“Dear Mr. Potter…with love from the Rain City”
Posted on October 8, 2015 @9:58 am by cshriver
Harry Potter fan art by native Vancouverite and children’s book author, Ashlyn Anstee
We are delighted to announce a new exhibition curated by Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library, Harry Potter and the Rain City!
The exhibition spans three UBC’s library branches and features books from the Harry Potter series that have been newly added to the RBSC collection, as well as stories and memorabilia from Vancouver-area people and businesses most deeply impacted by the series.
Now we want you to share your Harry Potter story with other fans across Vancouver, British Columbia, and the world! How has the Harry Potter series impacted and inspired you? What are some of your best Harry Potter memories? What has Harry Potter and the Potter fandom meant to you? What would you say to Mr. Potter (or his creator, J. K. Rowling) if you had the chance? Submissions will be posted to the RBSC blog as new content is received.
The exhibition Harry Potter and the Rain City is free and open to the public, with locations at the David Lam Library (2nd floor), Koerner Library (3rd floor), and the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, Ridington Room (3rd floor). For more information, please contact Rare Books and Special Collections at 604 822-2521 or rare.books@ubc.ca.
RBSC Research Agreement
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New exhibition: Harry Potter and the Rain City
Posted on February 28, 2017 @2:38 pm by cshriver
“Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them” with an original watercolour drawing by artist Jason Cockroft as a frontispiece, and “Quidditch Through the Ages.”
We are delighted to announce a new exhibition curated by Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library, Harry Potter and the Rain City!
Vancouver enjoys a number of profound and surprising connections to the beloved Harry Potter book series. Kidsbooks in Vancouver was the first Canadian bookstore to carry Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone. UBC’s Quidditch club was the only Canadian team represented at the last Quidditch World Cup. The original Canadian editions of the series were published by a Vancouver company, Raincoast Books. And, Larry Campbell, the former mayor of Vancouver once donned robes and played the part of Professor Dumbledore at a Harry Potter midnight release party.
Now UBC Library celebrates the legacy of the series and Vancouver’s special relationship with “the boy who lived” with Harry Potter and the Rain City, an exhibition spanning three different Library branches. The exhibition features books from the Harry Potter series that have been newly added to UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections, as well as stories and memorabilia from Vancouver-area people and businesses most deeply impacted by the series. Learn more about the exhibition and related events here!
Visit the exhibition, which is free and open to the public, from October 6 to December 11, 2015 at the following locations:
- David Lam Library (Level 2), 2033 Main Mall
- Koerner Library (Level 3), 1958 Main Mall
- Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (Ridington Room), 1961 E Mall, UBC
For more information, please contact Rare Books and Special Collections at 604 822-2521 or rare.books@ubc.ca.
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Silent Book Exhibition
Posted on February 28, 2017 @2:39 pm by cshriver
Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library is proud to host a new exhibition, The Right of Every Child to Become a Reader, sponsored by the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY).
In response to the waves of refugees from Africa and the Middle East arriving in the Italian island, Lampedusa, IBBY launched the project “Silent Books, from the world to Lampedusa and back” in 2012. The project involved creating the first library on Lampedusa to be used by local and immigrant children. The organization went on to select a collection of silent books (wordless picture books) that could be understood and enjoyed by children regardless of language. These books were collected from IBBY National Sections, over one hundred books from over twenty countries.
Now IBBY has organized a traveling exhibition with stops in Vancouver, Edmonton, and Toronto. A collection of wordless picture books from around the world, curated by local illustrator, author, and teacher Kathryn Shoemaker, will be on display at Rare Books and Special Collections from October 1-23, 2015. Learn more about the traveling exhibition here!
The exhibition is free and open to the public Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Rare Books and Special Collections on the first floor of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre.
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Book Blogs: Flatland
Posted on August 28, 2015 @3:28 pm by cshriver
A second edition of “Flatland,” published in 1884.
A multifaceted, multidimensional, multimedia book blog for you today.
This is the ninth in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term. For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog or wiki.
Caprice Pybus discovered a second edition of Edwin A. Abbott’s novel Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions in Rare Books and Special Collections, and began to explore the ways it has been appropriated by artists, students, and publishers, leading to the creation of a journal, a twitter handle, and a fascinating blog.
https://romanticdimensions.wordpress.com/
Enjoy the weekend!
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Book Blogs: Lady Mary’s Turkish Embassy Letters
Posted on August 24, 2015 @9:33 am by cshriver
Letters of the Right Honourable Lady M–y W—y M—-e
We have a real book blog treat for you this Monday morning. A well-researched, stylish blog about the incomparable Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (also know as “Lady President”) and her Turkish Embassy Letters.
