UBC Library’s Open Collections include digital photos, books, newspapers, maps, videos, theses, and more. These publicly-accessible collections are constantly growing and reflect the research interests of the UBC community and beyond. Open Collections are comprised of materials from RBSC’s holdings, as well as other collections from around the University. RBSC-specific digitized collections are listed below, but be sure to browse all available collections.
Ancient Artefacts
The Ancient Artefacts Collection contains a number of remarkable items from the University of British Columbia Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections, including two Greek papyrus, likely from Roman Egypt and dating from the second century AD and a small collection of cuneiform tablets discovered at Ur in Chaldea, and dating from 2456-2390 BCE.
Andrew McCormick Maps and Prints
A diverse collection of historical maps and illustrations, dating from 1503 to 1910, documenting the exploration and mapping of the world, the evolution of cartography, and the exploration and settlement of North America.
Association of University and College Employees (AUCE) fonds
The AUCE fonds consists of records related to the Association of University and College Employees’ provincial and local chapters activities, efforts, publications, and ephemera. Records span the Provincial and local unions’ initial accreditation in 1973, to the Provincial union disbanding in 1985, and then follow the Local 1 (University of British Columbia) chapter through to its merger with CUPE in 1985 and forward into the late 2000’s.
BC Historical Books
BC Historical Books combines the traditional tools of bibliography with the new tools of the digital world to transform our understanding of, and insight into, the history and life of British Columbia.Bibliography is the science of describing published works, and the bibliography of British Columbia is located in traditional printed bibliographies.
BC Historical Documents
BC Historical Documents is a collection of important materials related to the forestry, fishing, and mining industries in British Columbia, education development in the province, and British Columbia’s early history. These materials from Rare Books and Special Collections and UBC’s Education Library offer researchers incredible insights into our shared history.
Berkeley 1968-1973 Poster Collection
The UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections holds 250 posters concerned with the advocacy for peace, equality, and harmony during the Vietnam War era from the University of California’s Berkeley campus and other regions in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Capilano Timber Company Fonds
The Capilano Timber Company Collection forms part of UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections. The images are originally from a single photograph album, and depict the operations of the Capilano Timber Company, including loggers, logging camps, and views of the Capilano Valley and the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver.
Charles Darwin Letters
Two collections of letters, written to and by Charles Darwin.UBC Woodward Library acquired two collections containing letters to and from Charles Darwin, the well-known evolutionary biologist and originator of the concept of natural selection.
Chinese Rare Books
A collection of rare Chinese books composed mainly of works from the Puban (蒲坂藏書) and Pang Jingtang (龐鏡塘藏書).The core of the Puban (蒲坂藏書) was originally a part of the famed Nanzhou Shu Lou (南州書樓), a large private library owned by Xu Shaoqi (徐紹棨) (1879–1948), a professor of Chinese literature and bibliography, curator of the Guangdong Provincial Library and one of the renowned bibliophiles of South China.
The Chung Collection
The Wallace B. Chung and Madeline H. Chung Collection is an outstanding collection of archival documents, photographs, books and artifacts related to three broad themes: British Columbia History, Immigration and Settlement and the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.
David Conde fonds
The fonds includes records of the International Military Tribunal for the Far East (1946-47). It includes trial transcripts, biographical information on defendants, prosecution evidence, and copies of contemporary news accounts and interpretations of the trials.
Dorothy Burnett Bookbinding Tools
Donated by Donald Fleming, 224 bookbinding tools, ranging in age from 60 years old to 100 years old, used by Dorothy Burnett, the first independent craft binder to set up shop in Vancouver.
Emma Crosby Letters
The Emma Crosby Letters form a part of the Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds held in Rare Books and Special Collections. This collection consists of Emma Crosby’s incoming and outgoing correspondence with family and friends including incoming correspondence on the death of her husband and outgoing correspondence with her mother during her early years at Port Simpson, 1874-1880.
Fisherman Publishing Society Collection
The Fisherman Publishing Society published The Fisherman for the Salmon Purse Seiners Union and continues to publish the newspaper for their successor union, the United Fisherman and Allied Workers’ Union. Images from the collection document all aspects of the West Coast fishing industry, as well as non-fishing labour events in B.C.’s Lower Mainland.
Florence Nightingale Letters
A collection of letters written by and to Florence Nightingale.Woodward Library acquired most of this collection of letters written by and to Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) from a Boston book dealer in the 1960s.
