Relocation and Upcoming Closure
Posted on July 29, 2022 @8:55 am by cshriver
Temporary relocation of Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room starting May 9, 2022
Beginning May 9, 2022, the Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room will be temporarily relocated down the hall to Irving K. Barber Learning Centre room 142 due to upgrades.
- IKBLC level 1 map
- Satellite reading room entrance
Before visiting us in our satellite reading room, please contact Rare Book and Special Collections or University Archives as some collections will be inaccessible until early 2023.
Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives Reading Room to close from August 1 – November 30, 2022
Construction of Main Library. UBC 1.1/1874
The Rare Books and Special Collections and University Archives reading room will be temporarily closed from August 1 to November 30, 2022 for upgrades.
To accommodate these upgrades, there will be some changes to library services. RBSC and UA will provide some reproduction services and digital instructional support during this time. Some collections maybe be inaccessible until 2023. Please contact Rare Book and Special Collections or University Archives for more information on supports available for remote research and instructional support requests.
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I Know We’ll Meet Again
Posted on June 20, 2022 @1:33 pm by cshriver
As we acknowledge the 80th anniversary of the forced dispersal, internment, and dispossession of Japanese Canadians from the coastal regions of British Columbia, we’re pleased to be able to share an online exhibition curated by Mya Ballin and Sasha Gaylie, both graduate students at UBC’s School of Information.
Many thanks to Mya for sharing her thoughts about the process of curating the exhibition. Mya and Sasha’s work on I Know We’ll Meet Again: Correspondence and the forced dispersal of Japanese Canadians was done as part of a summer 2021 professional experience project with RBSC and the Asian Library at UBC.
University of British Columbia Library. Rare Books and Special Collections. Joan Gillis fonds. RBSC-ARC-1786-PH-02. Teruko Mototsune, Kanako Mototsune, Haruye Mototsune, and Sumi Mototsune. Raymond, Alberta – February 8th, 1943.
This project was a labour of much care over a very brief period of time. Completed in two months, my project partner, Sasha, and I found ourselves very quickly immersed in the written selves that are contained within the letters in the Joan Gillis fonds, deeply emotionally drawn to the details that the writers felt were safe to share with Joan. When reading the letters, it’s hard not to feel like these are your old school friends, too.
We wanted to create an exhibit that not only helped to contextualize the letters and the period in which they were being written, but also to allow the letter writers’ voices to stand on their own so that folks visiting the exhibit might have a similarly emotional encounter with these young individuals through their words alone.
To this end, the exhibit has two parts:
The first part of the exhibit is a more traditional curation of the letters. We offer you the opportunity to view the collection through our eyes, providing interpretation and information that focuses on some of the key themes that emerged from our reading and experience of the letters.
The second part of the exhibit is an opportunity to explore the transcripts of some of the letters. While we have offered the ability for a guided tour through them using a subject visualization tool, it is also possible to view each transcript one by one without our analysis appearing on the screen.
We hope that presenting the materials in this manner offers different ways of engaging with the material and different opportunities to ‘meet’ its authors.
About the exhibition
I Know We’ll Meet Again: Correspondence and the forced dispersal of Japanese Canadians, focuses on a selection of letters from the Joan Gillis fonds written by young Japanese Canadians who were among the approximately 22,000 Japanese Canadians from British Columbia who were forcibly dispersed from their homes as a result of the Canadian Federal Government’s Orders in Council. The exhibition details their deep homesickness and sense of isolation from their friends and communities, the new living and labour conditions they had to endure, their continued sense of Canadian identity even as the government labeled them “alien,” the bright spots they were able to find in their present conditions, and their imaginations for the future.
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Mapping Asian Canadian Archives
Posted on March 22, 2022 @3:21 pm by cshriver
Mapping Asian Canadian History and Archives at RBSC
Map showing the locations of various Chinese Canadian materials held at Rare Books and Special Collections.
A StoryMap version of our Asian Canadian History and Archives Research Guide is now available at https://arcg.is/1bCy0P1.
Abirami Muthukumar, an MLIS student at the University of Alberta, created this StoryMap through her practicum coursework at Rare Books and Special Collections in the Fall of 2021. Based on the Asian Canadian History and Archives Research Guide, users hoping to access the rich history of Asian Canadians through primary sources available at RBSC can now interact with this guide in a geospatial format. Divided into geographical regions, the StoryMap offers highlighted collections, as well as a comprehensive list of our holdings related to Chinese Canadians, Japanese Canadians, Korean Canadians and South Asian Canadians. Expanding and growing our holdings in this area is a priority for Rare Books and Special Collections. If you have materials you would like us to consider, please contact krisztina.laszlo@ubc.ca.
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A new way to picture Canada
Posted on March 9, 2022 @3:09 pm by cshriver
Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library is delighted to announce a new exhibition: Picturing Canada: The History of Canadian Illustrated Books for Children.
Many thanks to guest bloggers Jade Baptista, Vanessa Bedford Gill, Sue Choy, Angie Goertz, Leïla Matt-Kacai, Kira Razzo, and Sarah Van Mook for contributing the below post! This intrepid team of graduate students at the UBC School of Information or in the Master of Arts in Children’s Literature Program curated this picturesque new exhibition under the supervision of Dr. Kathryn Shoemaker, Adjunct Professor with the UBC School of Information.
