At a Repair Café in the basement of H.G. Thode Library of Science and Engineering, worktables fill with tools and disassembled appliances as students gather to bring broken items back to life. 

McMaster’s Repair Café began as a collaboration between the libraries’ sustainability committee and Thode Makerspace, with a shared goal of diverting broken items from the landfill. 

Now in its fifth year, the monthly program is run by a dedicated team of volunteers who have repaired everything from laptops and headphones to coffee machines and bicycles. 

It’s not every day you’ll find students putting golf balls in the stacks or poring over rare manuscripts by candlelight. 

This is Thrive Week, a time when McMaster University community members come together to connect and recharge with a lineup of free stress-relieving activities.

As part of the week, McMaster University Libraries are offering a range of activities designed to support well-being and connection.

Library Accessibility Services (LAS) play a quiet but essential role in helping students overcome barriers and succeed in their studies at McMaster University.

For Sidney Hubbard, a third-year social work student, accessibility at the library is about being able to learn on equal footing.

“It’s being able to feel like you have the same or similar opportunities as everybody else,” said Hubbard. “And even when you don’t, it’s just knowing that there are people around to help make something work, and that it’s not all on you.”  

By Allison Mullin, McMaster University

When Kevin Andrews arrived at McMaster on May 20, 1980, classrooms looked — and sounded — very different. Over the next 45 years, he would support McMaster through every major wave of audio-visual technology, from turntables, slide projectors and three-quarter inch videotape to today’s computer-driven classrooms designed to support modern teaching and hybrid learning.