French Revolution
The French Revolution Collection contains a wide variety of original materials that reflected on and contributed to the political transformation that took place between 1789 and 1799. UBC Library’s original collection of French Revolutionary pamphlets were acquired as a collection from Martinus Nijhoff publishing in the Hague in the 1970s. The collection was digitized with the support of UBC’s Department of French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, to support advancement of research in 17th and 18th century French studies.
German Consulate fonds
The office of the German Consulate General was established in Montreal, Quebec in 1909. In 1937 the office was moved to Ottawa, but a German consulate remained in Montreal to handle commercial matters. Its offices were at 317 Keefer Bldg, Montreal.The fonds consists of the correspondence, reports, and memoranda (1935-1939) of the Consul General. Also included are Montreal office papers dating from 1919 and a few original documents from the Vancouver Consulate (1909-1911).
H. Bullock-Webster fonds
As a young man H. Bullock Webster (1855-1942) came to Canada from England and began working as an apprentice clerk for the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1874. While in the service of the company Webster travelled extensively to HBC posts throughout the Canadian west and in particular northern Alberta and British Columbia.
H. Colin Slim Stravinsky Collection
The collection consists of items documenting the work and life of composer Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (1882-1971) including autographed letters, postcards, musical quotations, miniature manuscripts, photographs, programs and other printed material.
Historical Children’s Literature Collection
The Historical Children’s Literature Collection is a collaboration between UBC’s iSchool and the Department of English Language & Literatures, and the UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC), and Digitization Centre. Featuring materials from RBSC’s historical children’s literature holdings, including the Arkley Collection of Early and Historical Children’s Literature, the collection is particularly strong in chapbooks and early Canadian content.
Interim Forest Cover Series Maps
These Interim Forest Cover Series Maps were produced in 1958 following the first-ever systematic inventory of the province’s forests. The inventory information was collected from 1951 to 1957 with help from federal funding using a combination of aerial photographs (40 chain photos) and ground sampling plots. In total, 5057 clusters of four fixed-radii plots were used to supplement the aerial photo interpretation. Each map is accompanied by an envelope on which estimates of the timber volume within the map sheet were provided.
Japanese Canadian Photograph Collection
As with the larger Japanese Canadian Research Collection of which it forms a part, the Japanese Canadian Photograph Collection (JCPC) was assembled by UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections from various donors beginning in the 1970s. While the JCPC documents a wide range of the experiences of Canadians of Japanese descent in British Columbia, the resource is particularly strong in chronicling their treatment during World War II.
Japanese Maps of the Tokugawa Era
UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections holds one of the world’s largest collections of maps and guidebooks of the Japanese Tokugawa period, ca. 1600-1868. The collection varies in both format and size: items range from small single-sheet maps to more than thirty square feet, and also include a ceramic plate, a woodblock, and maps in scroll format.
Japanese Special Collection
The Japanese Special Collection contains digitized versions of select materials from the Japanese rare collection housed in Rare Books and Special Collections and other distinctive Japanese language materials owned by the UBC Library. The digitization of these materials was made possible by a generous donation from the David Mark Graham Memorial Fund donors and a grant from the Japan Foundation, Toronto.
John Keenlyside Legal Research Collection
The fonds consists of legal documents collected by John Keenlyside over the last thirty five years. The documents give insight into the formation of British Columbia’s legal system when it consisted of two colonies. Also consists of documents related to the British Columbia Provincial Police force and various Japanese-Canadian and civil rights groups.
Kinesis
Kinesis: News about women that is not in the dailies, published from 1974 to 2001 by the Vancouver Status of Women (VSW), served as a vehicle for social change and women’s liberation. It provided a forum for the expression of diverse feminist voices and perspectives from the local, national and international women’s movements.
MacMillan Bloedel Limited fonds
The records of MacMillan Bloedel Ltd. (“MacBlo”) are part of UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections. During its existence MacBlo was one of the largest forest products companies in the world. Images from the collection document the history of MacMillan Bloedel and its predecessor companies (Powell River Company, Bloedel, Stewart & Welch, H.R. MacMillan Export Company, Ltd., MacMillan & Bloedel, and MacMillan, Bloedel and Powell River Company).
Meiji at 150
The Meiji at 150 collection consists of visual images that were produced primarily in Japan during the Meiji period (1868-1912). They include 21 Meiji-era woodblock prints, 1 hand-painted kimono book, a 7-volume book on the Ainu, 1 tourist album, 2 Japanese-Canadian booklets, and 41 photographs from the John Cooper Robinson collection.