Picturing Canada is an exhibition that will take visitors on a journey from the earliest published Canadian illustrated children’s books to current ones. Commencing with Northern Regions, published in 1825 to On the Trapline, a 2021 award winning picturebook, nearly 200 years of children’s books in Canada are covered. This exhibition explores the changing historical and cultural aspects of Canadian identity through the lens of children’s illustrated books. This exhibition is a testament to the artists, authors, publishers and ultimately readers, who shaped and continue to shape, children’s literary culture in Canada. The Picturing Canada exhibition can be thought of as a tapestry of over 120 Canadian children’s books, with each thread made up of our curated individual book selections. We could not hope to include every book and many threads were left out of the display, mostly due to space constraints. However, we encourage the visitor to celebrate the books we have chosen and ponder how they might picture Canada at different points in history.
Picturing Canada: The History of Canadian Illustrated Books for Children is on display on level 1 (RBSC reading room) and level 2 (main foyer) of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre from March 8 through May 31, 2022. The exhibition is free and open to the public, and people of all ages are encouraged to attend. A complete catalogue of the exhibition can be downloaded here. For more information, please contact Rare Books and Special Collections at (604) 822-2521 or rare.books@ubc.ca. You can also visit an exhibition site created by the curators.
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Chung Collection videos and tour
Posted on February 28, 2022 @3:38 pm by cshriver
We recently announced that the The Chung Collection exhibition room will be closed until further notice for maintenance. However, during the closure, we have some wonderful online resources to explore!
Video series
If you would like an overview of the main themes of the Chung Collection, check out the video series created by our talented colleague Hiller Goodspeed:
Virtual exhibition
You can also explore the Chung Collection via a virtual exhibition.
Digital collections
And, of course, many items from the Chung Collection are also available to view in UBC Library Open Collections.
We hope you enjoy all these resources!
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Delays in retrieving materials
Posted on February 1, 2022 @1:50 pm by cshriver
Due to facilities work, there may be delays in retrieving materials for researchers between February 2-9, 2022.
If you would like to consult materials in our reading room during this time, feel free to contact us ahead of your arrival at rare.books@ubc.ca or at 604 822-2521 so that we can pull materials in advance to make your visit as efficient as possible. Thank you so much for your patience!
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“For All Time” satellite display
Posted on January 12, 2022 @10:35 am by cshriver
UBC and Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library is thrilled to announce the acquisition of a complete 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.
In partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery, the newly acquired First Folio will be exhibited to the public from January 12 to March 22 along with three subsequent seventeenth-century Folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays. The exhibition, For All Time – The Shakespeare FIRST FOLIO marks the first time that all four Folios have been presented in Vancouver. The exhibition will be accompanied by an audio mobile guide featuring the voice of Christopher Gaze, Founding Artistic Director, Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, in addition to a series of public programs, including talks, performances and more. For further information, please visit vanartgallery.bc.ca.
To compliment the exhibition at the VAG, a display of books from RBSC’s collection that support early modern and Shakespeare studies will be up through the end of February 2022 in the Rare Books and Special collections reading room. The display includes works by Shakespeare’s contemporaries, such as Ben Jonson, Francis Beaumont, and John Fletcher, materials that help contextualize Shakespeare’s world, and materials that demonstrate Vancouver and British Columbia’s on-going fascination with the Bard.
The display, which is free and open to the public, is available to visit in the RBSC reading room, Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, please contact Rare Books and Special Collections at (604) 822-2521 or rare.books@ubc.ca
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Shakespeare’s First Folio at UBC
Posted on January 12, 2022 @10:20 am by cshriver
UBC and Rare Books and Special Collections at UBC Library is thrilled to announce the acquisition of a complete 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.
16th century London and 21st century Vancouver.
In partnership with the Vancouver Art Gallery, this tangible piece of cultural heritage will be exhibited to the public from January 12 to March 22 along with three subsequent seventeenth-century Folio editions of Shakespeare’s plays. The exhibition, For All Time – The Shakespeare FIRST FOLIO marks the first time that all four Folios have been presented in Vancouver. The exhibition will be accompanied by an audio mobile guide featuring the voice of Christopher Gaze, Founding Artistic Director, Bard on the Beach Shakespeare Festival, in addition to a series of public programs, including talks, performances and more. For further information, please visit vanartgallery.bc.ca.
To compliment the exhibition at the VAG, a display of books from RBSC’s collection that support early modern and Shakespeare studies will be up through the end of February 2022 in the Rare Books and Special collections reading room. The RBSC reading room is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. For more information, please contact Rare Books and Special Collections at (604) 822-2521 or rare.books@ubc.ca.
You can read more about the acquisition and view a curated photo collection of Shakespeare’s First Folio at UBC Library.
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Winter weather closure
Posted on January 6, 2022 @9:00 am by cshriver
![[Two women and a man holding walking sticks on snow]](https://library-rbsc-2017.sites.olt.ubc.ca/files/2016/12/snow-website-360x300.jpg)
[Two women and a man holding walking sticks on snow]. CC-PH-04319.
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Season’s greetings from RBSC!
Posted on December 22, 2021 @12:22 pm by cshriver
Image courtesy of Hiller Goodspeed.
Happy holidays from the RBSC family to yours!
Just a reminder that Rare Books and Special Collections will be closed for the holidays from Monday, December 27 through Monday, January 3. We will reopen at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, January 4. More information about RBSC’s hours can be found on the UBC Library website.
We hope to see you in the New Year!
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