The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre is featured in Innovation, the magazine from the Association of Professional Engineers and Geoscientists of B.C.

The Learning Centre is part of the 2007/2008 Project Highlights pictorial, and is featured on page 41. You can view a PDF of Innovation magazine here:

http://www.apeg.bc.ca/resource/innovation/archive/2008/2008julaug.pdf

A Vanderhoof project that is part of the B.C. History Digitization Program – an initiative of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre – is featured in the Omineca Express.

You can view the article here:

http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_north/ominecaexpress/community/27110314.html

A Surrey project that is part of the B.C. History Digitization Program – an initiative of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre – is featured in the Surrey Leader.

You can view the article here:

http://www.bclocalnews.com/surrey_area/surreyleader/news/Scanning_the_past.html

Ralph Stanton, Head of UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections, has been appointed as a member of the Canadian Cultural Property Export Review Board. This board is an independent tribunal of the Department of Canadian Heritage.

You can view the press release about the announcement here:

http://www.pch.gc.ca/newsroom/index_e.cfm?fuseaction=displayDocument&DocIDCd=CJV081416

Gorgeous images from the UBC Library Vault (www.ubcvault.ca) appear on the outside and inside front cover of the Summer 2008 issue of Trek magazine, which is published by the UBC Alumni Association.

You can download a PDF of Trek here:

Download file

More Vault images, along with updates on the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre and the exceptional Chung Collection, appear on pages 10 and 11.

A Bowen Island project that is part of the B.C. History Digitization Program – an initiative of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre – is featured in the Bowen Island Undercurrent.

You can view the article here:

http://www.bclocalnews.com/greater_vancouver/bowenislandundercurrent/community/26393124.html

Fans of ephemeral literature are invited to visit a campus display of 19th-century English chapbooks at UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections (RBSC).

Chapbooks are booklets that were popular in rural areas and towns from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and ranged from jestbooks to histories of depraved criminals, medieval romances to song verses. Chapbooks are extremely delicate, and many are illustrated with luridly coloured woodcuts.

This exhibition, created by UBC English Master’s student Catherine Whitehead, runs to the end of September. RBSC contains more than 300 chapbooks, many of which are part of the Arkley Collection of Early & Historical Children’s Literature.

RBSC is located on the first level of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre, 1961 East Mall.

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An illuminating set of letters from the wife of a prominent Methodist missionary in B.C. is now freely available online.

The letters from Emma Crosby (1849-1926) provide a fascinating glimpse into the missionary experience. Due to her gender, Emma was not able to become a missionary, although her husband Thomas served as one on the north coast of B.C. The letters describe how women such as Emma sustained their husbands and served as missionaries in all but name.

UBC Library’s Rare Books and Special Collections division (RBSC) holds 87 letters written by Emma Crosby as part of the Thomas and Emma Crosby fonds. The majority of these letters were written from Fort Simpson, B.C., to her family in Ontario between 1874 and 1892.

Jan Hare, an Assistant Professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education, and Jean Barman, Professor Emerita in the Department of Educational Studies, provided the inspiration for developing this digital collection. Barman offered to provide RBSC with transcriptions of Crosby’s letters, created for Hare and Barman’s recent publication, Good Intentions Gone Awry. This book discusses Emma Crosby’s missionary life and the legacy of her work at Fort Simpson.

The digitization of the Crosby letters was a collaboration between RBSC and University Archives. Bronwen Sprout, Digital Initiatives Librarian at Archives, and Katherine Kalsbeek, Reference Librarian at RBSC, led the project.

Special thanks to: April Ens, a former professional experience student from the School of Library, Archival and Information Studies, who digitized the letters and created the metadata for the collection; and Leslie Field, Archives Assistant, who provided expert assistance and guidance with the digitization work. Thanks also to Jan Hare and Jean Barman for the transcripts of Crosby’s letters and for their introduction that accompanies the digital collection.

You can view the collection at http://angel.library.ubc.ca/crosby.html. Please send comments to Bronwen Sprout (bronwen.sprout@ubc.ca) or Katherine Kalsbeek (katherine.kalsbeek@ubc.ca).

A Tumbler Ridge project that is part of the B.C. History Digitization Program – an initiative of the Irving K. Barber Learning Centre – is featured in the Tumbler Ridge News.

You can view the article here:

http://www.tumblerridgenews.com/story.php?id=202436