Peter Anderson fonds
Born in Sweden, Peter Anderson emigrated to the United States in 1885. He worked as a farmer in Minnesota and a logger in Wisconsin, and later owned a sawmill in Washington. After a stint in the Klondike in 1897, he later moved to British Columbia and started a logging company at Knox Bay and Grassy Bay. The photographs document early logging operations in British Columbia as well as Anderson’s experiences in the forest industry.
Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection
The Phil Lind Klondike Gold Rush Collection contains over 3,000 items, including books, maps, photographs, postcards, prints, artifacts and more, documenting the pivotal events of the Klondike Gold Rush. Materials in the collection record a time of transformation throughout Canada, as the discovery of gold and resulting stampede prompted immediate and rapid change. Collected over many years and donated by Phil Lind to the UBC Library in 2020, the collection is comprehensive in its coverage of various aspects of the Klondike Gold Rush, including its impact on the economy, Indigenous Peoples, resource extraction industries, and the political landscape. The collection has extensive educational value, including its potential to surface the intersections of race, gender, ethnicity, and class that affected various individuals differently in the Klondike.
R. Mathison Collection
The R. Mathison Printing Collection contains materials, printed between 1886-1890, for businesses in Vancouver by R. Mathison Jr., The Job Printer. The style is visual; often with mixed fonts and fancy script. Robert Mathison opened his printing business in Vancouver in July of 1886 directly after the fire of June 1886 that effectively destroyed the fledgling city of Vancouver along with three print shop businesses.
RBSC Bookplates
The University of British Columbia Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections has digitized examples of bookplates from books and book collections held by RBSC.
Royal Fisk Gold Rush Letters
The Royal Fisk Gold Rush Letters are collection of over 900 original manuscript letters from the Cariboo Gold Rush period, 1862-1868. Written by Victoria area merchants to Royal Fisk, a forwarding and shipping agent in San Francisco, the letters are a valuable source of information on trade and commerce as it developed in Victoria during the height and decline of the Cariboo Gold Rush.
Shakespeare First Folio
A first edition of William Shakespeare’s Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies. Published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death, the First Folio includes 36 of Shakespeare’s 38 known plays. The texts, edited by Shakespeare’s close friends, fellow writers and actors, are considered the most authoritative of all early printings. The First Folio, formerly owned by a private collector in the US, was purchased through Christie’s New York with funding provided by a consortium of donors from across North America and with the generous support of the Department of Canadian Heritage.
Tremaine Arkley Croquet Collection
The Tremaine Arkley Croquet Collection contains paintings, illustrations, engravings, advertisements, photographs and other ephemera depicting the game of croquet, dating from the 1850’s to the 1950’s. The images range from fine art to cartoons and everything in between, and show the rise in the game’s popularity in England and America in the 19th and 20th centuries.
UBC Library Framed Works Collection
A collection of framed visual works, including prints, photographs, charters, and documentary artworks, that originate from diverse sources. The University of British Columbia Library’s Archives and Rare Books and Special Collections have digitized their collections of framed visual works for the benefit of online researchers. They include prints, photographs, charters, and documentary artworks, all originating from diverse sources. Some of works form part of a larger collection or fonds held by the Archives or RBSC. Some items are interesting examples of a particular artistic medium or technique; others provide valuable visual documentation of scenes from British Columbia’s history.
Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs
The Uno Langmann Family Collection of British Columbia Photographs consists of more than 7,900 images from 77 albums. This collection includes extensive coverage of B.C. from the 1850s to the 1950s and includes photographs in a wide variety of formats and genres including albums, diaries, portraits, landscapes and city/townscapes. The digital collection is a subset of The Uno Langmann Family Collection of B.C. Photographs.
Western Manuscripts and Early Printed Books
A selection of western manuscripts and early printed books dating from the thirteenth to seventeenth centuries, from the holdings of Rare Books and Special Collections at the University of British Columbia Library.
World War I British press photograph collection
A sampling of images depicting multi-faceted views of World War I, originally distributed by the British government during the war to diplomats overseas for use in official projects. The collection consists of photography of every aspect of World War I – from cadet training to soldiers’ graves.
WWI & WWII Posters
Fifty nine posters, broadsides, and ephemera from World War I and II, published in Canada, Belgium, England, France, Germany, and the United States. The posters cover a variety of subjects including recruitment and enlisting, savings stamps, savings and victory bonds, women, agriculture, and munitions.
In addition to the collections listed above, a number of individual items from Rare Books and Special Collections have been digitized as part of UBC Library Digitization Centre Special Projects, including the highlights below.