The British Columbia Courthouse Library and UBC Law Library have worked cooperatively on a project to digitize the British Columbia Reports, with funding provided by the Notary Foundation of B.C.

The British Columbia Reports is a law report series that was first published in 1884 by the Law Society of British Columbia, with judgments dating back to 1867. The series ceased publication in 1948. This collection includes the full text of all decisions published in the series.

This was our first foray into a joint digitization project. The British Columbia Reports will now be freely accessible to anyone world-wide. Researchers will be able to search the judgments by keywords and the electronic version of the Reports will provide a back-up to the paper copies which deteriorate with age. A tutorial is being developed to help researchers make the most of this resource.

The Reports, as a body of work, contains important social and legal history of this province, in addition to charting the development of British Columbia law through the course of its publishing history. The British Columbia Reports is an important resource for legal researchers, historians, genealogists, and British Columbians in general, due to the fact that it provides a collection of unique primary information on society and individuals living in British Columbia in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.

Visit the website: http://stikine.library.ubc.ca/bcreports/index.html. The actual digitization work and the development of the website was spear-headed by Chris Hives and his team in University Archives.

The Globe and Mail University Report Card ranks UBC Library as one of the two top-ranked libraries of the ten universities in the large-sized category. For further details, see: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/reportcard/

From http://www.law.ubc.ca/news/2005/oct/10_24_2005_curtis.html

It is with great sorrow that the Faculty of Law announces the passing of our founding dean, Dean Emeritus George F. Curtis.

To many, Dean Curtis is the Faculty of Law. He started the UBC Faculty of Law in 1948 and remained dean until his retirement in 1971. He saw the school through some very difficult times – classes taught in borrowed army huts, no resources for faculty members, law books, or a library. But he would not let this deter him. Through his vision, energy and perseverance he literally built the Faculty of Law into an internationally renowned school that has graduated some of the best legal minds in Canada and the world. Even in retirement, Dean Curtis was still an active member of our legal community, coming to campus each day to meet with students, collaborate with faculty and to do what he loved most, teach law. Dean Curtis will be fondly remembered and greatly missed.

Dean Emeritus George F. Curtis passed away peacefully on October 23, 2005 at the age of 99. Memorial services are being planned and will be announced shortly.

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For a link to an article in the Globe and Mail – UBC mourns death of law-school founder, click here.

October 27th, 2005 Update
The funeral services will be held at St. Anslem’s Anglican Church, 5210 University Blvd, at 2:00 on Wed. Nov. 2. For those who wish, in lieu of flowers, donations may be made to either the Doris Curtis Memorial Scholarship or the George F. Curtis Student Endowment Fund, UBC Faculty of Law, 1822 East Mall, Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1Z1.

October 28th, 2005 Update
For a link to the October 28th article from Globe and Mail – UBC mourns death of law-school founder, click here.