Do you guys remember the thrill you got back in your elementary school days when your teacher said

“Students, we’re going to have a field trip..”

Yeah.. that feeling popped up to me again last week when Dr. Luger announced that our class was going to have a field trip to the library. It might sounds a little bit childish, but trust me, that was just what a university student needs after tons of assignments and midterms. We went to the part of the Irving Library that collects rare books, special collections, maps, archival materials that focuses on people from BC that I never knew it existed before.

Chelsea Shriver was the kind librarian who first gave us brief explanations about archives and how it differs from libraries. Archives are collections of documents created and received by a person or organization as records. Archives are considered as primary resources in forms of unpublished letters, journals, etc. Archives are unique materials since there are only one copy of each item and you can’t find it anywhere else.

It was so fascinating to see archives from a book titled Obasan written by Joy Kagawa that my ATSU class had been discussing for the past two weeks. Seeing the drafts of the book got me thinking like

“Wow.. this is what the book that I read supposed to be like..”

Not only the drafts that amazed me but other documents such as letters from the readers (especially the drawings and little notes from the kids, they were so funny), rejection letters, appreciation letters, her collections of data before writing the book and many more (pictures below). It was so cool to be able to see the documents of the book that you already read, you somehow can relate to it. I also came across to just a blank ripped piece of paper and still, it looks cool.

Draft of Obasan

Kagawa wanted to use the title If I Must Remember at first instead of Obasan

Shriver also mentioned that If we got famous one day, they will accept our documents and store it alongside with the other archival documents. Since being known for something good is what I always want in the future, I will gladly send my documents to UBC one day if that dream really come true.

I’m gonna end this blog post now, again, if you have any questions or anything to say please don’t hesitate to leave comments down below!

– Inneke Soeyanto

Works Cited:

• Kogawa, Joy. Manuscript draft of Obasan. n.d. ms. Box 8 File 2. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, Canada.
• Kogawa, Joy. Manuscript draft of Obasan. n.d. ms. Box 8 File 11. Joy Kogawa fonds. University of British Columbia Library Rare Books and Special Collections, Vancouver, Canada.