including:

Asian Canadian communities
Artists
Schools
Other interested groups

The project supports the Kula: Library Futures Academy and its directions of transdisciplinary and international knowledge partnerships, students’ experiential learning and community engagement.

Generative AI in research

A transdisciplinary faculty forum

Karen Munro | Lisa Goddard | Shahira Khair

Background

As UVic organizes its response to generative AI, the UVic Libraries are a key player in multiple arenas.
Librarians possess a unique combination of information expertise, research partnership experience, and information ethics understanding. However, we need to continually and actively define our role with campus partners, especially in emerging areas like generative AI.

Project goals

Host a transdisciplinary forum that convenes select UVic faculty who are substantially engaged with generative AI in research contexts.
Lead a moderated discussion that elicits the ideas, ambitions, concerns, and needs of faculty in this context.
Summarize the discussion to create a report on transdisciplinary needs and opportunities in this area, for internal direction-setting and to be shared with key partners such as the AI and Digital Strategy Steering Committee and external bodies.

Impact

By hosting this forum, the Libraries positions itself as a transdisciplinary intellectual commons for research applications of generative AI. Gathering input from AI-engaged researchers across disciplines would provide us with valuable information to help set our direction and to assert our role on campus.

This event would also provide an opportunity to report back to (and validate with) the community findings from our Ithaka interviews on data services, which surfaced a range of needs and opportunities related to generative AI.

Collaborate & create

Enhancing entrepreneurial resources and engagement at UVic Libraries

Emily Nickerson | Aditi Gupta

Background

UVic’s Strategic Plan encourages us to “create a culture of courage, trust, curiosity and flexibility that will advance our quest to solve big problems and create powerful, positive change.”

What role can UVic Libraries play in innovation? Our existing partnership with the UVic Innovation Centre in delivering regular library resource sessions for their Launch Program has demonstrated the strong demand for accessible, well-organized entrepreneurship-related materials and cross-referrals.

Project goals

Aligned with the UVic Libraries Strategic Initiatives and the Kula Academy’s transdisciplinary mission, this project will:

Expand our initiatives
Strengthen campus entrepreneurial resources
Engage students in innovative, library-focused projects that align with our strategic directions, sustainability goals, and community impact

Pitch competition for library innovation

Inspired by successful campus competitions such as PlanIt and PitchIt, we will introduce a program for student entrepreneurs tailored to library innovation where students will pitch proposals to improve library services, enhance existing workflows, introduce new sustainable initiatives, or develop digital tools (e.g. a library app) that helps us improve our services to the community.

Impact

Greater accessibility of entrepreneurship materials for students across disciplines
Strengthened collaboration between UVic Libraries and the UVic Innovation Centre
Integration of sustainability-focused entrepreneurship efforts
Increased student engagement through problem solving and competition

All of these will be assessed at the time of implementation in courses as well as with student entrepreneur participants as part of the UVic Innovation Centre’s programs.

Pathways into the Art Collections

Second Phase

Caroline Riedel | Teresa Sammut | Lorilee Wastasecoot | Anahita Ranjbar

Background

The recent amalgamation of UVic Libraries and the University Art Collections (UAC) emphasizes our shared holdings as an impactful resource for innovative learning and research, both locally and internationally.

Activating collections with improved digital and physical access will help UVic Libraries reach goals from UVic’s Strategic Plan and the Libraries Impact Action plan:

“Supporting collaborative approaches to innovation in our research, knowledge mobilization, experiential learning programs and operations.” (UVic Strategic Plan)
“Centre learning and create an environment in which all students can succeed, contributing to scholarship and society.” (UVic Libraries Impact Action Plan)

Project goals

For 2025-2026, the UAC will begin the second phase of our project to present our collections and community-based research on Vault and Spotlight.

In this second phase, UAC will not only present a selection of the Indigenous basket collection and exhibition online but also articulate and demonstrate Indigenous community-based research methodologies, respectful relations, and centring Indigenous rights within the traditionally colonial structures and activities of the Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (GLAM) sector.

From the Libraries Draft Impact Action Plan and UVic’s Strategic Plan: We hold ourselves accountable to ʔetalnəw̓əl̓ | ÁTOL,NEUEL by respecting the rights of one another, being in right relationship with all things, and by upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Working with UVic Libraries, UVic Indigenous colleagues, and UAC’s collections committee, we wish to develop a statement acknowledging these ways of working to accompany our submissions to Libraries’ digital platforms.

We also wish to engage a student or emerging professional/recent graduate to activate this work in a small exhibition at the Legacy Maltwood Gallery located in the McPherson Library - Mearns Centre for Learning in 2026.

Sensitive data deposit pilot

Nick Rochlin

This project will pilot a data deposit workflow to enable the preservation, discovery, and controlled access of sensitive research data.

Background

The ability to deposit sensitive research data for preservation, and for others to access that data for reuse, while adhering to privacy, security, ethical, and legal frameworks has long been a gap in the academic landscape.

As journals are progressively rolling out data sharing requirements associated with publications, and with the upcoming Tri-Agency requirement for data deposits, the challenge of depositing sensitive research data is becoming more pressing.

Following the model developed at the University of Bristol, this project aims to emulate aspects of their work while allowing for unique elements to be developed at UVic to adhere to local regulations and frameworks.

Project goals

By collaborating with researchers and research support units, the goal of the pilot will be to initiate a preliminary task force dedicated to establishing the workflows and documentation needed to support sensitive data deposits and controlled access.

It will deliver:

The exploration and identification of technical infrastructure and processes for data deposits and access
The development of ethics and consent form language for data deposits, processes for data review prior to deposit, ethics processes for data access, and necessary documentation to guide users through the workflow
A final assessment report summarizing deliverables and recommendations for next steps

Impact

Conducting the pilot this year will represent the first of its kind in Canada, and will position UVic as both a national and international leader in this area.

Upon completion of the pilot, the task force will ideally transition to a permanent working group that will be the basis of a sustainable and scalable sensitive research data service model at UVic.

By partnering with Research Computing Services (RCS) and the Office of Research Services (ORS) to define infrastructure and procedures, and working with UVic researchers to provide use cases and feedback to ensure that these processes reflect their needs, this project embodies broad institutional collaboration and aligns with UVic Libraries’ Strategic Framework of “Open. Engaged. Enduring.”