Exhibitions

Views of Yokohama Exhibition

An exhibition of Yokohama woodcut maps from the Tokugawa period is on display at Rare Books and Special Collections from April 1st to 30th, 2015.  This exhibition is part of a series of events to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Vancouver’s sister-city relationship with Yokohama. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and […]

Oscar Wilde Exhibition

Oscar Wilde Exhibition

A new exhibition is on display this month at Rare Books at Special Collections, featuring rare publications of works by Oscar Wilde: “That mighty love which maddens one to crime,” Teleny, Oscar Wilde, and Decadent Publishing in the 1890s This exhibition will be on display until January 31, 2014, and is free and open to […]

Relive the fun…and the food!

Relive the fun…and the food!

If you weren’t able to join us for Robert Sung’s funny and fascinating talk on December 19 entitled “Food in Transit,” you’re in luck! Thanks to the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, the talk is now available to watch online: http://www.ikebarberlearningcentre.ubc.ca/food-in-transit-by-robert-sung/ Sung’s entertaining and educational talk included personal stories of immigration, cultural and culinary exchange, […]

New exhibition : Dorothy Burnett Book Binding Tools

New exhibition : Dorothy Burnett Book Binding Tools

A new exhibition is now on display at Rare Books & Special Collections. This exhibition features book binding tools used by one of the first book binders in Vancouver, Dorothy Alcorn Burnett. Dorothy graduated from the Vancouver School of Decorative and Applied Arts (now Emily Carr University) in 1930. She left her tools, plus a […]

Empress of Russia menu

Bon Voyage / Bon Appétit

Whether you prefer quick eats or fine dining, you’re sure to enjoy Bon Voyage / Bon Appétit: Menus from the Canadian Pacific Railway Company’s Ships, Trains, Planes, and Hotels, RBSC’s new exhibition of eye-catching and mouth-watering Canadian Pacific Railway Company menus dating from the 1890s through the 1980s from the renowned Wallace B. Chung and […]

Art of the Book open house!

This Thursday, May 8, at 5:30 p.m., please join RBSC for an open house that offers a chance to view the delightful and surprising Art of the Book 2013 exhibition and to hear local book artists and members of Canadian Bookbinders and Book Artists Guild (CBBAG) discuss the works featured in the exhibition. The open house […]

Roy K. Kiyooka exhibition

Exhibition of works by Roy K. Kiyooka

Resistant to mainstream ideas of national identity, artistic success, and artistic conventions, Roy K. Kiyooka’s flexible, unconventional use of language in his poetry voices his Japanese-Canadian ‘inglish’ and questions his Canadian identity in light of the internment faced by Japanese-Canadian citizens during World War II. Kiyooka’s poetry has been anthologized in Canadian poetry collections and in the […]

A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language

The final installment!

Happy holidays from everyone here at Rare Books and Special Collections! As an early Christmas gift, we offer the final student dictionary report from the course English 320: History of the English Language. As I mentioned in last week’s post, the exhibition, The Road to the OED, has been extended until the end of January, so please […]

English Etymology

The etymology of Lemon…George Lemon

With the holidays just around the corner, I know you are all worried about making time (in between shopping, baking, wrapping, packing, cleaning, etc.) to visit The Road to the OED exhibition at Rare Books and Special Collections before it closes on December 24. Well, worry no longer! The exhibition has been extended until the […]

A General Dictionary of the English Language

An actor turned lexicographer

Now that classes at UBC are over, it’s a great time to stop by Rare Books and Special Collection to see our current exhibition The Road to the OED: A History of English-Language Dictionaries. In this week’s student dictionary report from the course English 320: History of the English Language, we learn about Thomas Sheridan, an […]