This is the eight in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term. For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog or wiki.
Fatima Hamado has done a beautiful job with her book blog, providing biographical background on Lady Mary and thoughtfully discussing the Turkish Embassy Letters and their place within the social and cultural contexts surrounding them, as well as taking a close look at RBSC’s particular copy.
http://thefemaletraveller.weebly.com/
I hope you enjoy this terrific read!
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RBSC has what?!
Posted on August 20, 2015 @10:23 am by cshriver
Receipt by a temple official of “one sheep and one lamb on the thirteenth day of the month” for rent.
When I introduce folks to our collections here at RBSC, I love to pull out some materials that might be considered more obscure or outside of our usual collecting area, just to hear people say, “I can’t believe we have that right here at UBC!” Possibly the objects that get the biggest reaction are our cuneiform tablets. That’s right, we have five cuneiform tablets, each one small enough to fit in the palm of your hand. Recently, our good friends over at UBC Library’s Digitization Centre, in collaboration with the From Stone to Screen project, have digitized our tablets so that they can be studied from anywhere in the world. DI has also published a very interesting blog post about the history of the tablets and the complicated matter of determining their provenance. Enjoy, and the next time you stick a receipt in your wallet, think about what people 4,000 years in the future might make of it!
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Book Blogs: The Edwardians
Posted on February 28, 2017 @2:39 pm by cshriver
Note from Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West
We have a highly literary book blog post for you all today!
This is the seventh in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term. For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog or wiki.
Rebecca Sheppard dives into our world renowned Norman Colbeck Collection of nineteenth-century and Edwardian poetry and belles-lettres, and comes up with a breezy and complimentary note written by Virginia Woolf to Vita Sackville-West, the author of The Edwardians.
http://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:ENGL419/Books/The_Edwardians
The novel saw a great deal of success for having been written as a “joke” by an author who hoped that “everybody will be seriously annoyed” by it. Rebecca’s wiki discusses Sackville-West, The Edwardians, and other works published by The Hogarth Press. Enjoy!
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Book Blogs: Educational Books of New England
Posted on August 7, 2015 @11:32 am by cshriver
Bad boys, bad boys. What’cha gonna do? Apparently fall out of a tree.
Believe it or not, the beginning of the new school year is fast approaching! To start getting into the proper mindset, this week we have an education-themed book blog post.
This is the sixth in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term. For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog or wiki.
Liam Scanlon’s wiki takes a look at a number of books in RBSC’s historical textbook collection to explore changes in education and expectations of childhood.
http://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:Kids_Books_of_New_England
Thankfully, children’s books and school books today are a little less grim and, ah, stringent, than they have been in the past.
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Book Blogs: E. Pauline Johnson’s Legends of Vancouver
Posted on July 24, 2015 @3:46 pm by cshriver
“Legends of Vancouver” registered embossing
It’s a rainy Friday here in Vancouver, and, after the heatwave we’ve had recently, things are springing back to life! In honour of the rain and Vancouver generally being awesome, how about a Vancouver-themed book blog post?
This is the fifth in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term. For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog.
This week, Katie Selbee takes a look at our first edition of E. Pauline Johnson’s Legends of Vancouver.
http://wiki.ubc.ca/Course:ENGL419/Books/Legends_of_Vancouver
Katie’s blog goes into the history of this publication, RBSC’s copies, the life of Pauline Johnson, and more. Enjoy!
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Posted in Collections, Research and learning, Uncategorized | Tagged with assignments, book blogs
Book Blogs: Vancouver, B.C., 1890
Posted on February 28, 2017 @2:40 pm by cshriver
“Vancouver B.C., 1890” by Elliot Pub Co.
Ready for the weekend? Great!
Ready for the fourth in a series of blog posts that celebrate the “Book Blogs” created by students in Professor Siân Echard’s “The History of the Book” course during the spring 2015 term? Of course you are!
For this assignment, students in the class were asked to choose an item (book or otherwise) from RBSC, research its history, and introduce it to a public audience through a blog.
This week, Will McDonald takes a look at a map entitled “Vancouver, B.C., 1890″ and considers the history of the map, what it highlights, and how Vancouver has changed since its creation (spoiler alert: It’s changed a lot!).
http://blogs.ubc.ca/willmcdonald/2015/04/22/vancouver-b-c-1890/
Thanks to historical illustrations and Google maps, Will is able to make some interesting comparisons between Vancouver at the end of the 19th century and today. Enjoy!
No CommentsPosted in Collections, Research and learning, Uncategorized | Tagged with assignments, book blogs