The Scope

Occupation: Information Services Librarian

Age: 33

Home town: St. John’s

Musical preferences: Traditional Newfoundland music, classical, and 80s music (“‘cause I’m a child of the 80s!”)

Last book(s) read: Summer of My Amazing Luck by Miriam Toews

Zodiac sign: Libra

Words of wisdom: “Information literacy is the basis of lifelong learning.”

The story: If you’ve ever been to the QEII Library at MUN, you might recognize Janet as one of the friendly faces behind the information desk. That’s where she can usually be found helping students when she’s not teaching classes in the haunted library basement.

Janet was once a student at MUN herself. Doing a Literature degree, she was always intrigued by the information desk.

Things have come full circle for her now. The very man working at the information desk when she was a student—who told her more about pursuing library studies—is now a colleague she works with every day… along with maybe a ghost or two.

She thought all the rumours about ghosts in the library were myths until she met one.

“I ran downstairs to check on something, and as I was leaving, I turned out all the lights. I was about to go out the door, and I glanced back over the room, and there was an elderly man, grey hair, kind of rotund,” she says. “I saw him clear as day, he was standing in the far corner of the room. I thought ‘how did he get in here?’

“I jumped!” she says. “Then I blinked and he was gone.”

If you run into him, Janet says, the good news is he’s not too scary.

“I got out of there quickly, but I wasn’t particularly scared. He looked quite harmless actually… It was just very strange.”

— Emilie Bourque